synonyms/phrases/poems related to: 情深恭敬少 ABC Proverbs

情深恭敬少 ,知己谈笑多
Lit [When] friendship [is] deep, formalities are few; [for] close confidants, chats [and] laughter are many.
Fig Intimate friends don't stand on ceremony.

What synonyms/phrases/poems are related to 情深恭敬少?
Online material mostly just explains the phrase itself.

The so call " poem" itself is not very polished. I suppose the person who wrote "情深恭敬少 " was thinking an idea along the line of " 熟不拘禮 " ( being so close, there's no need for formalities" )

For 知己談笑多 which is not a convincing statement because 酒肉朋友 談笑 more. Anyway, a phrase "酒逢知己千杯少" (It is such a joy to drink with good friends, one can forget how much he has drunken.) is from a famous poem that depict heartfelt interaction between good friends.


How do you describe a vegetarian item? As in a vegetarian burrito? So, in english when describing whether something is friendly for vegetarians or not we say "vegetarian object_____". Is there an equivalent in Chinese?
For example could you say "素的墨西哥卷“？

In Mandarin, we use the prefix "素".

In Cantonese, we use the prefix "齋"

And the order is significant too:

"素墨西哥卷" implies that the original burrito contains meat and this one is a customized version for vegetarian.
"墨西哥素卷" implies that this vegetarian burrito is original Mexico food.

On the other hand, as wuyefeibao mentioned, you can add "的" in the phrase; and it is quite interesting in this case:

"墨西哥的素卷" == "墨西哥素卷"
"素的墨西哥卷" .... It can be both.  ^_^

You're on the right track, but don't expect to be completely understood one hundred percent of the time - I've noticed that vegaterian stuff is not exactly a concept in Chinese.

素面

ABC

  vegetarian noodle dish

So we have the pattern, like you wrote above just minus the 的, 素 + OBJ.

You can say 素墨西哥卷 but I would just say 素卷 for simplicity.


Regional variations of "柴米油盐酱醋茶" When I was very small, my grandparents mentioned there are regional variations of the phrase 柴米油盐酱醋茶 which is widely known to the local population (instead of made up by nobody and only used by a small circle). The first 4 things are still 柴米油盐 while the last 3 things are partially or completely different to reflect the local customs. Then they brought up an example but I forgot the characters long time ago.

Now I search online, I couldn't find any evidence showing such variation exists. Does anyone know if there really are common variations of the phrase, and what they are?

In Short
Variant One

柴米油盐
Pinyin : chai2 mi3 you2 yan2

Variant Two

鍋碗瓢盆
Pinyin : guo1 wan3 piao3 pen2
Literally : wok, bowl, ladle and tub

Detailed
In my area, sometimes we just say it that way.
As a Chinese, I don't quite feel like to go that deep into the source behind, nor did I really care about there're some three other characters hacked off.
But now, if you wanna me to say something about it, yes I can.
Four-character phrases, idiom or not, are pretty popular my area, pretty popular all over China too.
In China, people talk faster than foreigners thought, so seven character version is not so effective, it's like a poem. Four character one is welcome, and because we have hundreds of, or maybe thousands of, never count it, informal/formal four-character catch phrases.
For those who utter out this phrase, probably they don't care about literature, that's what used to be the paraphernalia of notable men.
鍋碗瓢盆 are the everyday kitchen utensils, so they match the flavors, seamless.

Update
油鹽醬豉姜椒茶

Pinyin : you2 yan2 jiang4 chi3 jiang1 jiao1 cha2
Literally : oil, salt, sauce, fermented soybeans, ginger, pepper, and tea

參見此處，來源於「湖海新聞夷堅續志」（元代 無名氏著），其影印本見此處 (See here, the source (whose scan can be found here)「湖海新聞夷堅續志」is a collection of mysterious stories, whose author is unknown but believed to be someone living in Yuan Dynasty.)

as a person from China, I personally confirm this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_necessities


A 理解 and 了解 comparison I know the question regarding the difference has been asked but the answers didn't really help me in the other post. I'm trying to recall what my Chinese teacher once taught me.

理解 is when you can understand why something/someone is how it is, but 了解 is more of a deeper connection or understanding of someone.

For example: If you went to an area with a lot of poverty and lived there for a bit, could you say that you finally 了解 them? Sorry for the mix of Chinese and English haha.

Is this correct?

Chinese verbs are usually made up according to this formula:
modificator + modificated or modificator + a verb to modify.
So when I seen that 理解 and 了解 ending with the same charecter (解), this usually means that there is a slight modification of a verb 解(to divide) is in play.

So let's find the roots of the word:

  理　(11)　リ　 As per 里# (long strip) + 玉 jewel → veins or streaks in a
  piece of jade → logic; reason (← lines/threads of a reasoning
  process ← vein; streak) → principle; natural science.

So here we already see the connotation which 理 brings: lines/patterns of reasoning. Now add this to 解 and you have "to understand解(split/crack) by reasoning理".

Now about 了 which is 瞭 simplified:

  瞭　(17)　リョウ　 As per 尞# as described in 僚 (circular continuum) + 目 eye →
  observe from a high place, enjoying a clear panoramic view → *clear-sighted; clarity.

Now you add everything up and you have: "to understand 解 clearly or by observation (not by reasoning理)"


Does 下 in 吃不下饭 convey any meaning? 我们着急得吃不下饭，睡不好觉。

I understand that 好 in 睡不好觉 adds the meaning of "well", so "sleep well" instead of "sleep", but does 下 in 吃不下饭 change anything?

Yes it does.
I won't go into the details of your textbook example. It may not be the best one because in that sentence the 下 could probably be replaced by some other result complement and roughly keep the same translation in English.
Generally speaking, 下 as a result complement often has the meaning of fitting or containing (the potential complement as in "V 得 Res." and "V 不 Res." constructions is similar to the result complement).
Some examples:

他车子能坐下5个人 (= his car can accommodate 5 people)

电梯里站得下10个人 (= ten people can fit in the elevator = the elevator can contain ten people)

这个箱子太小了，装不下这么多衣服 (= this box is too small, it can't contain so many clothes)

我吃不下饭 (= I can't eat any more = I can't fit any more food in my stomach, or, my stomach can't contain any more food)

As additional proof of the semantic value of 下 in this construction, you can replace it with another result complement to a different effect:

我吃不了饭 (= I can't eat = meaning that something is preventing you from doing so, instead of your stomach being unable to eat more, e.g. 今天我工作太忙，吃不了饭)

吃不下饭 can be found in Adsotrans as:

VERB
to be unable to eat

吃不下 Is recorded in multiple dictionaries. Here’s the entry from Pleco C-E:

VERB
not feel like eating; be unable to eat any more (opp. 吃得下)
他不太舒服, 吃不下饭。
Tā bù tài shūfu, chī bu xià fàn.
He’s not very well and doesn’t feel like eating.
谢谢, 我实在吃不下了。
Xièxie, wǒ shízài chī bu xià le.
Thanks, but I really can’t eat any more. or Thanks, I’ve really had enough.

