Differentiating between 收 and 受 I've noticed a lot of people have trouble differentiating between 收 and 受.

Both their pronunciations and meanings are similar.

How to differentiate between the two?

What tricks and tips are there to remember when to use which? (Instead of the other.)

You may see the definitions of these two characters on zdic.net (maybe you already know), an online dictionary which is convenient for looking up the characters.

As a native speaker, I think (subjectively) the main difference of these two characters is that 收 emphasizes the action of receiving, gathering or reducing, and 受 emphasizes the finish of receiving an action, which is something sort of similar to the perfect tense.

I guess that your doubt comes from distinguishing 接收 from 接受? In some sentenses these two words are almost the same, for example:

  他接受了这份礼物。
  他接收了这份礼物。

But I still feel that there is a tiny differece as I said above, 接收 puts more significance on the action of receiving.

Another differece may be that, 收 is usually used with "concrete" things like gift, data, signal, while 受 is usually used with abstract things like suggestion, training, offer, and only some "concrete" things.

Hope it helps.

Reference

收 on zdic.net
www.zdic.net/z/1a/js/6536.htm

受 on zdic.net
www.zdic.net/z/16/js/53D7.htm

收 ： Accept， ask for
受： be given

This shop accepts cash only.
This award is given to the hero.


Difference between 顾客, 客, 客户 and 客人 As in the title what is the difference in word usage/meaning between the following fours words:

客
顾客
客户
客人

?

客, guest, visitor. For a shop, it is customer.

顧客, customer. (顧, look back -> visit and revisit.)

客户, customer account, a customer with account. (户, the front door -> household -> account). Some ignore the concept of account.

客人, 人客. guest / visitor (of human).

客 is short for 客人 mostly, sometimes short for customer.
客人: guest, visitor
顾客: customer
客户: client


When do I use V for Ü in Pinyin programs I use a program called Sougou, which is very poopular in China I think. Sometimes I use the Microsoft pinyin language option.

Sougou is very good at guessing my characters based on context, but sometimes I have to click through to find my character, especially when it's character with  ü it seems.

Is there a standard rule here? Should  ü always be replaced with v in pinyin programs?
What about after the J, Q, X and Y letters where  ü is always implied, should I be hitting V or U on my keyboard?

Sorry for the simplistic question, I wish I could understand the sougou documentation, but it's still "chinese" to me. Thank you.

In the past (e.g. 80's to 90's), when the Chinese IME did not implement fuzzy logic, the rule was you should use v for and only for ü as you would write on paper. For example for J you should type ju not jv.

Now all the mainstream Chinese IME (MSPY, Sogou, Google Pinyin, etc.) has fuzzy logic built-in and enabled by default. This question isn't much relevant anymore.


Chinese loanwords whose characters also carry the corresponding meaning A while ago, I recall coming across some Chinese loanwords that not only sounded like their foreign language (usually English) counterparts, but whose characters also carried roughly that same meaning.

Unfortunately, I can't remember the examples now, but I'm wondering if anyone knows if there is a term for this type of word?  Also, I would like to know what such examples of this phenomenon other people have encountered.

Here are some examples of those

基因 - gene
嬉皮士 - hippies
脱口秀 - talk show
霸凌 - bully
流明 - lumen
黑客 - hacker
对偶 - dual
蕾丝 - lace
费 - fee

And some others

席梦思 - Simmons
可口可乐 - Coca Cola
必应 - Bing
翡冷翠 - Firenze (Italy)
氕 - protium
氘 - deuterium
氚 - tritium

The term for this kind of words is 外来词 or 外来语.  E.g. 酷: cool; 巧克力: chocolate; etc.

You can have a search for 外来词 or 外来语 to get more. This is from Baidu.


When native Chinese refer to China, what's the difference between 大陆, 中国 and 中国大陆? Do they generally mean the same thing? Is one more formal than the other? Both 大陆, 中国 seem to have the same number of hits on Baidu.

When used with certain words, "中国" may be perceived more as a cultural/historical concept that has a vague boundary on what you want to refer to (the people, the land, the culture, etc).

Example: 周杰倫的中國風音樂／周杰伦的中国风音乐. Jay Chou's Chinese style music. (Jay is a popular artist from Taiwan.)

In this particular example, 中國 is similar to 中華 (The cultural concept). I think this is because 中国风 implies the usage of traditional style melodies, musical instruments, and lyrics, which is rooted in the cultural artifacts that have been existing for many centuries. The boundaries of "中国" in “中国风” feels vague, just like the bound of "China Proper" has kept changing over the many past centuries.

Another similar example: “中国话／中國話／中文”， the Chinese Language.

This may also happen in the phrase “中国历史”. The "中国" in this particular example would refer to the China encompassing both Mainland and Taiwan before Taiwan was ceded to Japan during the signing of《馬關條約》in year 1895, and/or the China during the Tang dynasty that did not include today's Tibet.
The word "China" may not even just refer to a particular ethnic group, e.g. the Han ethnic group (that accounts for 95%+ of China's population as of today), and the Han has been practically ruled over several times during history. Examples are the fall of the Song dynasty in the 12th century and the fall of the Ming dynasty in the 17th century when the Manchus ruled. (However, the rulers began to use Chinese characters, which is an evidence that some say would justify that they were "assimilated into China", rather than "they annihilated China".) That is another example the word "China" may refer to a concept that has a vague ethnic boundary.

For "大陆", "中国大陆" and when "中国" is used independently today, there shall be an implied geographic bound in today's world, and the bound is usually much more clearly defined, although it may slightly differ on the person's political viewpoint. "中国大陆" and "大陆" are used (only) to refer to People's Republic of China founded in 1949.

A little digression below:

The word "中国" is said to have gained its new meaning --- a modern "country/sovereignty" in 1912 when Republic of China was established, as an abbreviation of 中華民國 (1). Prior to that, "中国" may more often mean "the central area/district/city" or the capital city. Example:

  “湘娥啼竹素女愁，李憑*中國*彈箜篌" (《李憑箜篌引》， by 李賀, Tang Dynasty) (2)

1) https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B#.E8.AF.8D.E6.BA.90

2) https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/李凭箜篌引

中国包含大陆和台湾，香港，澳门。 中国是一个整体概念，而中国大陆是指的大陆31个省市自治区。但整个中国是34个地区。


Is there a usage for  as "rèn"? Is there a usage for   as "rèn" ? I cannot find examples with this pronunciation.
I understand the usages as yáng, jiāng, & qiāng, as explained by  dROOOze and others in what-is-the-top-part-of-姜.... However, the unicode pronunciation for  U+2634C is given as rèn, and WIKIPEDIA includes rèn without examples  Etymology 2)
re: [⺷ U+2EB7 /  U+2634C]

[added] I found one reference / usage here, "补字如甚切音姙..."  but I have no skill to read it and understand if it is using  or discussing it as 'suspicious'. The site notes that the text was OCR'd and is unedited.

No.
「」 has no usage examples as the reading rèn (Bopomofo: ㄖㄣˋ). Note that many ancient dictionaries make definitions up out of thin air, which is why quotes from character usage in literature is so important.

At least one dictionary author, smelling something fishy was going on, said

《字彙補》
...疑「」字之譌

Suspected to be a corruption of 「」 (rěn).

So it might come from 「」 with a horizontal line added to the bottom.

Further reading
See the reference given by Wiktionary: Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants (教育部異體字字典), A03215-002

Have a look here. Confirms rèn.

But what it's supposed to mean, I don't know!!

zdic writes: 【字彙補】字之譌。where 譌 means something like 'cheating'.

Found this for :

也從干入一為干入二為讀若能言稍甚也


Why is a "thing" called "东西" and not "南北"? Why is a "thing" called "东西" and not "南北"?

There were two large markets in ancient Chang'an (长安/長安) city of the Tang (唐) dynasty, one called east market (东市/東市) and the other one called west market (西市), gradually people perfer to say to buy east and west (去买东西/買東西) rather than to buy goods in east and west market (去东西市购买商品/去東西市購買商品). The new business district West Market of Great Tang (大唐西市) has reconstructed on the old site of the ancient west market in Xi'an Shaanxi (陝西西安/陕西西安) today.

Likely from 动使, short for 动使之物, generically referring to "things", originating in 五代 to 两宋 period.

The theory that it came from 东西市 in Tang Dynasty (唐) is unsupported by evidence.

东西市 originates in Han Dynasty (汉), around one millenia earlier. But no such usage of 东西 is found in any material throughout this period. In fact, the earliest usage of 东西 as "things" dates to Song Dynasty (宋), long after Tang ended.

A short article for reference: http://www.guoxue.com/?p=3764


Character difference between 'buy' and 'sell' The characters for 'buy' and 'sell',  seem to have a subtle difference in the character.

買/买 (buy)
賣/卖 (sell)

I want to know, what's the significance of the radial  on top of the sell? How does adding that change 'buy' into 'sell'?

The original form of the top part of 賣 is 出.
《說文》

作。出物貨也。从出从買。

出物貨也：
出：拿出 take out
物：物品 goods
貨：交易 to trade

買
《說文》

作，市也。

市：做買賣。to trade
「買」本指商品交易，兼有「買、賣」二義，後來專指交易中的買入。
買 refers to the commodity trading activities, both "to buy and to sell", and later refers specifically to purchase transactions.
source: 《康熙字典》《字源》

Your post has typo,

Should be like:

  买/買(buy) 卖/ 賣 (sell)

The former one is the simplified Chinese, the later one is traditional Chinese, the 1st pair simply means "buy" or "purchase", the 2nd pair means "sell"


What is the difference between 受 and 收? They both can mean "to receive". It seems as if 受 has a more negative connotation than 收 but I'm 100% sure about the exact usage differences.

Considering 受 and 收 as the translation of the English verb "to receive" is confusing, as it really depends on how they are used (a lot of expressions use those two words). I think the difference is easier to see with examples.

受 seems to be used for immaterial things (such as feelings, influence, etc.) Its passive connotation really depends on the context or other words in the sentence/expression.

ex:

他很受欢迎。 - He is very popular.
他受到你的影响。- He is influenced by you. (which can be good or bad).

Even when the character 受 is used in words, it is for abstract things:
感受 (a feeling)

收 seems to be used for material things (a letter, a document, a SMS).
ex:

我收到你的短信。 - I received your SMS.
别忘记收垃圾。- Don't forget to collect the trash.

Same things here, when 收 is used in words, it describes material things:
收音机 - Radio (set). Literally the device receiving sounds.

I hope this answer your question.
I wish you pleasure and success in your studies!

受 is usually a passive word, as in "I RECEIVED the mail." The original actor is the giving side.

收 is usually an active word, as in "I CHECKED the mail, and got it". The original actor is the receiving side.


What's wrong to write g for 漢語拼音 pronunciation of 歌? This is a question asked on behalf of thousands of new beginner learning 漢語拼音.  When giving a 漢語拼音 dictation test (like spelling test in English) to my students, one very smart student write "g" for my pronunciation of 歌.  When I pointed out it's wrong, he argued: "you taught us HYPY "g" is pronounced as 歌/哥. So when I heard you pronounced 歌 and I wrote "g".  What's wrong with that?"  How can I reply?  Especially knowing it is the biggest flaw if 漢語拼音 teaching.