The reason I included this is because it includes the opposite: 吃得下.
Some verbs can be qualified with 得下 or 不下 indicating ability or lack thereof.


How would I translate "与君知" Google translate his been giving me straight pinyin as a translation, and pleco doesn't have what I'm looking for. I got the definitions of each individual character, but I'm not sure how to put them together to make them sounds good. If there's not a smooth translation for this title, would it be better to keep it in pinyin?

It's the name of a song.

My translation would be something like "With your knowledge" with the understanding that "your" refers to somebody of a higher status, usually either due to them being royalty or them being immensely respected and of a good moral character (or both!).

To explain, 与 means "with" or "and," a meaning that has not changed much since ancient times. You see it a lot in formal writing, and even in some jargon (e.g. 与门 refers to the AND gate of a logical circuit). In this particular context, it is clear that it probably means "with" as it appears to be a preposition more than a conjunction.

In classical Chinese (文言文), one typically finds the usage of 君 to mean roughly the same as 您 i.e. a polite, honorific pronoun to address somebody of a higher status.

From 有道词典：

  封建时代指帝王、诸侯等，引申为人的尊称，相当于“您”。道德品行良好的人也可称君子。

which, roughly translated, means that during feudal times, 君 referred to kings, princes etc, and others would use it to respectfully address them, equivalent to today's 您. The word 君子 can also be used to refer to somebody with high moral standards and good character.

知 refers to knowledge. You may be familiar with the term 知道 in modern Chinese which means "to know."

It's just a classical way of saying -- "FYI" -- "For Your Information"


What does 厉害 mean, and in what context does it mean what? This has to be one of the more ambiguous words I have struggled with.

厉害 can be:

very well performed = 玩得很厉害;
harsh = 骂得很厉害;
severe = 生病得很厉害;
probably a bunch of other stuff...

Can anyone give a comprehensive summary of the meanings and related contexts?

It is somewhat similar in usage to the word great in English, with the following meanings I can recall:
Impressive or skilled:

他的功夫非常厉害。= He is very skilled in martial arts.
太厉害了，他是怎么做到的？ = Very impressive, how did he manage to achieve that?

formidable:

厉害的角色 = A formidable figure (not one to be messed around with)
厉害的手段 = formidable tactics (in a sporting game, or as part of political intrigue)

severe:

某某股跌得太厉害了 = Stock X has taken a severe fall (in value)

However, 厉害 is not usually the phrase/word of choice to describe a performance (of the arts).

I have been quite busy preparing for my Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) exam, a Mandarin certification exam held twice annually. There are five levels and I started from the third level. Translator in Beijing


What is the character missing in 「好吃jing」? My grandma always referred to me as a "好吃jin(g?)" i.e. a glutton. However I'm not sure which character goes in the third one. This might be regional (Anhui) dialect, I am not sure, because I couldn't find an appropriate word in the dictionary or keyboard suggestions.

I would suggest 「好吃精」 (Mandarin Pinyin: hàochī jīng), where 「精」 is short for something like 「妖精」 (demon). 「好吃精」 then means glutton demon.
See also https://baike.baidu.com/item/好吃鬼, where 「好吃精」 is listed as a synonym.

It's 好吃惊, which means I'm really surprised. Character jing, 惊, can be also used for 惊喜, which means surprise. Also for 惊吓，which means being shocked.
I saw people answer 好吃精。I promise that as a Chinese I have never heard about any one using this word.


What's the relationship between 炮 and 砲? 炮 and 砲 both mean "cannon", but it seems the former is much more common, and the latter only really seen in Xiangqi.

Is there a difference in meaning? For example, on wikipedia it is said that 砲 means "catapult", due to the stone radical.
Was 砲 a made-up variant used for Xiangqi? I know that for Xiangqi, different characters were chosen, which sometimes lead to arbitrary choices (e.g. 傌 which has nothing to do with horses)
Or were there deeper historical reasons? For instance, it's hard to believe that 炮 existed before gunpowder, so it's plausible that 砲 was used earlier, to mean "catapult".

Usually, people use 炮.

According to the dictionary [http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/] : 砲

  同「炮」。 (砲 is the same with 炮)

We can say 砲火連天/炮火連天, 砲響/炮響, 馬後砲/馬後炮, 弩砲/弩炮, 開砲/開炮. Boths are acceptable and interchangeable.

炮's meaning involves fire but 砲's meaning involves stone.

The early cannonballs (sling) were made by stone, so people use 砲 to describe it.
With the time past, fire was much counted so 炮 was derived from 砲 to describe gunpowder and the bullets. Therefore, 炮 appears and become more commonly used.
You can find some relevant sentences in the ancient chinese books:

【集韻】【韻會】【正韻】披敎切，拋去聲。俗作"砲"(name as 砲)。機石也(are just the stones of a slinging machine)。
 About the slinging machine :
【前漢·甘延壽傳】投石(sling)拔距絕於等倫。
【張晏曰】《范蠡兵法》:飛石(flying stone)重十二斤，爲機發(from a machine)，行二百步，礮蓋出此。
【後漢·袁紹傳】曹操(Cao cao)發石車(slinging machine)擊袁紹，軍中呼霹靂車。【註】卽今拋車。
【魏略曰】諸葛亮(Zhuge Liang)起衝車，郝昭以繩連石磨壓之，衝車折，卽礮事。
【唐書·李密傳】以機發石(sling a stone by a machine)，爲攻城械(is a machine for attacking)，號「將軍礮」。又通作「拋」(commonly used as "throw")。

明朝方以智《通雅》: 「象棋始於唐，周武之《象經》，非今之象戲也。」
.................: Xiangqi is from Tang Dynasty...............
From Wikipedia : 象棋 (chinese chess / Xiangqi)

Gunpowder is also from that time but slinging machines were still used in military aspect. Therefore, 砲 was used in Xiangqi until now.

In fact, not every Chinese can tell the difference between them. Nowadays, people are more familiar with 炮. So if you write 砲, some people may think it's not so proper.

砲 is mangonel.

While 炮 is cannon (using gunpowder).

石=stone, 火=fire.

In ancient Chinese, 炮(páo) means barbecue or a technique of preparing medicines or a cook-man.

Since the invention of gunpowder, 炮 had the same tone with 砲(pào).