元音有韵，辅音无韵。is a fundamental phonetic concept.  Since HYPY barrowed English alphabets as its symbols, it should stick to the separation of the "names" of the letters and the pronunciation of the letters in spelling.  The name of letter "b" is "bee", but the pronunciation is very short bursting solid sound of both lips, without any "vowel" involved.  When teaching 辅音，all the material pronounced either with "e" or "o" rhyme.  Wrong!  Unless you remind your students that you are introducing the "names" of the symbols, followed by the right pronunciation in spelling, i.e. 辅音无韵。 Thus 歌 is rhymed, must be spelled "ge" as "e" contributes the rhyme.
Is it that the teaching method is so authoritative that no one ever pointed out its flaw? BTW, what's wrong with 声母 and 韵母 that they must be changed to 辅音 and 元音？

Because the consonants, aka initials, in Chinese Pinyin don't work they do in English. When Chinese pupils are learning the alphabet for pinyin, teachers won't teach the standard English pronunciations for all the letters. Instead, they would categorise initials into several categories:
b p m f - all are given an extra final [wo] (we shouldn't see it as a vowel because it contains a [w] pronunciation)
d t n l g k h - all are given an extra final [ə]
You can find more details in the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin, where initials are set into several groups by different colours.
b  p  m  f
d  t  n  l
g  k  h
j  q  x
z  c  s  r
zh  ch  sh


Why do some Chinese characters have multiple simplified variants? According to Unihan database some Chinese characters have multiple simplified variants.

For example the Chinese character 鍾 have 2 simplified variants: 钟 and 锺

How it could happen? What is the origin of such situation?

Traditional to Simplified is many-to-one, right??
It is almost the case that each Traditional character maps to exactly one Simplified character (possibly itself). This is certainly the mental model that most people have about simplification, and it's not far from the truth.
Alas, there are exceptions.
One of my favorite references on this topic lists out ambiguities in simplification. The "2 to 1" cases at the bottom covers the cases when a single traditional character has multiple simplified characters (Also check out the crazy special case!). In all the 2-to-1 cases, it seems that a semantic distinction (possibly also present in pronunciation) is reflected in the written form of the simplified (but not the traditional). Examples:

徵⇄徵(zhǐ) 征(zhēng) (archaic name for a pentatonic tone vs to conquer)
畫⇄画 划 (to draw vs. to plan)

Two of the four entries in the hanzidb list you provided are accounted for by that Wiki page (as well as several others that the hanzidb list left out). I don't know how the list was created, so I'm speculating a bit more in addressing the others:

锺 - 曾作“鍾”的简化字，后停用。 Previously served as the simplification for 鍾, but it is no longer used. Unrelated to this specific character, there are actually a whole bunch of simplified variants that resulted from a failed 2nd round of simplification. Some of these are really crazy (but most aren't in unicode).
願 -> 愿 (the second one doesn't render for shit, so here's an image
(source: glyphwiki.org)  .) This is also a weird simplified variant that ultimately became obsolete. I'm surprised it's in unicode at all, to be honest.

Also, another note. There are also what Unihan refers to as "z-variants", meaning typographic variants of characters. Both the Wiki page and the hanzidb list have (correctly) left these out. They aren't very interesting, but sometimes cause issues when you're doing data processing of CJK text:

說 and 説
莊 and 荘

Sorry, but the simplified words actually are different.(Please don't argue, I'm Chinese and speak Mandarin fluently.)  Their Pin Yin might be spelled the same, but they mean different things and are pronounced differently.

For those of you who don't know what Pin Yin is, it's basically a spelling of the pronunciation of a character in English letters and four different accents to represent "tones" of a word..

To read more about Pin Yin, go on this website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

I'm sorry it's Wiki, but I couldn't find anything better than that.  So not everything on that website is accurate.


三长两短: what's long and what's short? （求词源）

三长两短 is a chengyu that means "unforeseen disaster". It can also be a euphemism for death.

Here's an example of its usage:

  明·罗贯中《三遂平妖传》：“万一些后再有三长两短，终不能靠着太医活命。”

What is its etymology though? One way of literally interpreting this chengyu is that it refers to three long things and two short things; what could they be?

There's a theory that it's referring to the coffin box, which is made up of three long and two short pieces of wood, but this seems like a false etymology.

Theory 1: A coffin is made of three long and two short pieces of wood. And a coffin means death, dangerous.

You also can find some clues in the wikipedia article about "使用筷子禁忌".

Theory 2: Taoist forecasts through burning incenses. It is the most dangerous condition that there are three long incense sticks and two short incense sticks after burning five incence sticks in some time.

Theory 3: In ancient times, a master swordmaker called Ouyezi (欧冶子) made five sharp swords. Three of them were long, the others were short. And an assassin used the one called "鱼肠剑" among the five swords to kill the ennemy King. So "三长两短" refers to coming across a dangerous accident.

I burn 3 incense to my ancestor but one of them did not burn.
I am very sure that i burned it throughly before placing for offering . But later on , one incense did not burn up. What does this indicate?


Is this how it feels to read Chinese? I cam across this post a while back, its a discussion regarding the ease (and/or speed) of reading text in Chinese vs text in English. To directly quote what another person had quoted:

  I feel English is a reading language, if you are reading an English book, you watch the word and make sound in your brain. But Chinese can be a watching language, take a Chinese book, I can watch over a paragraph and get the meaning of most part.

The entire thread is a nice read, though I sort of tossed it to the back of my mind after looking through it. But today I came across a neat post that has to do with our (English) brains work when reading, admittedly many of you may have seen this effect before but take a look regardless:

I've seen posts like this many times in the past but when I saw this today it made me recall the thread describing a native Chinese speaker's ability to  "watch over a paragraph and get the meaning of most part".

For native Chinese speakers, can you corroborate this claim, that you have the ability to skim a Chinese text and still form an understanding? If so, do you see this picture as an accurate analogy?

“汉字的序顺并不定一能影阅响读”

根剑据桥大的学研究，词汇中的字表母达的含并不义重要，重的只要是首末字母的位正置确与否。其字他母的位置可完以全混乱但你仍可通以顺地读出语句。这因是为人的意并识不是逐字阅母读，而逐是词阅读。

尽管剑大桥学从做未过这个实验，但这个段子确实让友外网海产生了不小兴趣。当它入传中国时，也就有了开头的那句话。

这也以可给一些网友一些发的挥空间，让他们利用这种自错动纠机制的洞漏来计设一些段子，以及用巧来妙回避某论些坛的关河键词蟹。

设注应计时意，最保好持每句两话首末个字不变，否效则果会大打折扣。另也外宜不过计设短语的句。

e.g. 小别致长得真东西。

source萌娘百科

btw，I can read the whole text in 3 seconds, partly because it expresses very simple ideas. It's true that reading Chinese text doesn't necessarily need you "voicing" in your mind. This is much different to alphabetic language for I know.

only if the words are kept short for the most part. example

In the Vcraiiton are, a levloy eamlred geren, pirlaalty frmoueltad form asirnec, was uesd in fcaibrs and ppaluor falrol hresesdeads

not as easy to read


What is the polite way to respond to a sneeze in Chinese? In English, one might say "bless you" or "gesundheit" in response to a friend sneezing. Is there a Chinese equivalent? If so, what is it?

From Wikipedia: [which funnily enough has a Responses To Sneezing page]

Usual Responses and Notes

  多喝点水 (Duō hē diǎn shuǐ), 一百岁 (yì bǎi suì), 保佑你 (bǎo yòu nǐ) or 长命百岁 (chánɡ mìnɡ bǎi suì); frequently, listeners do not comment on the sneeze.

meaning:

  "Drink more water","May you live for a hundred years.", "bless you." or "May you live to one hundred years."

sneezer reply:

  呵呵,不好意思 (bù hǎo yì si)

meaning:

  "He he (No meaning, just smile politely)","Excuse me."

tl;dr: frequently, listeners do not comment on the sneeze.

Here's some info on Cantonese

Usual Responses and Notes

  大吉利事. Sneezing in Southern Chinese culture means that someone is speaking ill behind your back.

meaning:

  "A great fortunate occurrence."

sneezer reply:

  唔好意思

meaning:

  "Sorry."

i sneeze and no one really says anything in china. i dont think any1 say's bao y


"不应" vs. "不该": Which is used in formal writing? Recently I've been writing "should not" in Chinese a lot. But, I've been confused. What is the difference between "不该“ and "不应“? Are they both used?

For example, I know we can say

对不起，我不该说那么难听的话。

but we could also say

学习不应再是少数人的高级消遣

(Both examples from Iciba) My intuition says 不应  is more formal. Is that the only difference? Are there different usages?

Generally speaking, "不应" is used more frequently in formal writing, while "不该" is used in oral expression.

If it's hard for you to determine formal or non-formal, consider this, use 不该 for subjective, and use 不应 for objective case.

"不应" or "不该"  is short for "不应该", so you should use "不应该" in formal writing.

For example:

你不应该那样做。


Learning abstract "tone contours" for words and phrases I'm having trouble acquiring both Mandarin pronunciation and tones (hampered by the opacity of Pinyin for beginners).

I've learned various languages to various degrees and some people consider me to be "good at languages". I thought I was a pretty good mimic. But I find learning the pronunciations and the tones of polysyllabic words and phrases just too much at once at my beginner level.

I thought it might be worth trying to learn each independently and then combine them. I could do this to some degree when I had a local friend helping coach me but he's gone back to Beijing now.

I'm looking for a way to take a Chinese word or phrase, strip out the consonant and vowel sounds, but leave the "tone contours", something like humming or whistling or replacing every syllable with "da" but in the original tone for that syllable.

I think this might work for some Chinese learners (probably not all since we have unique ways to learn languages depending on our talents etc) since English does have similar tones at the phrase level that are only about nuances, emotions, etc, and those are easy to mimic, but dealing with the unfamiliar Chinese sounds simultaneously makes them too hard to grasp.

An answer might be how to ask a new Chinese friend to help me do this, or it might be a way I can use my netbook computer to help me with it when studying alone.

There's an  animation named "喜洋洋和灰太狼" might give you a little help. It is usually for Chinese children at 3-4 years old when they start to learn the Chinese.
I am a chinese native speaker, if you have any other problem,I'm glad to help.

You should really try WaiChinese. The software if in beta, but they are able to show you the shape of your spoken tone in real-time. Its awesome!

waichinese.com


How would one accurately translate "万事大吉"? This is a four character phrase for which I have found no accurate translation online. I hear it all the time around CNY.

  万事大吉

This is an expression wishing the listener good luck. Any equivalent English expression will do: "Best of luck in all your endeavors", "May your every endeavor prosper", etc. The use of the character 万 (wàn, meaning "10,000"), here just means "many" or "all".

gas and gaiters
everything is just fine

A idiomatic usage to show you hope everyone will be fine  or send a congratulation messages to others when Lunar New Year come. It often comes like "祝各位新的一年心想事成，万事大吉"

It's congratulatory speech.


What does 己所不欲, 勿施于人 mean? I'm learning some of Confucius' sayings, and I've had trouble with this one: 己所不欲，勿施于人. I looked on a dictionary online, and it said both "do not do to others what you would not have them do to you" and "doing is better than saying". Which one is it?

I have a poor English expression level, so I can give you answers in Chinese:

“己所不欲，勿施于人”是指：自己不想要的东西，切勿强加给别人。孔子所强调的是，人应该宽恕待人，应提倡“恕”道，唯有如此才是仁的表现。“恕”道是“仁”的消极表现，而其积极表现便是“己欲立而立人，己欲达而达人”。孔子所阐释的仁以“爱人”为中心，而爱人这种行为当然就包括着宽恕待人这一方面。《论语》中提到：夫子之道，忠恕而已矣。
　　这句话所揭晓的是处理人际关系的重要原则。孔子所言是指人应当以对待自身的行为为参照物来对待他人。人应该有宽广的胸怀，待人处事之时切勿心胸狭窄，而应宽宏大量，宽恕待人。倘若自己所讨厌的事物，硬推给他人，不仅会破坏与他人的关系，也会将事情弄得僵持而不可收拾。人与人之间的交往确实应该坚持这种原则，这是尊重他人，平等待人的体现。人生在世除了关注自身的存在以外，还得关注他人的存在，人与人之间是平等的，切勿将己所不欲施于人。

For example, there is something annoying me, I should not shove it on my friend or other people, treat friends in the way treat myself....

It simply is the Golden Rule. Don't do unto others what you don't want others do unto you.


How do you explain the "祖" in "祖国"? As you know, "藉贯”means the birthplace of oneself but "祖藉" means the place of living of one's ancestors, so when someone says “我的祖国”, does he mean the country of his ancestors or the country of his own (for example, he is an American Chinese born and living in the US)?

The latest edition of 新华字典 says that 祖国 is the country of one's own(对自己国家的亲切称呼）（Page 674,新华字典第11版，商务印书馆，2012）, so it is very confusing, what does 祖 here mean?

祖 generally means ancestor, 祖国 means someone's own country and MAY have the implication that his/her ancestors lived in the same country as well, although it doesn't always have to be the case. I think 祖国 is similar to "motherland" in English, an expression to imply close relation. As an analogy, although "mother" and "land" give you a feeling what the word "motherland" means, being really serious about the meaning of "mother" itself won't help much here.

P.S. As a Chinese, I usually perceive Chinese words as a whole rather than separating every character and studying them, but I'm not sure if this is the best way for learning Chinese as a foreign language.

祖 is composed from spirit(left) and penis(right). So the meaning is "ancestry" or more precisely - "fatherhood", which are related with the above mentioned parts. Now 祖国 should mean "Contry of fathers" or "fatherland".


Any “fai” (zy: ㄈㄞ) pronunciation record in Mandarin? Chinese seem to have no problem pronouncing Wi-Fi. Wi has a similar Chinese pronunciation with pinyin: wai.

This got me wondering, is there any “fai” (zy: ㄈㄞ) pronunciation record in Mandarin?

Not in standard Mandarin, no.

But there are regions in the South where Mandarin phonetics are not rendered standardly, and Standard hu- (also sometimes ku-) tends to be pronounced f-. In Western Fújiàn I often heard huàidàn 壞蛋 'bad person, asshole, etc.' pronounced as though the Pinyin were fàitàn. But I wouldn't count on using that to write "WiFi".

An example of regional f- for Mandarin k- appears in New York's Chinatown, where Forsyth Street is translated Kēxījiē 科西街, because the community was completely Cantonese-speaking at one time. You can see it on the street signs.

Short answer is no. To say WiFi, you would say 無線上網 (wireless internet access).

Otherwise, there's no "Fai" sound in Mandarin. They have it in Cantonese though.

快 = kuai (mandarin) / fai (cantonese) = fast


Is there a Chinese variant of the expression "and the list goes on and on“ Is there a Chinese variant of the expression "and the list goes on and on" or something simillar to it?

There might be many expressions in different cases. The most common one should be:
等 or 等等： etc.; and so on
那里有很多气球，红色、橙色、绿色、蓝色、白色等等，各种颜色。

There's a 成语 expressing this meaning：不胜枚举


What does "不要紧" mean? 众人回头观望，而这一看不要紧，所有人都是不由大吃一惊

According to an online dictionary, "不要紧" means "not important". How does the sentence make sense?

"The group looked back and that look was not important. Everyone couldn't help but be shocked greatly?"

不要紧 has two meanings (http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%E7%B4%A7):

Doesn't matter; not a problem.

Seemingly not a problem but ...

Here it is the second meaning. The logic behind the sentence is:

众人回头观望，而这一看不要紧，所有人都是不由大吃一惊
The group looked back. This seemingly trivial action lead to a surprising finding.

My spin:

【什么事发生了.】【然后】众人回头观望，而这一看不要紧，所有人都是不由大吃一惊。

[Something happened][Afterwards] Everyone turned and looked, but that didn't mean much, people are easily startled.


HSK6 Standard Course: Does the sentence 她的脾气不好，经常不知道为什么突然就生气了 violate the textbook's own grammar rule regarding inconsistent subjects? The HSK6 textbook has this example of the inappropriate use of a subject.

(✗) 他向国家捐献出了一张祖传的字画，具有极高的研究、保存价值。

主语残缺。前一分句的主语是“他”，后一分句的主语是“字画”，暗中更换了主语，致使后一句缺少了主语，应改为“这张字画具有极高的研究、保存价值”。
HSK标准教程6级上，51页。

It argues that it's incorrect because the sentence begins with the subject 他, and switches to another subject (i.e., 字画) without declaring it.
I'm interested in applying this grammatical logic to the following sentence from the same textbook (it's intended to be a grammatically correct sentence):

她的脾气不好，经常不知道为什么突然就生气了。
HSK标准教程6级上，90页。

In particular, the subject in the first part of the sentence is 她的脾气 ("her temperament").  If I were to apply the above logic to the second part of the sentence, the subject of the second part remains 她的脾气, so it should be translated as:

Her temperament is not good, [and] [her temperament] often doesn't know why [it] suddenly gets angry.

There might be some reason why the above grammar rule doesn't apply here, but I don't see why.  To me, it looks like it violates its own grammar rule, but it'd be nice to check this.
Question: Does the sentence 她的脾气不好，经常不知道为什么突然就生气了 violate the textbook's own grammar rule regarding inconsistent subjects?

她的脾气不好， (她)经常不知道为什么突然就生气了

The above are two independent sentences in a comment
sentence 1: [她的脾气]不好 (她的脾气 is the subject)
sentence 2: [她]经常不知道为什么突然就生气了 (她 is the omitted subject)
The subject 她 in sentence 2 is omitted because both sentences are the comment of an implied topic '她' (both sentences describe '她')
topic: 她 (implied)
comment 1: 她的脾气不好
comment 2: (她)经常不知道为什么突然就生气了 - 她 is omitted because it is the same subject in the implied topic 她
To unite the two sentences, we can make '她' the only subject

她脾气不好，经常不知道为什么突然就生气了

'她' is the subject of both 脾气不好 and 经常不知道为什么突然就生气了 therefore no need to repeat it
Edit:
她脾气不好 and 她经常不知道为什么突然就生气了 are closely related in logic, therefore, we can presume they are comments on the same topic/subject.
If the two comments are not closely related, we might not be allowed to omit the subject 她 in the second sentence, even both sentences are comments on the implied topic 她
Example:
她的兒子今年三歲，她在中學教書
If you omit 她 in the second sentence and wrote "她的兒子今年三歲，在中學教書" It would mean her three years old son is teaching at middle school

In "他向国家捐献出了一张祖传的字画，具有极高的研究、保存价值。" why would anyone think:
"他具有极高的研究、保存价值。"?? What kind of mad rule-making is this?
Language doesn't run on hard and fast rules, it runs on fuzzy logic. Think of the famous argument in English:
Which is correct: "It is I." or "It is me." Which do you say?
I would immediately surmise your sentence has either  我 or 我们 missing. In it's context, this sentence will be easily understandable.
No context, lack of clarity, need to surmise.
她的脾气不好，（我， 我们，她）经常不知道为什么突然就生气了。
She has a bad temper, (she, I, we) often don't know why she suddenly gets so angry.


How Does One Pronounce/Define the *Chinese* Character For browsers unable to display that code point (U+26A3B) as anything other than a box, the question concerns this character:

Per http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&char=%F0%A6%A8%BB - there are quite a few instances of the character's use in poetry since the Yuan Dynasty, and it occurs at least as late as the early Qing Dynasty in the lyrics of Gu Zhenguan (how I got started with it):

縱閒愁吹墜，不到船。

The character is not included in the Kangxi Dictionary, and I wonder whether any definition is available beyond "a kind of boat".  In some of the examples (e.g. 银夜酌凉蒲萄，琵琶嘈嘈急如泻) it doesn't seem to be a boat at all, perhaps an obscure variant of some other character meaning "drinking vessel"?

I don't know much about scansion of Chinese poetry but am guessing at least it is going to be 3rd/4th tone given its location in the phrases of the cited poetry. A Japanese site (http://jigen.net/kanji/158267) suggests the rather dubious reading of "mò" (I'm assuming that's Pinyin and not some transcription system specific to Japanese) while apparently it is read "khoang" in Vietnamese (http://www.cojak.org/index.php?function=code_lookup&term=26A3B).  It seems odd for the character to have such a vague existence: does anyone know how it was pronounced  classically (i.e. what is the 反切) and/or have a reasonably informative gloss?

I believe that  is a mistake in transcription for 觥 (gong1) because they could look very similar in cursive script. 觥 means drinking vessel and 觥船 means a big drinking vessel, see, e.g., http://www.zdic.net/c/5/f0/248556.htm .

I asked around in my college today. The teachers had no idea, but a student just used his mobile.

It is gong, first tone, and means 'a bronze drinking vessel'

Got this from http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/47075-hard-to-find-character/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_n%C3%B4m

It is a Chữ Nôm meaning 'module' or 'box' (maritime), according to Sky Darmos. He offered these example compounds:

～船 khoang tuyền – deck (ship)

～梩 khoang lái – cockpit

～航 khoang hàng – hold (in a ship)

～行李 khoang hành lý – hold (in a plane)

From what I know, this character does not exist in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean.


Origin of the word "娘惹" I know what 娘惹 means (wikipedia), however, I couldn't find any reference on its origin. Is it a Chinese transliteration of a Malaysian word, a Cantonese/Hokkien word or a Mandarin word? What's the literal meaning?

It is definitely transliterated from Malay (it's noted on the zh Wikipedia as well).

Baba and Nyonya (pronounced /ɲoɲə/) are descendants of Hokkien Chinese who migrated to Malaysia centuries ago. They have come to refuse to be recognized as descendants of the Chinese and instead, identified themselves as British subjects (as per Bahasa Malay WP entry).

According to Wikipedia, the term baba is a religious honorific term that originated from Persian and entered Southeast Asian languages possibly through traders. It originally was used as an honorific for one's grandparents in Malay. Its meaning changed over time among the Baba-Nyonya to refer to all males of this particular ethnic group.

Nyonya is a loanword from Javanese that was likely borrowed from Portuguese don(h)a (compare Italian: donna; Spanish: doña) meaning lady (夫人). The term was used by the Malay people to refer to all "foreign" women including female peranakan. With the departure of European colonists, the meaning of the term slowly narrowed down to only peranakan women.

For further reading on the cultural aspect of this term: Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, From Angkor Wat to East Timor, Volume 1.

Pranakan meaning "the ones who speaks the foregin tongue " - பிறநாக்கான் ( பிற + நாக்கான் )


What's the difference between 打开 and 开门? How can I tell when to use 打开 and when to use 开门 in Chinese? For example, in the following sentences:

这扇门打开了
这个书店开门了

Why does the first sentence use 打开 and the latter use 开门?

Also, is it necessary to use 了 in this sentence?

In the context of the example you posted, 开门 is describing the status of the shop. Like the meaning of 'open' and 'closed' signs you could find in most of stores.

打开 in the context of the example you gave is describing the status of the door or anything could be turned on like window, valve or switch. This sentence should be translated to 'This door is open'.

Because in Chinese a word's meaning may varies according to the context and situation of the sentence. You should remember some combination of noun-adjective or verb-adverb but not just remember the meaning of a single word.