Mechanisms in Ancient Chinese Books with Illustrations
by Kuo-Hung Hsiao and Hong-Sen Yan, p.108


How to distinguish the difference between the pronunciation of different erhuayin? For example,

小黄儿, 小欢儿, 小花儿;
唱歌儿, 树根儿, 一横儿;

What's the difference?

I can't understand the difference between each phonetic symbol in the same row in the table below:

The picture is from Wikipedia.

I agree with TaraWordoor. You shouldn't be able to differentiate /er/ from /nr/ because when the sound /n/ is "erhua"-ed, you don't pronounce /n/ at all. So if you want to say 人儿, you're actually pronouncing /rer/. (BTW, these sounds are not in international phonetic alphabet. They're basically pinyin.) However, you should be able to hear the difference between /er/(/nr/) and /ngr/ because /ngr/ has a nasal sound at the end.

As you said, after you move to southern China, it's not a problem any more. It is mainly because "the southerners" (with all due respect) don't have 儿化音, and they don't have the difference between /n/ and /ng/ either. However, if you watch sit-coms about people from the north, it should be pretty easy to tell. I can't agree with some of the responses that standard Mandarin doesn't have 儿化音. Mandarin, as a partially artificial language, uses Beijing accent as a standard and northern accent in general as a base. So by definition, Mandarin should have 儿化音. The reason why you don't hear them often in the news is because 儿化音 is more colloquial and less formal. When you say something like 可爱的人儿, you're basically saying "cutie pie"; but when you say 可爱的人, you're saying "lovely person". Not just the meaning changes, the connotation changes as well.

Actually, the difference of the pronunciation with and without erhuayin is just like British English pronunciation and American pronunciation, for example, 'worker', in British you can't hear 'er' pronunciation but can clearly hear 'er' in American English. So, typically that's the 'same difference' in Chinese speaking, erhuayin or not.


What is the difference between 日 and 号? Right now I am taking Mandarin 1 in Brooklyn Tech. From my understanding, 号 and 日 both mean "day." I took it upon myself to check Google Translate and find out what they both mean for confirmation. I found:

号: Day of the month; number
日:Day; Date; sun

So what is the difference? Can I use both terms in one sentence?(As in I could replace one with the other) Or are they more different than similar?

Note: I use trad.Chi so 號 is the same as 号

When you talk about a date, you can use 號 when you are talking casually with people, for example:

  今天是幾多號？
  今天是十五號。

You can use 日 when you're writing (eg. diary or notes) or saying something formal:

  十二月八日

Both has the same meaning.

[!] If you use them for other meanings, they are totally different.

日 is the more formal way to say "day" like you are speaking with a businessman/businesswoman. 号 is more casual to speak with friends.


Why does 千秋 mean a swing? Breaking down each word it means thousand autumns.

Why does this mean a playground swing?

Is this a local cantonese word or is it used in mandarin too?

in 唐 dynasty (618-907), there're records of 千秋:

the peom 樓前 by 王建

天寶年前勤政樓
每年三日作千秋
飛龍老馬曾教舞
聞著音聲總舉頭

another one is the 漢武帝後庭鞦韆賦 by 高無際, which stated:

況鞦韆者﹒千秋也﹒
漢武祈千秋之壽﹒
故後宮多鞦韆之樂

later, in 記纂淵海　卷八十九, by 潘自牧 (~1195) of 宋 dynasty (p33-34 of pdf file);

https://archive.org/details/06065623.cn

that the term "鞦韆" was elaborated. mr 潘 claimed that, according to mr 高:

鞦韆﹒漢武帝後庭之戲﹒
本云千秋﹒祝壽之詞也﹒
語訛轉為秋千﹒後人乃旁加革

briefly, it's 千秋  --> 秋千 --> 鞦韆

back to the original question, the game "swing" in cantonese is "千秋", which share the meaning "thousand autumn", a term for wishing for longevity.

lastly, i would say that it's one of the numerous evidences, that cantonese is highly correlated with middle chinese. or, one might say that cantonese preserve more / change less than other "dialects".

have fun :)

In mandarin, it's 秋千 (ie the two characters reversed), and 千秋 doesn't mean swing.

It actually has some connection with thousand years. Every swing cycle represents a year of life and you do it many times as a wish for longevity of the child.


What does 琴酒相壽 mean? This Chinese phrase 琴酒相壽 occurs in some calligraphy given to a colleague.
What does this mean in English?
I've tried basic Google searches and Google translator. I see other examples of the calligraphy but no explanation.

This is the same as 弹琴敬酒 为你祝寿, which means something like "playing the qin and drinking wine, to celebrate a loyal friend's birthday". Note that playing the qin is considered a very high-class and cultured activity in ancient China, as well as being one of the four main skills any learned person must acquire---“琴棋书画”, i.e. playing the qin, playing qi (Chinese chess), calligraphy, and painting. So the phrase 琴酒相寿 has a certain poetic or picturesque feeling to it beyond the meaning of the words themselves.

the phrase "琴酒相壽" is very odd, imo.

"相" can only be interpreted as mutually (互相). in most scenarios, when there's only one host (the "birthday-er"), participants of the event would not have the same birthday as the host. so, even they play the "琴", and drunk, for celebrating the host's birthday, it's one way, not mutually.

only in the situations of

twins, triplets, or whom were born on the same day
ceremony that people with the same age, "birth-year" ("同甲", or "同庚") celebrate together

then, one of the twins, or one of the participants of the latter; he/she uses this phrase for celebrating others' birthday, it's valid and truthful.

otherwise, i would not recommend this one for celebrate someone's longevity.

edited.

considering several 4 characters idioms, with 1st, 2nd character as noun, 3rd one is "相":

萍水相逢
名實相符
骨肉相連
首尾相應
鷸蚌相爭

isn't it clear, the usage of "相" as mutually?

that the reason why i say "相壽" is odd.

anyway, have fun :)


求解释: "我有问题" 和 "我有个问题" 中英 | Chinese & English 这个问题我找不到解释， 希望哪位高手可以帮下 ^^

学生想说 I have a question, 常常会说成 "我有问题."
我会教他们用 “我有个问题” 或者 “我有一个问题。”

原因是听到 “我有问题”的时候， 我的第一联想就是 “我脑子有问题。" 可是我语法上面解释不来也查不到。

现在我自己都快糊涂了。 所以我想问：

1） “我有问题” 是正确的吗？ 我左看右看都觉得是错的。 可是百度上却有人怎么用。 求解释。
“我有问题” 可以用的情况下为：
我有问题想问你。
你有问题的话， 去问老板。 (不过这句话， 我个人还是比较喜欢用 “如果你有任何问题的话， 去问老板”）

2) 在百度上也常常看到 “你有问题吗？”， 如果我的话， 我会想用 “你有没有什么问题？”。 但是这句话只要不从贬义的角度来看的话， 是没有什么问题的。 你是怎么看待这句话的？

谢谢。

这问题也发表在另一个语言论坛上。

English version

"我有问题" vs "我有个问题" - Grammar explanation if possible?

I can't find an answer to this question, so I hope someone here will be able to help out ^^
Students often say, "我有问题" when they want to say "I have a question."
I will have them use "我有个问题" or "我有一个问题" instead.

The reason is because when I hear "我有问题", my immediate thought is "我脑子有问题" (I have some "mental" problems). But I can't explain this phrase in term of grammar, nor can I find an explanation online.

You know how sometimes when you keep on digging into the basic things, you end up confusing yourself? (Or maybe that is just me -_-). Anyways, now I am confused. So I want to ask:
1) "我有问题" is this correct at all? It sounds wrong no matter how I look at it. But, people use it on Baidu. Explain please?

Now, I know that "我有问题" is corrected (with no ambiguity) when used in the following sentences:
我有问题想问你。
你有问题的话， 去问老板。 ( Just a personal preference, I prefer to say “如果你有任何问题的话， 去问老板”）

2) I see a lot of "你有问题吗?" on Baidu. If it were me, I'd prefer to say "你有没有什么问题？“ But this sentence is fine with me as long as I don't view it from a negative perspective. What is your opinion on this?

Thank you.
Cross posted on a different language forum.

It's actually very common to say “我有问题”, and indeed it would cause ambiguity without contexts.

I think it's because 问题 could be both "question" and "problem". The ambiguity can only be cleared within the context.

Although ambiguous usage should be avoided when it's likely to create confusion (actually, eliminating ambiguity in sentences is a vey common practice on language classes in China, but it's not a very strict grammar requirement), this kind of situation is very common in Chinese because the language is an Analytic Language which depends heavily on contexts where English depends more on the inflection of words and grammar.

This reminds me another similar situation when I was learning English. I thought "I'm hot" in English technically could mean "I feel hot", but it seems that to avoid ambiguity, most people probably would say "it's hot" or "I feel hot".

In general,when people ask:谁有问题？  you can answer：我有问题 or  我有个问题  。 but,When no one asked,and you need help.you can use the:我有个问题Rather than 我有问题.ok，This is my understanding.


冰雪聪明... only for girls? Is the expression 冰雪聪明 (bīng xuě cōng míng) really only used for girls? The literal translation is "snow smart" and I understand it means something along the lines of "extremely smart" but the times I've tried using it for boys/men I'm told it's only for girls.

冰雪聪明 always describes that someone is very clever and smart. It comes from 唐·杜甫《送樊二十三侍御赴汉中判官》诗：“坐知七曜历，手画三军势。冰雪净聪明，雷霆走精锐。”. But 冰雪聪明 is not only for girl.
冰雪聪明 can be used to describe the child too----冰雪聪明的孩子, but be careful when you use it to describe adult, especially male adult.
Other examples in ancient articles:

以冰雪聪明的文章，写雷霆精锐的思想，这种议论，就容易动人听闻了。（清·曾朴《孽海花》第十回）
姬冰雪聪明，靡不淹悟，类多韜匿不言。(清·陈孟楷 《湘烟小录·香畹楼忆语》)

Source：
為何叫冰雪聰明


How are abbreviations determined in Chinese? There doesn't really seem to be a clear standard, if you will, of how things are abbreviated in Chinese. For example:

中华人民共和国人力资源和社会保障部 -> 人社部
(传染性) 非典型肺炎 ->  非典

So: How are abbreviations determined in Chinese?

In whatever way that makes it convenient. There are probably endless different techniques used if one bothers looking for examples.

The situation is analogous to acronyms in Western languages. If you read that wiki article you'll find a huge list of examples and techniques used. Sometimes it's taking the first letters of words (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Or the first few letters (Geheime Staatspolizei). Sometimes even numbers are used (K9, 3M). Sometimes it's whatever the creators think is cool (GNU).

Back to your examples:

  中华人民共和国人力资源和社会保障部

The 中华人民共和国 is highly redundant, so remove.

  人力资源和社会保障部

This is actually 4 words, 人力资源, 社会保障, 部. Words like 和 are redundant so remove. Take the first character of each word and voila:

  人社部

With 非典型肺炎, it's a bit unusual. There are two words here, but the 非 modifies 典型 so you can't remove it without changing its meaning. So the best you can do using common techniques is "非典肺". From there it's easy to simply drop the 肺.

I found that a good reference for this is the Wikipedia entry on simplified chinese characters. In particular, in the section under methods of simplification, you'll find four different methods listed:

Structural simplification of characters
Derivation based on simplified character components
Elimination of variants of the same character
Adoption of new standardized character forms

And you'll find examples for each of the methods as well, but I won't bother repeating the contents here.


In Taiwanese, what can the erhwa be replaced with when it means something? For example, in Chinese, the erhwa changes a verb into a noun : 吃儿 (something to eat), 喝儿 (something to drink).

In Taiwanese, except for disyllabic words like 饮食 and 食物, how can I express something to eat maintaining the word 吃? Maybe 吃物?

In my experience 儿 doesn't really perform the role you mention about changing a verb into a noun, it just reinforces that something is a noun when it's ambiguous. For example 画 is 'to paint' or a painting, so if you mean a painting you say 画儿 to be clear you don't mean 'to paint'. But 吃 doesn't mean food, it means 'to eat', so 吃儿 doesn't need to exist to distinguish the two.

In Beijing I've found that most of the words with extra 儿's at the end are nouns that sound like other words. Adding the 儿 reduces the ambiguity when speaking by reducing the entropy of the language. That being said, there are lots of exceptions, 玩儿， 那儿， 这儿 etc.

You can use 吃的，喝的 etc. That would be the most common way to do it.

Edit: Assuming you mean Taiwanese Mandarin and not Taiwanese Hokkien. I wouldn't know about Hokkien.


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

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

Agree with StumpyJoePete.

As we all know = Everybody knows.

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

I think Damian Siniakowicz's suggestion will work.

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

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，说不定有農藥呢。

A couple more suggestions:

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，誰知道有沒有農藥呢？

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，可能有農藥呢。

For all you know, she could be lying to you.

听你所见,她可有在骗你.


Difference between 冲昏 and 抓狂? It seems like both of them refer to going crazy because of something.

Ex. 别被她冲昏了头脑

Ex. 你让我快抓狂

Can someone please help me differentiate when you would use which?

Thanks

All means mad，but different types of mad.

“冲昏” means you are so mad that you have already lost your mind.

“抓狂”means you are so mad but you do not know what to do.

我作为一名中国人来回答你：“冲昏”重在表示你的负面情绪影响你的判断力，而“抓狂”则重在表示你的负面情绪影响你的行为。


Is it appropriate to use 喂 by text? 喂 is used to answer the phone, but is it accepted over text? If not, is there an alternative to 你好 that's in common use (informally, like "hi", "hey", or "yo" in English).