I think the difference is 1 is physical status of the shop and 2 is functional status of the shop.


What is the difference between 台 and 臺？ What is the difference between 台 and 臺？

台 is both "simplified" and "alternative", 臺 is "traditional".

臺 seems to be the "correct" traditional form for Taiwan, but I've never seen it in reference to Taishan (台山) in Guangdong, even in all references pre-1949, etc.

How is it determined in "traditional" usage when to use the one or the other?

(In simplified usage 台 is just used all the time, correct?)

In simplified Chinese, both would be 台, easy peasy. Otherwise, things get a little complicated. Sometimes 台 is just an alternative form for 臺, which is the case for Taiwan: you can write 臺灣 or 台灣, both are acceptable, though the former is considered more formal. In the case of 台山, that is the correct name already, so you can't write 臺山 because 臺 is not an alternative form of 台. Also, for place names like 台州 and 天台山, the pronunciation of 台 is a little different from normal, all the more reason that you can't always choose to substitute 台 with 臺.

Don't be fooled by the Traditional and Simplified Chinese bisection. Only very little Simplified Chinese characters were invented to replace the old ones. Most Simplified Chinese characters were either the archaic but "correct" forms or were simpler variants of the "correct" characters. In fact, many "traditional Chinese" characters are actually much simpler (having fewer strokes) than some of the variants, so 繁體字 is a misnomer, and as for 正體字, what is the "correct" way to write a certain character? Is there a "correct" way to write those characters? Defined by whom? It is not just black and white.

Chinese is hard, and I think the more I learn about Chinese, the harder it gets. I think the best way to learn when to use 臺 and not 台 and vice versa is to just remember each instance and go by the ones most people use even if that usage is not correct semantically. Occasionally, you may want to consult a reference such as the Dictionary of Variants published by the MOE of Taiwan, in which you'll find that 台 and 臺 are originally two different words with similar pronunciation, but 台 has been borrowed as a substitute for 臺 and has therefore acquired the pronunciation and meaning of 臺. One definition of 臺 is "stage", and of 台 is (originally) "delight", interchangeable with 怡. Keep in mind though, that it is just ONE reference, the fact that it's "official" doesn't mean it's always correct or reflects what most people use, even in Taiwan.

The difference between 台 and 臺 is that 台 is a 简体字, 臺 is a 繁体字. The meaning of 台 and 臺 is the same.

There are two kinds of Chinese characters, Traditional Chinese (繁體字) and Simplified  Chinese (简体字).

In Taiwan, people use Traditional Chinese, but in the mainland, people use Simplified Chinese.

In ancient China, people used Traditional Chinese. Around 1910, the Simplified Chinese appeared. Then the Chinese mainland use Simplified Chinese, Taiwan kept using Traditional Chinese.

Simplified Chinese is used more often, which is the official language of China. And it is written more easily.

If you want to determine, people from Taiwan use Traditional Chinese, people from the mainland use Simplified Chinese.

In my opinion, you can study Simplified Chinese first, because both of them can understand Simplified Chinese.

(In simplified usage 台 is just used all the time, correct?) yes


What is the meaning of 让? Could anyone tell me the meaning of the word 让 (ràng) in sentences like this one: 爸爸让我学开车.

I am not sure of the exact meaning; is it to wish?

I've looked it up on a dictionary but I couldn't figure out the exact meaning.

Thank you very much.

Clara

The sentence '爸爸让我学开车' is too short to be certain which meaning of 让 should be assigned here.

'我恳求了很多次爸爸才让我学开车.' - 'I pleaded with my father many times  before he allowed me to learn to drive.' (让 = allow/let)
'父亲认为驾驶是一种有用的技能，因此他让我学开车.' - 'Father thinks driving is a useful skill, so he lets me learn to drive.' (让 = let/ allow/ ask/ make)

Consider learning to drive cost money, and often require permission from the parent, "LET" is the most likely meaning of '让' here.
*ongusbongus' answer suggested  '让' means 'ask to'. But in reality, '要' is the more common word for the meaning of 'ask to' compare to '让'.
Even '叫' carrying the meaning of 'ask to' better than '让'

让 could mean 'let' or 'ask'.
I wonder if we can learn from each other? I learn english from you and you chinese from me?


Ways to politely insult somebody's intelligence in Mandarin? I know of many words to insult people and call them stupid, but a majority of them are incredibly offensive. There are more polite phrases, such as 真笨, which I've seen used within families (as a plain 真笨啊！）, but nothing which seems the right level of formality for the context in question.

In English, the nearest equivalent of what I'm looking for would be along the lines of "fool", but not quite as strong as "imbecile". Something you can use in a formal situation, but something that won't incredibly offend the listener; more a "silly you" with a higher register of formality.

I'm not sure which words match this closely, if any exist. What words are closest to this meaning?

I don't know if there is a way to politely insult someone's intellect, that almost seems like an oxymoron to me.

糊涂 (silly) is the only expression I can think of that doesn't stigmatize the addressee too much. But I would under no circumstance apply it to my boss or my in-laws or a teacher or anyone with whom one has to be respectful.

E.g. 你这么糊涂! How silly of you!
Also: 糊涂虫

傻 is still somewhere between 'silly' and 'fool'. A mother could reply to the naive questions of her child with 傻孩子！ (Silly kid!).
别犯傻！ (Don't be silly) is another way to use it.

傻瓜 would a bit stronger, but between peers could be still acceptable, but I would only use it if it is clear that I am not really meaning it.

胡说！ can used if you think someones says something stupid.

By contrast 混蛋 and 笨蛋 are more verbal and far more insulting. You can see and hear movie protagonists spitting and yelling this at each other.

UPDATE: 二货 is another non-offensive way to call someone silly, e.g. 二货朋友 a silly friend.

你脑袋长在屁股 means Your brain is located at your butt
树多必有枯枝，人多必有白痴 means If there are lot of trees, there must be a deadwood; If there are a lot people, there must be an idiot.

I'm a native chinese speaker so I know a lot. If you want more just comment below :3


What is 了 doing in the sentence 我出发了? Consider the sentence

我出发了。

with the translation

I'm leaving.

This was given to me in a list of examples demonstrating the putting 了 after a verb expresses a completed action (perfect aspect, I guess). But in this particular example the action isn't completed. So then why does 了 belong here? How would the meaning change without it?

I'm leaving is rather ambiguous; going from English to Chinese, it is either

I'm getting ready to leave (我在準備出發)
I'm going to leave (我出發了)
I'm in the process of leaving (我正在出發, e.g. if you're waiting on a plane ready to take off)

我出發了 is also ambiguous; going from Chinese to English, it is either

I'm going to leave [now] (我［現在］出發了)
I've already left (我已經出發了)

Context is essential; if 我出發了 is translated to I'm going to leave, then「了」is used as a function where it is put at the end of a sentence to declare (to a listener) the beginning of an action. In this sense, we have:

我走了 (declaration: I'm leaving/going [to go somewhere])
我（去）吃飯了 (declaration: I'm going to have food)
我（去）讀書了 (declaration: I'm going to study)

It is mandatory to drop「去」in verbs which involve going/leaving anyway, such as「走」and「出發」. In other verbs, including「去」is optional, but it reveals the sentence structure better. You can see that in the written language, without explicitly writing「去」, it is hard to see that 我吃飯了 is a declaration of I'm going to have food, but in spoken language the context should be clearer.

  How would the meaning change without「了」?

It is ungrammatical to say just 我出發, like it is ungrammatical to only say in English I leave.

了 means something you already done
I'm leaving is wrong
我出发了 means I (already) left
我吃了 means I (already) ate
他已经去过美国了 means he has (already) been to US


Does Chinese have an equivalent to “Person A”? In English, sometimes we'll refer to a person whose name is unknown or undisclosed as "Person A" particularly in hypothetical scenarios. Does a similar thing exist in Chinese that doesn't make use of English letters?

You would say

  甲、乙、丙、丁……

which come from 天干, you could also say

  路人甲、路人乙、路人丙……

If you know the person's surname, you could also say

  李某、王某……

In case if you want the specify that person's occupation

  某市民、某员工、某政府工作人员……

Yes, it does. The most famous unknown person A is "张三" in Chinese.


How to thank someone for following you back on social media? So, someone I respect has followed me back on social media, and I was hoping to thank them directly. I can't really figure out how to word "Thank you for following me"/"Thank you for following me back"/"Thank you for the follow". What's the best way I can say this?

谢谢你关注我呀！！！

There's actually an article that kind of talks about this on zhihu, funnily enough. Their translation there is:

  thank you follow me --> 谢谢你关注我呀！！！

They also have a picture of automated thanks for following me in action:

On social media 关注 is always the term for follow.

It could be 感谢大家(/你们)(长期以来一直)追随我、支持我!

感谢大家追随我: thank everyone/you for following me.

感谢大家支持我: thank everyone/you for supporting me.

感谢你们长期以来一直追随我、支持我: thank you for keeping following me and supporting me for such a long time.

  感谢大家： thank everybody.

  感谢你们： thank you.

  长期以来一直： being for a long time;

  追随我: follow me;

  支持我：support me, back me;


How to Interpret 認不真 in 須認真. 若認不真. 便都成了假的? The context is the reader has just been told that in [blank] he 須認真.

  [blank]須認真. 若認不真. 便都成了假的.

What puzzles me is the 不 in the middle of 認真.  I understand that each character by itself is a word, but it seems generally to be one two character word, "earnest".  Is the 不 negating one of two words, or half of one word, or all of a two character word?  I've never seen that.

「認真」is a common two characters compound word. It means 'serious' (adj.)
Since it is an adjective, we can add the negative function word 「不」(not ) before it, and form an negative phrase  「不認真」(not serious)

However, 「認」on it's own can be the verb 'identify' or ' 'recognize' as in 「認人」(identify a person)，「認路」(recognize the way);  while 「真」on it's own can be the adjective 'true' or 'accurate' ; or the adverb 'truly' or 'accurately'

As a simple grammatical rule, an adverb can modify a verb.
Which mean 「認真」 can be treated as a [verb+ adverb] structure instead of a compound that we are familiar with.

In the case of 「認不真」，「不」being a negative function word that modifies the adverb 「真」make it clear that the term we are looking at, is in fact [verb+ 不 + adverb] structure (認+不+真).

If 「不」 is placed before 「認真」, that would make it an [不 + adjective] structure (不+認真).

「不認真」means 'not serious'
「認不真」means 'cannot identify accurately' or 'not identify accurately'

As I mentioned before, 「認真」is a very common 'word' , to avoid confusion, it is better use 「認不清」 instead of 「認不真」.

I believe if the phrase in question was 「認不真確」instead of the shortened 「認不真」, you would not be so confused.

Since the common word 「認真」is widely used, putting 認 and 真 in a [verb + adverb] structure would certainly cause confusion. It is not recommended.

  須認真.若認不真. 便都成了假的.

In this context 須認真 means " Need to identify accurately.

  " Need to identify accurately. If not identify accurately, then everything will become (be treated as) fake"

I would suggest phrasing it as 「須認(得)真(確), 若認不真(確),  便都成了假的」 to make it more clear.

可能缺了一个了字，认不（了）真。意思是：我现在好烦，我认真不起来。


How to say 上蹿下跳 in English? I am learning Chinese idioms.

How to say 上蹿下跳 in English? help me

run around on sinister errands, the only one right answer, can not be used in other scene. It's a term of abuse, I'm chinese, trust me.


very old chinese language I need help to determine this brand

How old is the brand?
Is it a stamp or a tax stamp?
Does it have something to do with the silk tax?

imo, the other answer is significantly "inventive" :)

, as @tang ho indicated, the correct reading should be "蠶種改濟之章".

and, these're kanji, japanese related (it's 繭印紙 蚕種印紙)

here's relevant pic & link:

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/j511816810?lang=en

i would suggest the op ask again in japanese stack exchange.

https://japanese.stackexchange.com

have fun :)

This is NOT an ancient stamp，but a marketing gimmick to make it looks like "old stuff".

The correct way of reading this"蠶改之, 種濟章"
蠶改之 mean silkworm farm that using improving converting farming mechanism, ask the local for the story.
濟章 is area in China, it mean 临济、章丘.  Mostly a tea leaf distribution center, not much of tea plant there.
There are an on-going tea leaf speculation going around in China.

In short, you should not bother about the "brand". It is not recommended to join in the speculative frenzy, unless you are one of those who want to take advantage of others gullible people.


Why does 赤道 mean Equator? Since 赤 means red, bare, and 道 means way, path?

Actually there are three of these words: 赤道, 黄道, 白道, where '赤' means 'red', '黄' means 'yellow', and '白' means 'white'.

赤道 is the equator. 黄道 is the sun's track in the sky. 白道 is the moon's track in the sky. As for why they are named so - they are named using "the five colors corresponding to five directions", according to 《汉书·天文志》. If you know Chinese, you can refer to this question on 知乎: https://www.zhihu.com/question/21376627

赤 has several meanings, in this case imaginary or unreal. The equator is  a path that has been thought up by the human intellect, and so does not represent a physical boundary per se.


How am I supposed to understand 充分一些？ What does the phrase 尽量准备充分一些 mean?

I have this sentence: 并非每个人都适合创业，但有想法的人可以大胆去做，尽量准备充分一些。

As much as possible prepare ample a little
尽量准备充分一些
Should I prepare a little, or a lot??

First: 充分
I feel like the definition ample is slightly misleading, although it could be translated this way in specific contexts.
A Chinese-English Dictionary:

2 to the full; as fully as possible
充分利用
fully utilize; make full use of

Oxford actually translates, what most translate as ample, as abundant.

Second: 一些
Oxford

3 略微 [placed after an adjective, indicating a slight change in degree]
请走慢一些
Please walk more slowly

So, we can think of an 一些 suffix as "a little more....blah blah blah", it is adding to whatever is already there.
一些 = and some

Now we have 充分 + 一些 = a little more abundant (-or- a little more ample, if you really want to use ample) -or- with 准备 in mind: to prepare a little more fully

Now 尽量
KEY:

to the best of one's ability; as far as possible

尽量准备充分一些 = you should prepare a whole lot (more), as much as you possibly can

It means "prepare as much as you can". Thank you.


What is the meaning of [你说什么是什么]? A Chinese friend sent me this sentence with a smiley emoji.
I feel like it means ''Whatever you say.'' or ''Sure'', sort of agreeing with someone in jest.
But I could be completely wrong.
What does it actually mean?

It means the person who says this wants to just give up arguing. It can be translated as:

"Well, whatever" (accompanied by a shrug, or polite smile)


How to say "upregulate" in Mandarin My best scientific dictionaries have all crashed, and in any case they may not have this word either. I'm looking for a Chinese translation of the word "upregulate" or "up-regulate":

  the process of increasing the response to a stimulus; specifically : increase in a cellular response to a molecular stimulus due to increase in the number of receptors on the cell surface.

Another dictionary combined with some okay-ish judgement seems to think it's "上调" or possibly "上调作用" but I'd love some feedback to see if you guys think I'm on the right track.

上调 is the most common equivalent. In your description you are using the wrong character (凋, the radical is different).

EDIT: to add credibility to my answer and provide some examples, I have added some use cases.

Some usages in abstracts:

--

School of Life Sciences, Peking University:

上调巨噬细胞的一些信号分子

"upregulating some signaling molecules of macrophages" (text at the end of the article)

Chinese Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology:

骨形态发生蛋白2通过Smad途径上调Osterix的表达

"Bone Morphogenetic Protein 2 Upregulates Osterix Expression Through Smad Pathway"

Same source:

BPH-1通过分泌PGE2上调前列腺间质细胞ERRα的表达

"Prostaglandin E2 Mediates the Upregulation of ERRα Expression with BPH-1 Condition Media in Prostatic Stromal Cells "
(You can find many other use cases in this journal.)

Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University (Medical Science Edition):

IL-21上调IL-17的表达在Graves病中的意义

"Significance of IL-17 upregulation by IL-21 in patients with Graves disease"

调 is the keyword that denotes regulation, thus:

regulatory mechanism is 调控机制 (see Chinese abstract on the linked page) in this context.

下调 (downregulation) denotes the opposite of 上调 (upregulation).

It also comes as 调节 which is to regulate in a general sense (whether up or down, not specified), used in the context of biochemistry.

Think you will have to rewrite upregulate to something like 'increase reactivity'.

The process of increasing the response of a cell to a stimulus is known as 'increasing the reactivity of the cell'

This sentence could be translated thus.

增加细胞对刺激反应的过程称为‘增加细胞反应性‘。

So 'upregulate' becomes '‘增加细胞反应性‘.


About Confucius' Ta-Hio In many books about Confucius' Analects, 大學 is transliterated as Ta-Hio.

Why is this? 大學 is dàxué in Pinyin, da hsüeh in Wade-Giles, da sywe in Yale, and daai hok in Cantonese, so where does this transliteration come from?

It's Mandarin transliteration by Portuguese Jesuit Fr. Inácio da Costa (17th century).

Partial text:

“大学之道，在明明德，在亲民，在止于至善”

Ta hio chi dao, cai min min te, cai cin min, cai chi yu chi xen

It's just the pinyin of a dialect for 大學.


Why do people often say 最多 in Cantonese when they mean "at the very least"? I often hear on TVB shows that people say 最多 in a context when they mean to say, "at the very least?" For instance, something like, "At the very least, I'll take you to dinner tomorrow for being late."

Why is this?

Consider it this way: If your offer and his expectation from you are at two opposite ends, then the most you can offer only meets the least he has expected, or even less.

So the perspective(point of view) affects the use of "most" and "least" -- quite subtle. To make a specific case clear, we need the vivid context.

It means "at most". Cause I believe Chinese people's nature is to do as less as possible, so we say

A: 你可以帮我做完这件事无?
B: 可以! 我做这件事可以拿到乜嘢?
A: 最多，我可以请你吃饭.

A: Can you help me with something?
B: What will I get out of this?
A: I can, at most, treat you to dinner.

"At least" in contrast we use for if someone declines our favor.

A: 你帮我好多, 我可以用乜嘢方法报答你无?
B: 毋使!
A: 至少 ，我应该请你吃饭.

A: You helped me so much, how can I repay you?
B: No need to.
A: At the very least, I should treat you to dinner.

Edit:It's a perspective problem. It's usually from the speaker's perspective, not the listener's.


Is written Hakka the same as simplified Chinese? Hakka is a dialect of Chinese and therefore should be considered when speaking however what about writing?  From a translation perspective is there a specific way to write Hakka or is this the same as Simplified or Traditional Chinese?

I have an old Hakka textbook, published in Singapore in the 1950s. It is written in transcription (for the learner) and in Chinese, using Traditional characters, including some Hakka-specific characters -- borrowed most probably from Cantonese -- like 冇, 唔.

Below are a couple of pages. Today, though, it is rarely written, and when it is, the writer will use whatever character set he or she uses for Mandarin.

Chinese is a total different language compared to other languages since it's ideographic. For thousands of years, it's been learned by Han people all over the country. People in different regions may have different pronunciation for the same word, but we can still understand what the meaning of what's written down.

This is interesting. The Chinese writing system is like the binary program for computers, dialects vary like programming languages. No matter what kind of programming language developers choose, the true meaning of what developers want the computer to know will be translated to binary.

Hakka, a branch of Han, also writes Chinese for hundreds years. There isn't an official writing system for Hakka based on the pronunciation since it's not necessary. So there is no difference between writing system of Hakka and Mandarin.

But things changed when westerners (especially missionaries) came to China. Because learning the pronunciation of a local language is much easier than learning the writing system, they chose to create a new writing system based on the pronunciation for translating the Bible. When people get used to learning a language this way, it will reflect on the Chinese writing system as well. An obvious example is Cantonese used in Hong Kong. The writing system looks like Chinese, but in fact it's in western style. Because many characters created for Cantonese focus on the pronunciation, don't care about the original meaning of each character.

I'm sorry, my answer seems out of topic. But I am just trying to explain the simple answer for the question. -- "Yes, they are the same. Because there is not official writing system for Hakka."


How much did the Cultural Revolution change the Chinese language on the mainland? I've always had an inkling that the Cultural Revolution drastically changed the Chinese language (think: TW 国语 vs. mainland 普通话). [Some even claim TW doesn't even have the concept of 书面语 pk 口语, it's not hard to buy into either].
Then today I came across these two entries in《四川方言词典》

盖盖
gai4 gai4-1
(名) ①盖子。②(～儿) 小盖子。③(～儿) <粗>指男朋友。(文革期间产生的新义，与*盒盒儿相对。)

and

钢鞭
gang1 bian1
(名) 比喻能置对方于死地的证据(文革期间产生的新义) ▷老人把刀交给公安人员说 ▷“这是我那逆子犯罪的～!”

Both specifically mention: 文革期间产生的新义.
Obviously there were changed to the Chinese language, including topolects, during the Cultural Revolution but to what extent?

A second thought: if intellectuals were attacked wouldn't that lead to a automatic dumbing-down of language, to avoid being attacked?

From what I understand, there are indeed some new words created, or given a new meaning, during the years of cultural revolution. However, those words quickly lose their popularity soon after the arrest of "Gang of Four". Actually, as someone who is born many years after that period, I can hardly think of any word that is still used in the ordinary context, be it oral or written language. And even the Communist Party government tries to avoid using those words, due to the special meanings attached to them. So you can hardly see them apart from the history book, or people telling stories of that era.

However, there are a few exceptions in the recent years, notably the use of "篡党夺权" from the remarks by Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.[1][2] And there has been a rise in the use of "伟大领袖" in local newspapers as well.

For a comprehensive list of new words or words given a new meaning during the cultural revolution, I've found a paper from search engine here. But it's in Chinese, and it also requires purchasing to read further from page 1.

As to the difference between TW国语 and mainland普通话, they are completely irrelated to the cultural revolution.

1、What I understand is not change, but new words added. The words in the income dictionary are usually the words we encounter in life. If you have the opportunity to read the latest Xinhua Dictionary, you will find a lot of new “trend” words(房奴、晒工资etc). Many of these words come from online pop words. There are many people who use this word, and they also have representatives of certain aspects of the time so they choose to add it to the dictionary. This was also the case during the Cultural Revolution, and a special era background would inevitably produce new words (not to mention that it was a very long time), so we should not be too entangled with this issue.
 2、In addition, agree with Steve Yang. TW Mandarin and Mandarin are due to geographical differences and lifestyle differences (of course there are certain historical reasons). Chinese is a macrolanguage, he can be divided into a variety of languages: Gan Chinese [gan]赣语; proverb Hakka Chinese [hak] 客家话; Huizhou Chinese [czh] 徽语; Jinyu Chinese [cjy] 晋语; Literary Chinese [lzh] 文言文; Min Bei Chinese [mnp] 闽北语; Min Dong Chinese [cdo] 闽东语; Min Nan Chinese [nan] 闽南语;Min Zhong Chinese [czo] 闽中语;Pu -Xian Chinese [cpx] 莆仙语; Wu Chinese [wuu] 吴语; Xiang Chinese [hsn] 湘语; Cantonese [yue]粤语; TW 国语; Mandarin and so on. For the convenience of communication, Mandarin is selected as the common language in China.