Is 嗨 widely accepted in China, or would I come off as too English by using it?

Mostly  wei  can be used when you answer the phone , while it's too oralize to use over text. But someti
mes you can see it like this：

他正在打电话：“喂？”

他不耐烦的说道：“喂，哪位？”

I prefer it is better to use 你好 or 您好 as a alternative word. (Actually I use 您好 cause It's polite to when you talking or writing.)

If you want to write a letter or email , adding a adj. word such as 尊敬的 can be better.

Well, 嗨 is accepted in China and it is normal in the big city, most of people know the means of ‘hai’ ‘hei’ and use it frequently(like me...wave to the other so that he can see you.) , But If you lived in the countryside , 您好 is a better way.

In most cases 喂 means that you want to remind him it's not right to do things like this. It's pronounced as wei4, not wei2 in a phone call.


Why does Mandarin differentiate 发[發/髮] fa1/fa4 when most topolects don't? 發 and 髮 have been simplified into one single character: 发.

发 contains the separate meanings of 發 and 髮 but differentiates by tone: fa1 (fā) and fa4 (fà).

Most topolects (西安，武汉，洛阳，乌鲁木齐，贵阳，济南，柳州，万荣，etc.) don't have a tonal differentiation and 发 only has one pronunciation.

What is the origin of the tonal differentiation in Mandarin?

We might never know the real reason. All those rime books indicate that 發 (out) and 髮 (hair) are always the same pronunciation, and both are entering tone (入聲). This means there is a terminal -t in pronunciation on 發 and 髮. We know that when -t was lost in Mandarin and the tones became unstable. In Chinese phonology it is named 派入三聲. The entering tone (入聲) was gone and all characters in entering tone go to the rest three tones, namely the flat tone (平聲), the rising tone (上聲) and the leaving tone (去聲). In this way, it is possible that 發 and 髮 develops different tones in Mandarin.

The two characters pronounce the same in some dialects may be a coincidence. I come from Xi'an, you are right, we really read 发 in 头发 and 发展 in same tone. But there are also characters with different tones in our dialect, but the same in Mandarin. Dialect does not necessarily correspond to Mandarin one by one, it usually has its own rules. The tones of most characters in northern dialects correspond to Mandarin one by one usually, but not all of the characters. Comparatively, the tones of most southern dialects are not regular like northern.


How to tell Simplified and Traditional Chinese apart? Imagine that I know nothing about the language. I open a book and look at some Chinese text.

What’s the easiest (and deterministic) way to tell if I'm looking at simplified or traditional Chinese?

Are there any common radicals that appear in one and not the other?

Some regular simplification rules:

釒(金)→钅: 針→针, 鈴→铃
飠(食)→饣: 飲→饮, 飯→饭
糹(糸)→纟: 紅→红, 絲→丝
訁(言)→讠: 計→计, 語→语

貝→贝: 貨→货, 貴→贵
見→见: 視→视, 現→现
頁→页: 項→项, 題→题
東→东: 陳→陈, 棟→栋
車→车: 軟→软, 輩→辈
門→门: 問→问, 閑→闲
烏→乌: 鎢→钨, 塢→坞
魚→鱼: 漁→渔, 魯→鲁
鳥→鸟: 鴨→鸭, 鷹→鹰
馬→马: 媽→妈, 騰→腾

There are also some simplified examples of complex components:

爿→丬: 壯→壮, 將→将
豐→丰: 灃→沣, 艷→艳
風→风: 瘋→疯, 諷→讽
長→长: 張→张, 帳→帐
堯→尧: 燒→烧, 饒→饶
䜌→亦: 戀→恋, 彎→弯
睪→: 澤→泽, 驛→驿
炏→艹: 營→营, 榮→荣
蘭→兰: 欄→栏, 爛→烂
羅→罗: 蘿→萝, 邏→逻
買→买: 買→买, 賣→卖
產→产: 鏟→铲, 滻→浐
齊→齐: 擠→挤, 濟→济
幾→几: 機→机, 譏→讥
柬→拣(the right part): 煉→炼, 練→练
盧→户: 廬(广+～)→庐(广+户), 驢(馬+～)→驴(马+户)
盧→卢: 鱸(魚+～)→鲈(鱼+卢), 顱(～+頁)→颅(卢+页)
戔→戋: 錢→钱, 棧→栈
咼→呙: 鍋→锅, 窩→窝
樂→乐: 爍→烁, 櫟→栎
豈→岂: 鎧→铠, 凱→凯
肅→肃: 蕭→萧, 嘯→啸

There are also many irrational simplifications, such as cursive writing, or homophonic substitution, and some characters are combined by these simplified components. If you see Chinese characters with a lot of these parts, you can be sure that this is traditional Chinese.

No way.

But if it was published in mainland China, it would be 99% simplified.

If the pages was flipped from left to right, it might be traditional, except comic books.

If you can know the text are reading from top to bottom, it is probably traditional, (vertical text usually don't have common punctuations).

If you found the text is more black, it may be traditional. :)


Why does 有机 as in 有机食品 mean organic? 有 and 机 are some of the first characters we learn in Chinese, but only recently did I find out that they mean "organic" when put together. Can anyone explain why this is?

As you may know, "Organic" in your case is originally a chemical term and its noun-"Organ" means "a collection of tissues joined in structural unit to serve a common function" from Wikipedia. Once the chemists incorrectly believed that "organic compound" could only be produced by lifes. I think this is how "organic" comes from "organ". I don't find the exact origin of the word "有机" in Chinese, but I believe it originates as "organic" originates in English, from chemistry.
机 originally means

主发谓之机。—《说文》The thing that controls shoot is called 机. 《说文》is an old dictionary.
trigger on a bow. A structure used to shoot the arrow.

Some other meanings extend from the original one.

critical part(point) in a system
organ.  organ is a critical part in the body
mechanical structure. The critical part that controls the movement of a machine.

In recent times, after Chinese came in touch with sciences from the west, some pioneering scientists translated the terms in sciences. In general, they translated them in a liberal way. I think this is why “有机" means "organic", as you have "organic" from "organ" in English.

Actually, I have asked myself the same question some time ago. I find the explanations that take the word "Mechanism"（机制）into account as a reference to biological systems when trying to explain how 有机 is connected to the meaning of "organic" rather good.
However, when I asked my Chinese teacher about it she told me that it also might have to do with 机 as a sound as it sounds similar to the way we pronounce "C" which is the chemical element of carbon which determines wether a compound is organic or not.


Is "biang" a phonologically possible syllable in Mandarin Chinese? One of the local specialty favourite dishes in Shaanxi province where I am now is Biángbiáng miàn.

Photo by hippietrail

The hanzi character for "biáng" is usually the focus of discusssions of this dish since it takes 58 strokes and is not supported by computers, including Unicode.

But I want to discuss the syllable "biang" in this question. To a beginner in Chinese like myself it seems to be composed of common initial "b", medial "i" and final "ang".

But the Wikipedia article informs me that the alternative names for the dish with more common characters are 彪彪面 (biāobiāo miàn) and 冰冰面 (bīngbīng miàn), which each use a different syllable in place of "biáng" as well as a different hanzi character.

So is this syllable not even possible? If not, which phonological rules does it break? Also if it's not "possible" how could it become popular as part of the name of a dish? Is it something to do with the dialect or accent spoken in Shaanxi?

So time for an update…
If you want to play by the books, biang is not a permissible syllable. If you are concerned with what comes out of a speaker’s mouth, syllables like nim (contraction of 你們) are even possible, although they are technically surface realizations of a phonology that does not allow such syllables.
The surprising fact is that iang as a rime for the labial initials (b, p, ph, m) did not even exist in Middle Chinese, so the omission of biang is nothing new. That isn’t to say it couldn’t develop in Mandarin, but there was nothing shaping the language in that direction. The only likely source would be a borrowing sort of like how fiao is a borrowing from Wu, which has its own interesting story.
Old Answer
I’ve made a chart here for my own understanding of Standard Mandarin Chinese phonology a while ago:
        a       ai      au      an      aŋ      e       ə       əi      əu      ən      əŋ      i       ia      iai     iau     ian     iaŋ     ie      iə      iəu     iən     iəŋ     io      iu      iuan    iuə     iun     iuəŋ    aɻ      o       u       ua      uai     uan     uaŋ     uə      uəi     uən     uəŋ     m       n       ŋ
        a       ai      ao      an      ang     ê       e       ei      ou      en      eng     yi      ya      yai     yao     yan     yang    yê      ye      you     yin     ying    yo      yu      yuan    yue     yun     yong    er      o       wu      wa      wai     wan     wang    wo      wei     wun     weng    m       n       ng
p       ba      bai     bao     ban     bang                    bei             ben     beng    bi                      biao    bian    biang           bie     biu     bin     bing                                                            bo      bu
pʰ      pa      pai     pao     pan     pang                    pei     pou     pen     peng    pi                      piao    pian                    pie     piu     pin     ping                                                            po      pu
m       ma      mai     mao     man     mang            me      mei     mou     men     meng    mi                      miao    mian                    mie     miu     min     ming                                                            mo      mu
f       fa                      fan     fang                    fei     fou     fen     feng                            fiao                                                                                fo      fu
t       da      dai     dao     dan     dang            de      dei     dou     den     deng    di                      diao    dian                    die     diu             ding                                                                    du                      duan            duo     dui     dun     dong
tʰ      ta      tai     tao     tan     tang            te              tou             teng    ti                      tiao    tian                    tie     tiu             ting                                                                    tu                      tuan            tuo     tui     tun     tong
n       na      nai     nao     nan     nang            ne      nei     nou     nen     neng    ni                      niao    nian    niang           nie     niu     nin     ning            nü              nüe                                     nu                      nuan            nuo                     nong
l       la      lai     lao     lan     lang            le      lei     lou             leng    li      lia             liao    lian    liang           lie     liu     lin     ling            lü              lüe                             lo      lu                      luan            luo             lun     long
ts      za      zai     zao     zan     zang            ze      zei     zou     zen     zeng    zi                                                                                zu                      zuan            zuo     zui     zun     zong
tsʰ     ca      cai     cao     can     cang            ce              cou     cen     ceng    ci                                                                                cu                      cuan            cuo     cui     cun     cong
s       sa      sai     sao     san     sang            se              sou     sen     seng    si                                                                                su                      suan            suo     sui     sun     song
tʂ      zha     zhai    zhao    zhan    zhang           zhe     zhei    zhou    zhen    zheng   zhi                                                                                zhu     zhua    zhuai   zhuan   zhuang  zhuo    zhui    zhun    zhong
tʂʰ     cha     chai    chao    chan    chang           che             chou    chen    cheng   chi                                                                                chu     chua    chuai   chuan   chuang  chuo    chui    chun    chong
ʂ       sha     shai    shao    shan    shang           she     shei    shou    shen    sheng   shi                                                                                shu     shua    shuai   shuan   shuang  shuo    shui    shun
ɻ                       rao     ran     rang            re              rou     ren     reng    ri                                                                                ru      rua             ruan            ruo     rui     run     rong
tɕ                                                                                ji      jia             jiao    jian    jiang           jie     jiu     jin     jing            ju      juan    jue     jun     jiong
tɕʰ                                                                                qi      qia             qiao    qian    qiang           qie     qiu     qin     qing            qu      quan    que     qun     qiong
ɕ                                                                                xi      xia             xiao    xian    xiang           xie     xiu     xin     xing            xu      xuan    xue     xun     xiong
k       ga      gai     gao     gan     gang            ge      gei     gou     gen     geng                                                                                gu      gua     guai    guan    guang   guo     gui     gun     gong
kʰ      ka      kai     kao     kan     kang            ke      kei     kou     ken     keng                                                                                ku      kua     kuai    kuan    kuang   kuo     kui     kun     kong
x       ha      hai     hao     han     hang            he      hei     hou     hen     heng                                                                                hu      hua     huai    huan    huang   huo     hui     hun     hong

The table contains every possible pinyin in Standard Mandarin Chinese sans tones. Columns are headed by the finals, and rows are headed by the initials. They are derived from the Standard Chinese phonology and Pinyin table pages on Wikipedia. A quick look at the table will reveal patterns in the phonology with a few oddities.
biang is certainly listed in the Pinyin table, but a quick search for any word with a pinyin of biang produces 0 results. And it makes sense: because the bilabial/labiodental series of initials (b-, p-, m-, f-) is excluded from combining with many finals (such as: -uan, -uo, -ui, -un, -ong). Have a look at the iaŋ column and you see that piang, miang, and fiang are missing; biang looks like it should not be there either.
Yes, there are oddities where a sound that looks like it should be there isn’t there (like bou, tei, and ten), but they can be easily explained as, “there weren’t any words that used that sound.” It’s what is called an “accidental gap,” and you can read more about it here: Phonotactics (âm pháp). It’s much more difficult to make a case for biang which exists in no dictionaries, is not in common usage, and is the sole proprietor of the Pinyin “biang.” Considering the facts, it’s my opinion that biang is illegal in Standard Mandarin Chinese phonology and was probably concocted for promotional purposes. What better way to stand out than to own a “rare” character, a “rare” sound, and an exclusive position in the Pinyin table?