Have I parsed this correctly? 在这一重大的历史时点，和讯网对著名经济学家张维迎就改革的发展问题进行了一次非常深入的访谈。 在这一重大的历史时点，
和讯网
对
著名经济学家张维迎就改革的
发展问题
进行了
一次非常深入的访谈。

(From CaiJing.com.cn; link now broken.)

At this important historical point, Hexun.com has conducted a very in-depth discussion on the question of development, which renowned economics professor, ZHANG Weiyin, has reformed.

Have I parsed and translated this sentence correctly? Or is there some better interpretation I'm not seeing?

在这一重大的历史时点，和讯网/对(著名经济学家)张维迎(就改革的发展问题)进行了(一次非常深入的)访谈。

the main structure is 和讯网对张维迎进行了访谈

So the correct translation that reflects this structure should be

At this important historical point, Hexun.com has conducted a very in-depth discussion (or interview) with the renowned economist ZHANG Weiyin on the question (or problem) of future directions of reform.

Using 时刻 instead of 时点 will be better.

在这一重大的历史时刻，

和讯网

对著名经济学家张维迎

就改革的发展问题

进行了一次非常深入的访谈。


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

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

Am I missing something here?

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

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

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

"Wo ai ni" is right, while "lo" is a wrong pronunciation in Chinese. You cannot find "lo" in  Mandarin. Note that wa ai lo is dialectal.


What is the etymology of "嗨"? What is the etymology of "嗨"? Is it used because it sounds like the English word "Hi"?

I tried looking it up, but Wiktionary doesn't have any etymology information in either the English or Chinese edition, and it's not listed in Wiktionary's category Chinese terms derived from English.

I wouldn't call 嗨 onomatopoeic, since it doesn't seem to be imitating any particular sound.

According to the Ministry of Education's 國語辭典, 嗨 is an interjection that expresses discouragement, regret, surprise, etc. It is sometimes written as 咳, (in this sense also read hai, not ke).

This use goes back to Yuan dynasty drama.  It can also be used in chanting sort of expressions such as 嗨唷, which is what everyone was yelling when I was on the tug-of-war team.  Acc. to 國語辭典, this use can also be found in Yuan dynasty plays.

Unlike some dictionaries, 國語辭典 does specifically mention the use of 嗨 as 音譯 for English Hi.  This use must be quite modern.  Acc. to the Oxford English Dictionary, the use of 'hi' as 'a word of greeting' (=hello) is primarily North American in origin, apparently late 19th cent. I wouldn't be surprised if 嗨 = Hi, was a post WW2 innovation in Chinese.

口 + 屮 + 水 + 母 = mouth + sprouting  plant + 3 points water + woman

Edit： Forgot the 三点水

http://www.zdic.net/z/16/zy/55E8.htm has a nice old version, you can see the woman clearly. Quite what the significance of her having a plant for a head is escapes me， （maybe someone here knows) and the representation of her bosom leaves a lot to be desired!

Here are some old versions of 海

http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&characterInput=%E6%B5%B7

zdic has as number 1 meaning 象声词, so I presume that is its main use.


What's the difference between 礼仪，惯例，规矩？ In a section of my textbook I recently covered, I came across 3 vocabulary words that are very similar and I'm not sure how and when to use each.
From what I understand:

礼仪： protocol/etiquette. The dictionary I have doesn't give too many examples of this.
惯例： convention; usual practice. Ex:

按照国际惯例;
打破惯例 － break from usual practice/convention

规矩： this one is probably the trickiest of the three because there are two definitions: (a) rules of a community or organization; custom; established practice. (b) customary rules of good behavior; social etiquette (which translates to something similar to 礼仪）

example of (a): 按照中国规矩，写信时日期写在最后
example of (b):
(i) 遵守规矩；
(ii) 这个孩子没有规矩 (this child has bad manners; which seems to mean 礼貌）

So I'm still confused, because they all seem to mean the same: (to follow) some sort of standard etiquette

The three wors are all nouns.

礼仪 What someone's behavior or words gives others a very good expression.for example ,the man is a gentleman

example 礼仪之邦

之：的

邦：国家（country）

礼仪之邦 ：The people in the country are all gentlemen.（indluding women and children）
惯例 the activity has already been done in this way for many years,and others' also in this way.

惯例 mostly is used to describle activity,not behavior.
规矩 规矩 mostly is used to describle someone's words and behavior.

for example,don't make noise in public place.

规矩 describles most people's behaviors should be done like this, not gentleman.

For 规矩,u can just interpreted it as 'rule'.if say: 这个孩子很没有规矩, u can just think its say: he's not following the rules for..i dont know, rule for people i think


Can all adjectives be transformed into adverbs with 地? In Mandarin if you use 地 to an adjective, it can change into an adverb. For example,

我真喜欢你健健康康地长大。
他舒服地躺在那里。

Now I wonder whether all adjectives can be transformed into adverbs in this rule. Is this assumption true? If not, how can I know if one adjective can be transformed into an adverb with 地?

Check out these dictionary entries for 地[de5]:
ABC

(adv.-forming, like English -ly)
很快地
hěn kuài de
very quickly

Oxford

AUXILIARY
[used with an adverb or adverbial phrase]
合理地安排和使用劳动力
dispose of available manpower rationally
应该历史地评价一个人。
We should judge a person from the historical point of view.

Oxford Pocket

<助> [used after an adjective, a noun or a phrase to form an adverbial adjunct before the verb]
狐狸偷偷地跑进果园
The fox sneaked into the orchard
他喝醉酒似地叫嚷
He shouted as if he were drunk

KEY

{grammar} (variant pronunciation of -dì) (forming an adverb from an adjectiv, e.g., gāoxìng 高興/高兴 "happy" + de 地 yields gāoxìngde 高興地/高兴地 "happily")

CC-CEDCIT

1 -ly
2 structural particle: used before a verb or adjective, linking it to preceding modifying adverbial adjunct

The simple answer to your question is: yes. The more complicated answer is that many things can be turned into an adverbial adjunct by adding 地[de5].

It's not transformed to a adverb, but to an adverbial or adjective phrase.

It depends the word you want to modify upon. If the word to be modified is a noun, then it's an adjective phrase. And if it's a verb or adjective, then an adverbial phrase.

For example, in 舒服的躺着, 舒服的 is an adverbial phrase, while in 舒服的环境，it's an adjective phrase.  It's because 躺 is a verb whilst 环境 is a noun.

By the way, in modern Chinese, 的 can replace 地 in this usage. However, 地 can not replace 的 in other usages. So, 的 will be correct most of time.


Is it OK to use 子 as a measure word my Wenlin dictionary describes 子 as also a measure word for bundles/hanks etc.
Can anyone confirm this ? by sample sentence ?

Classifier for 'bundles/hanks' is '束', as in '一束花' (a bundle of flower); '一束头发' (a hank of hair)

The only classifier using 子 is for 'chess/ Go piece' or 'chess/ Go move',

Example:

'讓你兩子棋' (give you two stones handicap)

"需要深入思考每一子棋" (need to think deep for each chess move).

'步' as  in "需要深入思考每一步棋" is more common that 子 when using as classifier for chess move

A prominent example for 子 as a classifier for chess/Go piece:

一子錯, 滿盆皆落索 - one piece (of chess) (placed) wrong, the entire game (situation) become untenable

No used frequently as the quanity word.

Searching google with "一子儿头发", you find only 12 results, most are either archaic or dialect. But with "一把头发",you have 102 results, and with “一绺头发”，you have 106 results，with "一缕头发",you have 96 results.

I am a professor on mechanics and a native chinese speaker.


Is 去 (qù) pronunced /tɕʰu/ or /tɕʰy/? I'm a struggling very beginner having difficulties with both pronunciation and Pinyin.

I dabble in linguistics so I'm accustomed to dealing with IPA pronunciations. For this reason I have been looking for a table related syllables in Pinyin and IPA. I found this one on talkbang.org, which I thought was just what I was looking for.

When I found my pronunciation of 去 (qù) "go" wasn't good I found on this site that the pronunciation would be /tɕʰu/, with the "u" sound similar to the one in Engish "food".

But my native Chinese speaking friend didn't understand me and the pronunciation he demonstrated for me sounded like /tɕʰy/, where /y/ is the IPA symbol for the "ü" sound not found in English but similar to a sound found in French and German.

I know in Pinyin the spellings and sounds for "ü" and "u" are not totally obvious for new learners and I haven't got a grip on this yet.

So is the chart on this website wrong, thus being part of what's hindering my progress, or am I just not hearing or understanding things at all?

I think it is a terrible mistake that the website has made, because there is no occasion when qu is pronounced tsʰu in Mandarin. Since you can actually tell the difference between u and ü, things should be easier for you now. You can just memorise that after (pinyin) j, q, x, y, ü is always written as u, and if you see u after j, q, x, y, it's always pronounced as ü. It shouldn't cause any confusion at least to native speakers because these consonants are never followed by a vowel sound u but only by a ü.

The following is based upon an English accent.

The u in qu is defiantly more of a goo sound, as in the sticky green stuff. As 去 is 4th tone, it is also quite a short sound. This is different to 不, where the u is more oooo, interesting.

The q is more of a choo choo sound, rather than a chip sound.


Should I use 就 in when translating "when you say it like that, I feel confused", e.g. ...我就感到困惑? If I want to say "When you say it like that, I feel confused" would it be "你这么说的时候，我就感到困惑"? Also, if I just wanted to say "saying it like that makes me confused" would that be "这么说让我感到困惑"? Trying to get a feel for how sentences are constructed. Thanks.

In short:

你这么说的时候，我就感到困惑.
Whenever you say it like that, I feel confused.

你这么说的时候，我(会)感到困惑.
When you say it like that, I feel confused.

I don't think you should add 就.
I am a nativie Chinese. Believe me .I don't feel good when I read the sentence 你这么说的时候，我就感到困惑.


What's the difference between 战略 and 策略？ What's the difference between 战略 and 策略？

The word I am looking to translate from English is "strategy." I vaguely remember a Chinese teacher once explaining 战略 as more of high level strategy and 策略 as department-based tactics.

I've found an article on the Chinese MBAlib explaining "pricing strategy" as 价格策略.   MBAlib Link

战略
  1.指导战争全局的计划和策略。对战术而言。 （战术: tactic）
  洪深《戏剧导演的初步知识》：“兵书上说得好：战略与战术乃二个全异之行动。战术是关于战斗诸种行动之指导法，战略乃连系配合各种战斗之谓。战略为作战之根源，即创意定计；战术乃实行战略所要求之手段。”
  2.有关战争全局的。
  由战略防御转入战略进攻。
  3.比喻在一定历史时期指导全局的方略。
  邓小平《高级干部要带头发扬党的优良传统》：“我们一定要认识到，认真选好接班人，这是一个战略问题。”

  战略，是一种从全局考虑谋划实现全局目标的规划，战术只为实现战略的手段之一。实现战略胜利，往往有时候要牺牲部分利益，去获得战略胜利。战略是一种长远的规划，是远大的目标，往往规划战略、制定战略、用于实现战略的目标的时间是比较长的。
  争一时之长短，用战术就可以达到！如果是“争一世之雌雄”，就需要从全局出发去规划，这就是战略！

战略 and 策略 may not be directly mapping to English as strategy and tactic. But for sure, 战略 is something that think bigger, long term, comprehensive and high level one. From Chinese to English, the mapping English word for 战略 is strategy. But from English to Chinese, the word for strategy can be 战略 or 策略. It depends.
Why is 策略 here for Pricing Strategy? I think this is because 战略 is more comprehensive, globally, something bigger than only pricing. It may consider all the aspects the corporation should care about. Sometimes, 战略 could be more abstract than 策略. Pricing is just one aspect, specific and detail topic here. If you search 经营策略 in that site, you will find many words about 经营战略. Because 企业经营（running business） is more strategy and bigger topic than pricing.

And another thing is that 战略 is now widely used in many competitive context, not only about military and war.

I feel 策略 is more strategy and 战略 seems a bit more tactical.


What is the difference between 店 and 馆? In class I remember my 老师 said there is a difference between 店 and 馆。
For example: 咖啡店 and 咖啡馆。In this context what is the difference?

There is difference between 店 and 馆. Actually, it is likely be the convention of Chinese expression.

茶馆: a place where you can drink tea.

茶店: a place where you can buy tea, usually called 茶叶店.

咖啡馆=咖啡店，旅馆=旅店，理发馆=理发店

but 饭馆≠饭店，酒馆≠酒店

i don't think there is a a difference. Technically, say 咖啡馆 is more oral, 咖啡店 is more literal.


What is the difference between 依偎 and 偎傍？ I looked them up and they both have relatively the same meaning. So what's the difference between the two?

依偎 implies a strong sentimental attachement, usually expressing love or affection. Mostly used between couples, lovers, child and parent.

偎傍 doesn't necessarily carry so much personal feelings, just meaning "stay side by side closely" and is seldom to use in informal/oral conversation. I think it's original from Chinese poems.

Here is a understanding:

依偎->weak 依偎 strong
偎傍->have same strength

for example, 依偎 is used as a baby(weak in strength) 依偎 his mother (stronger in strength), and 偎傍 is used as two comrade(have the same strength) 偎傍 each other. There is more example, '杨柳依偎磐石'，'磐石相互偎傍'.


Reconstruction of Old Chinese "少" There are many characters that have the initial "m-" and contain "少" as a phonetic element at the same time, such as 妙, 秒, 眇, 竗, etc. I thought this was a good reason to judge that "少" used to have "m"(either voiced or voiceless) in Old Chinese. Then I looked up through B-S's reconstruction. They reconstructed it as /*[s.t]ewʔ/, but I couldn't find any explanation. What is a good reason to judge that "少" used to have "t" instead of "m"?

Baxter–Sagart's (2014:135) view on *s.t-:

Preinitial *s- had a range of effects on unaspirated stops and affricates . . . Old Chinese *s.t-, but not *s.tʕ-, evolves to MC sy- (plausibly [ɕ]), presumably through an intermediate stage [stɕ] that simplified to the Middle Chinese palatal fricative sy- under the influence of pre-initial *s: *s.t- > *stɕ- > *ɕ- = sy-.

For 少, B–S's MC reconstruction is syewX. The consensus of MC is ɕiᴇuX. This is supported by the fanqie 書沼切 of the third division in Guangyun. All MC reconstructors concur the 書-initial is /ɕ/.

I believe B–S is aware of the conflict between the above theory and the presence of the 妙-type phono-semantic compounds. In fact, B–S applied the square brackets (which indicates uncertain identity, not lack of evidence, in which case parentheses would be used) to not only *s.t for 少, but also *m for the 妙-type phono-semantic compounds:

眇/杪/渺 *[m]ewʔ
妙 *[m]ew(ʔ)-s

Reconstruction evidence from the Chinese script is important but needs to be used with caution (Baxter–Sagart, 2014:26):

As with rhymes, in using evidence from the script to reconstruct Old Chinese, it is important to take into account not only which words were written with the same phonetic element, but also which words were not written with the same phonetic element. Traditional Chinese philologists noticed cases where initial consonants that were very different in later pronunciation were apparently treated as interchangeable in the early script.

The example 喻四古歸定 was immediately given where initials y- and d- in MC were often interchanged in OC:

弋 yì < yik ‘shoot arrow with string attached’ is phonetic in
代 dài < dojH ‘replace’

余 yú < yo ‘I’ is phonetic in
涂 tú < du ‘path’

Edit

In constructing OC for 少, Zhengzhang (2003:154) caters both the agreement with MC sy- and phono-semantic diversity.

*hCj- 則生成書母字，如「勢」hŋjeds、「恕」 hnjas、「手」hnjɯw' (「手」與「杻」為同族詞，跟兄弟語「手指」泰文 niu'、緬文 hnjoɯh、基諾語 n̥u 同源)。「少」可諧「秒杪眇渺妙」應是 *hmhjew'，這樣才能與「鈔訬吵」 *smhreew 相諧，並跟「小」 *smew' 轉注（小少與「秒眇」等同根，但與「沙」只是異源同形）。

As for *hCj- (C: consonant), they make characters of the 書-initial (MC sy-), such as 勢 ('potential', shì, OC *hŋjeds), 恕 ('to forgive', shù, OC *hnjas), and 手 ('hand', shǒu, OC *hnjɯw'). 手 and 杻 ('ancient instruments of torture', chǒu) are family characters, and is etymologically the same as 'finger' in Thai (niu'), Burmese (hnjoɯh), and Jino (n̥u). 少 concurs with 秒杪眇渺妙 and should be reconstructed as *hmhjew'. This is also to reflect *smhreew in 鈔訬吵 and to be derived cognates with 小 (*smew'). Note 小/少 and the 秒/眇-type phonosemantograms are of the same origin, but not with 沙.

Zhengzhang (2003:141) also considers the preinitial *s- to usually precede nasal consonants (which is not what B–S thinks, see obstruents in point 1.):

戌 *smid, 烕 *hmed, 滅 *med
小 *smewʔ, 少 *hmjewʔ, 渺/秒 mewʔ
需 *snjo, 儒/襦/孺/濡 *njo

Moreover, unlike B–S, Zhengzhang does not attribute any morphological function to the preinitial. It merely serves to apparently explain phono-semantic compounds and phonetic loans.

In defence of B–S's OC construction: what is different in B–S than previous reconstructions is that it is heavily inspired by Vietic, Hmong-Mien, and Kra-Dai because they received early loan words from Chinese. I looked up Hán Nôm readings of 少; none of them began with /s/ but th (/tʰ/) instead:

thiểu, thẹo, thểu, thỉu, thiếu, thẻo

There is also morphological reason why a preinitial *s- is added before the Vietic *t: it either increases the valency of a verb (of a character other than 少), or creates an oblique deverbal noun (from said unknown character) (Sagart and Baxter, 2012).

少 shǎo < syewX < *[s.t]ewʔ ('few')
少 shào < syewH < *[s-t]ewʔ-s (adj. 'young'; n. 'the youth')

Notice in 少 shào (but not 少 shǎo, your character of inquiry), B–S is confident there is a morpheme boundary between *s and *t (denoted by a hyphen but not a period). This is because *s is likely to be a nominalising agent, creating the sense n. 'the youth', as seen in e.g.:

群賢畢至，少長咸集。（晉·王羲之《蘭亭集序》）
All the literati, the young and the old, have congregated. (Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion, tr. Wikisource)

While your hypothesis that 弋–代 is analogous to the 少–妙 situation is possible, you need to find more pairs as evidence. B–S obviously does not adopt this in their reconstruction because it is useless in face of Vietic evidence. Whereas this may work in Zhengzhang's system. B–S also did not reconstruct 吵 in OC, which has both “s-/t-” and “m-” readings in Guangyun (and so in Japanese [Go-on: みょう・しょう, Kan-on: びょう・そう] and Korean [묘, 초]). I have yet to find any B–S theory for the concurrence.

Personally, I think Zhengzhang synthesises existing evidence well. But B–S has a more analytical and innovative touch in their reconstruction. Evidence regarding 少 and whatever that it associates with are frequently conflicting, so there is yet a fixed answer.

References

Baxter, William H., and Sagart, Laurent. Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2014.

Zhengzhang, Shangfang. Old Chinese Phonology. Shanghai Educational Publishing House, 2003.

Sagart, Laurent, and Baxter, William H. "Reconstructing the *s- Prefix in Old Chinese". Language and Linguistics, vol. 13, no. 1, 2012, pp. 29-59.

I'm not a linguist, but the phonetic element should have some validity, some characters used as indicator of phonetic in a compound character. Only that you listed a limited amount of letters and got the conclusion. The phonetic 少 indicates pronunciation of 'ao' instead of 'm', the letters you listed read 'miao', though different intonations. Indeed 少 itself is pronounced 'shao' instead of 'm+vowel'. But some ancient Chinese pronunciation of the same letter was different from today, so I think we should refer to work of Chinese archaeologists, historians, linguist and literature scholars. Hope that helps ;)


How do you write “hacker” in Chinese?… (where hacker doesn't have an evil connotation) How do you write "hacker" in Chinese?...
For purposes of this question, here is the definition in English:

Hacker /ˈhækər/ (noun)

One who likes to program.
One who utilizes technology to go beyond the limits inherent to the design of an application.

I'm not talking about only black-hat hackers (which is unfortunately the public perversion of the word "hacker" and has an evil connotation, in addition to usually referring incorrectly to mostly script kiddies and not true Black Hats anyways).
Instead I'm referring to the definition above, which may include the entire gambit Black-Grey-White, but is not limited to those subsets.
Thanks!

黑客 is the Chinese word for Hacker.

黑 can work as a verb meaning to hack.

客 is a suffix that means person here.

It does also include the different definitions you're looking for, almost practically the same as English.

黑客 on Wikipedia says:

  “黑客”一词最早是用来称呼研究如何盗用电话系统的人，这一类人士也被称作“飞客”（Phreak）。[3]
  在计算机软件方面，“黑客”是对于计算机及计算机网络内部系统运作特别感兴趣并且有深入理解能力的一种人。[4]
  在业余计算机DIY方面，“黑客”是指研究如何修改计算机相关产品的业余爱好者。从1970年代起，有很多这一类社区聚焦于硬件研究。
  在信息安全里，“黑客”指研究如何智取计算机安全系统的人员。他们利用公共通讯网路，如电话系统和互联网，在非正规的情况下登录对方系统，掌握操控系统之权力。

The wikipedia page also has translations of the different types of hats aswell:

  白帽黑客（White Hat）

  灰帽黑客（Grey Hat）

  黑帽黑客（Black Hat）

You might as well check out the entire page, I'm sure you'll find more information that would be helpful/useful for you.

‘Hack’ in words like lifehack often get translated more like 妙招 or 小技巧 or 小窍门.

Hacker: 黑客 (universal word), 骇客 (black-hat hacker)

Geek: 极客

Script kiddie: 脚本小孩


Chinese Dictionary Question What do the characters in angle brackets signify?

Examples:

http://www.zdic.net/z/15/xs/4E48.htm
"〈后缀〉"   "〈助〉"

http://www.zdic.net/z/16/xs/54C1.htm
"〈形〉"   "〈名〉"   "〈动〉"

Every good dictionary has the definitions of the words and its classes. The class of the word comes before the definition of thereof. That way you might know what is its definition as used in a specific class before you even read its definition. By classes I mean: nouns, verbs, pronouns, suffixs, etc. For exemple, the word 么 as a suffix has a different meaning when compared when used as a "auxiliary"

后缀 = suffix
助动词 = auxiliary verb
形容词 = adjective
名词 = noun
动词 = verb


How to (hand) write Chinese characters faster Are there any resources / how-to sources about how to write Chinese characters faster than normal while still being readable? It took me forever to take notes while in class.