It is a contracted form of 不一樣 bùyíyàng 'different'.


What are nonstandard forms of written words called? Normal characters are (汉)字 and nonstandard characters are 俗子.

Wrongly written words or nonstandard forms of written words can be referred to by using 俗作.

For instance, the entry for 耳食 in《南充方言词语考释》says:

  “耳食”俗作“耳屎”、“耳视”等。

What are these types of words called?

异形词 is an, obvious, option. I would like to be more specific noting that it is a 俗 problem.

俗词 would just talk about current terms or expressions, vulgarities or familiar language.

What is the proper term for nonstandard forms of written words?

异形词 is the broad term.

A more specific, albeit obscure and probably not widely accepted term would be: 俗体词.

Usage of 俗体词 can be found on this Zhihu question: 英译中里俗体词和异音词如何处理？

  俗体词（比如错音错意、用词不当等）

Although it is talking about English, it should be clear enough to be understood in Chinese as well.

aren't they called 異體字 (variant character)?

http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/home.do

if this one doesn't suit your need, maybe:

"後起字", "分化字", "古今字",  or "訛變"


Why is 两 used for quantities of two rather than 二? I understand that 两 is used instead of 二 when dealing with quantities of two. However, my question is - why? What are the historical reasons behind this?

I looked at Wikitionary but it only had historical information for when 两 is used to mean the "tael" unit － not for its definition of "two."

The historical reason behind it is kind of surprising though. From a Chinese Characters Roots book:

  The earlier form [of the character] looked like a yoke and a pair of saddles of a two-horse carriage. The initial meaning was two or double. It was also a unit to count vehicles and written as 辆 later.

That is why we have:

  一辆车  ―  yī liàng chē  ―  a car (from Wiktionary)

Where you notice in 辆 that there is the 车 character, meaning car, at the left side of the 两 character.

I assume its usage became a practical one, since as in many languages (including English), you can be more specific when you are referring to a pair of objects by using 两, instead of two objects using 二.

Here's a particular example: 二炮 (Èr pào) refers to the Second Artillery and 两炮 (liǎng pào) means two guns. So, would you request two guns from your commander or a full regiment?

From a calligraphic perspective, the character 两 represents two people (人人) attached to some kind of vehicle or container. Thus it depicts a more accurate description of two objects or subjects, in opposition to 二 which has a purely numeric meaning.

From the phonetic point of view, it also sounds better, as it is harder to misunderstand its meaning when in a sentence. Remember that in the north of China it is very common to add the sound 'er' (儿) at the end of words or sentences, such as in "你去哪?". But the composite sound "Liǎng" is much less frequent. It is easy to imagine lots of other misunderstandings that could occur in different words, such as "erzi" ("儿子"="one child", whilst "二子"="two children").


How do I translate 'do well on your test' into Chinese? How do I translate 'do well on your test' into Chinese?

My friend is taking a test tomorrow. Although he speaks English to me, I thought it would be nice to wish him success in chinese.

Is 祝你好运测试 correct (or adequate)?

I basically agree with what Itux just said. But I would prefer to say “祝你考试顺利” instead of “祝你测试顺利”.

In your context, “考试” would be the word you look for when you want to translate "test" or "exam". As for "quiz", it's usually “小测”. “测验” means test indeed but in a much more general way. People tend to just use “考试” when they talk something about school, especially in daily conversations.

根据语言环境， 我能想到两种翻译：

命令句式：  把你的测试考（做）好
祝福，类似于 good luck:   （祝）考试顺利 / （祝)你考试取得好的成绩


How to say "all the usual X" in Chinese? How do I say "all the usual ..." in Chinese, for example."

  "At my school we play all the usual school sports."

  "The pharmacy had all the usual junk."

If you want to emphasise the 'all' (and so you want to keep the 都/全):

The 'all' and 'the usual X' are normally treated separately [rather than both being stacked adjectives in English], and are usually structured as follows:

[一般的、普通的] [X] [都/全].

A casual glance might be misleading though, because 都/全 is acting as an adverb before the verb here, and so is generally followed directly by the verb. Hence you might have the subject of the verb being inserted before [都/全], depending on the sense of the sentence (especially when X is actually the object in the sentence).

[一般的、普通的] [X] [SUBJECT] [都/全] [VERB]

Otherwise, where "all the usual" is exactly the same as "the usual", the 全/都 is dropped, resulting in just the adjective coming before [X].

一般性的，惯常的，普通的。我必须得凑够三十个字。够了三十字。


What are some well-known, online news sources that are worthy of language study? I'm fluent in Chinese already. I just want to further my reading and writing skills.

I'm thinking along the lines of

NPR - has both (audio) news and talk radio that can be accessed online
Time Magazine, The Economist - current events and issues, etc
New York Times - daily newspaper

But all in Chinese (either for China, Taiwan or any other Chinese population)

Based on your demand, here are my picks. They're locally famous.
China mainland

南方人物周刊, a featured weekly on influencing people, with some exclusive interviews.

南方周末, a weekly on politics, economics, culture, and especially recent (past week) controversial topics.

新京报, a daily with Beijing (or China) features. Founded in 2003.

财经网, a good source for financial and business news.

腾讯网, a major Internet portal.

三联生活周刊, a major life style magazine.

FT中文网, Chinese version of Financial Times, also with many Chinese columnists.

China Daily 中文版, famous for its English version, a major English daily.

财新网, another good source for financial and business news.

优酷网, the biggest video portal, YouTube's copycat, even from its name.

重庆晨报, for those who wanna have PDF version of newspaper, this one's for you.

第一财经周刊, a reader-friendly financial weekly.

外滩画报, full of featured stories with pictures.

Hong Kong

亞洲周刊, a weekly on politics, economics and culture.

明報, founded by Louis Cha Leung-yung, a renowned novel writer, and his co-founder in 1959.

文匯報, a left (pro-) newspaper. Founded in 1948.

大公報, another left newspaper. Founded in 1902.

星島日報, yet another left newspaper. Founded 1938.

鳳凰網, semi-official CCTV like channel in Hong Kong.

TVB無線新聞, famous TV channel.

壹週刊, a sibling of Taiwanese 蘋果日報, quite popular and entertaining.

Taiwan

中央社, a major news agency in Taiwan. Quite official. Founded in 1924.

蘋果日報, a major daily. Good at entertaining people. I like its 3D video news.

自由時報, as its name suggests, it's somewhat Pan-Green. Founded in 1980.

聯合報, a conservative major daily founded in 1951.

中國時報, a major daily. Founded in 1950.

中央日報, used to be official newspaper of the Kuomintang, founded in 1928.

天下, a financial-oriented magazine founded in 1981.