In restaurants (茶餐廳) in Hong Kong, the "waiters" also face this problem because writing in a formal and clear way takes too much time. They developed methods so that they can take orders faster:

Write words with other words that has the same pronunciation.
For example, instead of writing the word 「飯」(faan6), they would write 「反」(faan2) because they both have similar pronunciations.
Draw symbols instead of words.
Instead of writing 「叉燒」, writing 「╳燒」takes less time and is still readable.
Try to write with less strokes. Instead of writing a stroke by another, try this:

Use a mixture of Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese: (applies to people who are outside of mainland China, mainly for users of Traditional Chinese)
Eg: 我是一個好学生。

Learn the simplified characters. That's what they're there for.

IMHO, they aren't easier to learn. But they ARE easier to write.


Are 朝鲜冷面 (Cháoxiǎn lěngmiàn) from Korea (North and South) or only North Korea? In Tianjin, sometimes we see 朝鲜冷面 (Cháoxiǎn lěngmiàn) for sale:

Breaking this down:

朝鲜 (Cháoxiǎn) = Korea or North Korea, depending on context
冷面 (lěng miàn) = cold noodles

YouDao says 朝鲜冷面 translates to "Korean cold noodles".

Question: Are 朝鲜冷面 from Korea (North and South) or only North Korea?

朝鮮冷麪 is just Korean cold noodles, not specifically from North or South Korea.

The confusion arises because 朝鮮 may be either translated as

Korea, as it is the traditional name for Korea which matches the Joseon Dynasty (大朝鮮國 or 朝鮮王朝);
North Korea, because this is what 朝鮮 refers to after the Division of Korea; the official name of the country is 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國 (Democratic People's Republic of Korea).

For anything to do with traditional culture/art/food etc., it is improbable that 朝鮮 means North Korea, although only context can make you certain of what it really refers to. Since cold noodles is a traditional food eaten throughout the whole of the Korean peninsula, 朝鮮冷麪 should be taken as (traditional) Korean cold noodles.

For disambiguation purposes, one may call North Korea as 北朝鮮 or 北韓 instead. Compare South Korea, which may be unambiguously called either 南韓 or 韓國; note that it is exceedingly rare to refer to South Korea with the name 朝鮮.

If one wants to unambiguously refer to Traditional Korea, one may use the archaic word 高麗 instead, which is where the English name Korea comes from.

The Korea Peninsula used to be called 高丽. The name of 朝鲜 is granted by 朱元璋, the first emperor of the 明 dynasty. However, in the name of the ethno-lingual group residing on The Peninsula, the 韩 people, the character was rather like randomly selected to represent the pronunciation in their native language.

In the period of Japanese colonization and after, especially after Japan’s surrender in 1945 and the Korean civil war which involved People’s Voluntary Army (of China) and American troops (under the flag of UN), the rise of Korean nationalism in the south sought to lessen the influences from both Japan and China, and chose 大韩民国 (Republic of Korea) as the name of their state, whereas the Labor Party in the north sought to inherit the old Korea Empire and to stay close with “communist” comrades, namely PRC and USSR, selected 朝鲜民主主义人民共和国 (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) instead. Note that the English word “Korea” comes from “高丽”, so actually DPRK should be DPRC (Democratic People’s Republic of Chosen).

Probably due to the Cold War, PRC used the name “朝鲜族” to refer to the Korean immigrants who came from The Peninsula during the Japanese colonization in The Peninsula and Manchuria.

Bearing these in mind, you should understand that “朝鲜” doesn’t refer to DPRK only; it is the name of the country of The Peninsula for centuries; the division has been there for decades but unity shall be restored and independence shall be earned.


Do the Chinese have text speak? Please answer in simplified Chinese characters

I recently met a Chinese person who was right in there with the acronyms, abbreviations and text-slang. Words like:

u
brb
gtg
imo

So as you can see, she was pretty knowledgeable about the text-slang we have in English. So, I was wandering if you had any text speak, slang or abbreviations that are used in Mandarin that are similar to the ones in English. For example, are there ones similar to the ones I listed above?

Obviously, not every English speaker uses these silly abbreviations over text or the internet, certainly not me, so I'm not saying that any Chinese person does this. But, is there any of this that exists in the Chinese language?

Short answer: yes. Skip to the last paragraph for a few examples.
Long answer: it depends.
Firstly, the Chinese language is:

isolating (low morpheme per word ratio)
written with characters

As you said, words used in English text speak are acronyms, i.e. made up from initial letters of some other words:

  brb = be right back

In Chinese, characters are morphemes which are also words, therefore if text speak = acronyms (like imho, wrt), then there's very little room for it.

You do have sort of acronyms, or abbreviations, in Chinese. The most common occurrence is in lengthy names, for instance those of institutions, which comprise several two-character words. These are most of the times abbreviated using the most significant character from each distinct word. Example:

  (食品)药品监督管理局 (food &) drug administration
  becomes: 药监局

If text speak = word contraction, then yes, there are some forms commonly used in colloquial speech that eliminate bound morphemes:

  什么 > 啥
  怎么 > 咋

Finally you can find some slang words used in written language that resemble more closely those you are talking about. Not real acronyms for the reasons stated above, but roman letters used in place of characters with the same pronunciation, which we can construe as examples of slang text speak in Chinese:

  p了 （bullshit!) -> letter p instead of 屁 (pi4)
  sb (idiot) -> first pinyin letters of 傻逼 sha bi
  wp (outsider) -> first pinyin letters of 外屁 wai pi, a distortion of 外地(人) used as a slur for non Shanghainese people in Shanghai.
  ooxx (having sex) -> letters o (read oh) and x (read cha as 叉 cross, same pronunciation as 插, insert/stick）

Yes, texting is written spoken language, so there is inevitably what you call text-speak. I'm guessing there are fb (facebook), app (mobile app), 3q (thank you).


Usage of 就 in these two examples I'm taking an intermediate Chinese course and ran across a character whose usage I can't quite wrap my head around: 就.

I believe the meaning of the character itself are "then, right away, etc." However, I'm finding it difficult to really understand the usage from just the definition itself. Here is an example from the textbook I'm using:

等你来天津， 我就给你当导游。 (When you come to Tianjin, I'll give you a tour.)
等你来天津， 我给你当导游。(When you come to Tianjin, I'll be your guide.)

How should I interpret 就 in this context?

Thank you.

[等 (X) 就 (Y)] = [wait till (X) then (Y)]

Example:

等(你来天津)， 我就(给你当导游。)

wait till (you come to Tianjin,) I'll then (be your tour guide.)

Other combinations:

  [一 (X) 就 (Y)]  = [once/as soon as (X) then (Y)]

Example:

你一(来天津)， 我就(给你当导游)

Once (you come to Tianjin,) I'll then (be your tour guide.)

  [如果(X) 就 (Y)] = [if (X) then (Y)]

Example:

如果(你来天津) 我就(给你当导游)

If (you come to Tianjin,) I'll then (be your tour guide.)

等你来上海, 我就给你当导游.
Ni bien llegues a Shanghai, te daré un tour o  Cuando vengas a Shanghai,   yo  daré un tour.

等你来上海, 我给你当导游
Cuando vengas a Shanghai, seré tu guía o
Seré para ti como tu guía, cuando vengas a Shanghai.


Which non-sinitic languages contributed to the wordstock of common chinese words before 1800? I am not interested in modern words like telephone, aeroplane, but words that were incorporated into the more frequent used part of the vocabulary from languages different than sinitic.

You have the entire stock of Sanskrit buddhist terms that have been incorporated to Chinese, like 菩萨, 佛, 涅盘 and similar terms. 苹果 is also Sankrit in origin, while 葡萄 and other fruits have been picked up along the Silk road.

Mongolian words such as 达赖 (as in 达赖喇嘛, where 喇嘛 is Tibetan), have also crept into the langauge through religion.

Cantonese and Vietnamese have had a lot of exchange throughout the years, but are mostly local.

Although Japan has greatly been influenced by Chinese from Tang and onwards, there has also been a large import from Japan to China. Words like 经济 and 社会 do not really make sense in Chinese (component-wise), but are Japanese in origin. A more modern example would be the redefinition of 萌 as a cute young person, like in 萌妹纸.

Refer to Marc's answer for Manchu and Russian influences; there are quite many loanwords from northern tribes, like 哥哥.

洋人- foreigners

洋火- match

洋教士/神父- priest

倭寇- Japanese pirate

波斯-Persia （the old name of Iran）

西域-the Western Regions (a Han Dynasty term for the area west of Yumenguan

伊斯兰教-Islam
.etc


How to translate "暧昧" into English? Many dictionaries translate it to "ambiguity",but it looks so indefinitely.

I'm looking for more expressive answer.

Depending on context, 暧昧[pronounced as ài mèi] can take on a few meanings. The following is quoted from Baidu with some explanations in English:

（态度、用意）含糊；不明白。(attitude or intent is unclear or incomprehensible)
（行为）不光明；不可告人。(behavior is dishonorable or secretive, like having an illicit affair)
男女或同性肉体关系还处于想象段。(at the non-physical stage of a relationship, that is, in between friendship and intimate relationship)
男女或同性关系还未发展到恋人关系，但是行为举止和恋人关系差不多。(same as 3)

暧昧 is usually used to describe a kind of ambiguous relationship that is neither here nor there. It is not necessarily a negative word.

Personally it is a "shady relationship", although I am not a local english speaker.


Chinese expression for "go out early and return early" I'm Looking for a Chinese expression that means something like "go out early and return early" or "the sooner you leave, the sooner you can come back". It expresses a wish for a person who is leaving the house (e.g. for work) to return in a timely manner.

I thought it was 早去早回來, but I can't find a reference for this. The only similar phrase I could find was 早出晚歸, which has a very different meaning.

早去早回 means exactly what you want as "go out early and return early" or "the sooner you leave, the sooner you can come back".
早出晚归 means "go out early and return late" which is always used to describe a person work hard and busy.

早死早超生负面情绪多一点，早死早投胎更多正能量的表达。


Is this sentence right ? 用两个语言把自己介绍 I'm making a video which I speak a few words about myself in two languages. I want to have a Chinese title for it.

1- 用 (使用/通过) 两个语言把自己介绍
2- 用(使用/通过) 两个语言把自己介绍
3- 用 (使用/通过) 两个语言来介绍自己
4- 用(使用/通过)两个语言介绍自己

Which one is correct ? or any other suggestions?
Thank you!

The correct classifier for 语言 is not 个, but 种
The following are grammatically correct
用两种语言介绍自己
以两种语言介绍自己
两种语言的自我介紹

I want to have a Chinese title for it

双语 (bilingual) is less wordy and more literary than 两种语言 (two languages) which is more colloquial
As a title, a noun phrase feels more formal than a verb phrase
Depend on your preference you can consider:
以双语介绍自己 = Introduce Yourself Bilingually (verb phrase)
or
双语自我介绍 = Bilingual Self-introduction (noun phrase)

The Chinese characters should be 3 and 4。
Adding "来" to the third sentence makes people feel closer。
More like the words of a human being than the words printed on paper。
By the way
The word "两个语言" in the title should not be"个 ", but "钟". The language's quantifier is" 种"
That's not a mistake：）This is Chinese