商業周刊中文版, Taiwanese version of Businessweek, with some local stories too.

My suggestion is: You'd better learn Pinyin at first for pronunciation. An advantage is that you can use Pinyin input method then. Then, you can read a <新华字典> Xinhua dictionary or some books to learn words. The most standard pronunciation is the hosts in CCTV speaks. So you can watch CCTV on web http://www.cntv.cn/.


What does 有一千零一种用处 mean? In the following sentence:

西藏人之所以能适应这样的环境，是因为他们从小父母就要用牛油（据说，这种东西可以有一千零一种用处）给他们擦身，并想方设法让他们接受烈日和狂风的锻炼。

The verb on the sentence should be 有, but I don't understand what it means after that.
I first thought that 零 here has a function of the following (according to Pleco):

[in expressions of time, age, money, weight, etc..., used between two different denomination]

一年零三天

one year and three days

So it concatenates 一千 and 一, and turn to 1001.
But then the meaning would result in something like:

It is said that these things can be used in 1001 different ways.

Or

It is said that you can use these things in 1001 ways.

But then I don't understand why it is 1001. It this kind of expressions frequently used in Chinese? Does 1001 have any special meaning in Chinese? Is it used to emphasize the degree of amount is very large?
Or does my grammatical understanding of 零 here correct in the first place?

It does indeed mean 1001.

The key word here is 據說, which means according to legends/wisdom/tradition, and thus 1001 is probably a local expression (whether Tibetan or their local variety of Chinese) for a large amount or a wide variety.

As Jacob mentioned, it means “many”. Also, a thousand means a lot, one thousand and one implies there are even more ways ones may not have yet thought of (there is always another way that someone hasn’t thought of).


What to mix 会 and 没有 to say "We won't have any problems."? I'm now chating with a host over AirBnB. She seems to NOT speak English, so she replyed to me the following:

你好，我不会英语，你介意吗

So I tried to reply the following:

你好。我会看得懂中文少一点，可是我不会说。如果我们用信息，我们会没有问题。

However, I now wonder if the last sentence is correct or not. Specifially, I think there are some expressions occurred on me:

我们会没有问题
我们不会有问题
我们会没问题

Is the sentence I used correct? Or is there a better expression here?

By the way is 我不会英语 the correct in grammar or does she just omit it since it is obvious in context?

Is the sentence I used correct? Or is there a better expression here?

1.我们会没有问题 - 我们 (we) | 会 (will) | 没有 (not have) | 问题 (problem)

2.我们不会有问题 - 我们 (we) | 不会 (will not) | 有 (have) | 问题 (problem)

我们会没问题 (just #1 omitted 有)

Both #1 and #2 are correct.

没有 (not have) acts on the noun "问题 "(problem)
不会 (will not) modify the verb "有" (have)

  By the way is 我不会英语  correct in grammar or does she just omit it since it is obvious in context?

我不会英语 means " I don't know English" (don't understand, can't speak, read or write)  or it is "我不会說英语" but omitted the verb "說"
我不会說英语 means " I can't speak English"

我不会英语 on its own is grammatically correct. Since she understood what you wrote in English, she was actually saying "我不会說英语" but omitted the verb "說"

for this conversation it's understandable but a little unnatural.
much better version:
如果我们用信息的话，交流应该没问题=>
如果用信息的话，交流应该没问题=>
用信息的话，交流应该没问题=>
用信息的话，应该没问题。


What does ...原来档案都要统统装进铁皮柜，从头干起... mean? I can't really catch the meaning of this sentence. It was only given as an example of the use of 统统， I have no more context.

无论是谁，到新公司后，原来档案都要统统装进铁皮柜，从头干起。

No matter who, after arriving at a new firm, (your ) original files all (will) all be stored in a steel locker, you (can/must/should) start anew.

Or is '铁皮柜‘ some kind of slang for '计算机‘？？

What are '原来档案‘？？

'铁皮柜‘ is a metal filing cabinet.

'统统' is for emphasis. In this case, it is ALL the files, with no exception.

Compare these two sentences, which are identical except for '统统'. Their meanings are basically the same, but the first one is more emphatic.

无论是谁，到新公司后，原来档案都要统统装进铁皮柜，从头干起。

无论是谁，到新公司后，原来档案都要装进铁皮柜，从头干起。

No matter who it is, when one enters the new company, one starts anew, with one's original files (hinting past history) stored away.

There is only one subject in this sentence, it's the one who enters the new company, the one whose files are put away, and the one who has to start anew.

铁皮柜 = iron file cabinet

原来档案 = original files

无论是谁，到新公司后，原来档案都要统统装进铁皮柜，从头干起。

No matter who it is that leaves and goes to a new company, after they've left the original files will all be thrown into an "iron" file cabinet and work will need to start again from the top.


Chinese this and that In English, we use this to indicate something close to us, or the first one and that to indicate something further off, or the next one. Apparently, early English did not have this distinction.

This quote is from here:

  that: From c. 1200 opposed to this as indicating something farther
  off.

Chinese has 这， 那 which seem to correspond with this, that.

Has Chinese always made a distinction between this and that? In old Chinese was this distinction present?

The distinction was present early on. In Classical Chinese, this is「此」, still used in Modern Chinese, while that is「彼」, which is not really used anymore except fossilised in some words.

《詩・唐風・綢繆》：「今夕何夕，見此良人！」
《易・小過》：「公弋取彼在穴。」

"这" also can indicate something has just mentioned.


What does “作” mean in this context? I was listening and they said stuff like 大作 and 小作。

My friend thinks it's an adjective and it can be used as so:
一个很作的女孩子。

“作”, when as a verb in this context, means "to make trouble".

“作”, when as an adjective in this context, means "loving to make ridiculous troubles (being likely to be a trouble-maker)".

“大作” means to make big troubles, usually causing bad consequences.

“小作” means to make small troubles, normally not really harmful.

"她是个很作的女孩” means she is a trouble-making ridiculous girl.(For example: She wants gifts every month and will be very angry if not; she gets upset ridiculously when you contact some other young girls, etc..)

By the way, with this meaning, officially, it should be pronounced as "zuò" even though most normal native speakers pronounce it as "zuō".

作 in this certain context means exaggeration as adj. And it is the abbr. of 做作

This word is the derogatory sense.


Difference between 常常 and 往往 I'm fairly certain I understand how to use 常常，but I don't know if 往往 is used any differently (they both have the same translations). Are there any differences in usage I should be aware of?

Basically they have the same meanings. Now let's focus on the difference, but first wrap your head in duct tapes in case it explodes.
往往 is usually used with conditions supplied. Without any condition it is usually wrong:

我常常加班。 -- Good.
我往往加班。 -- Wrong.
北京常常下雪。-- Good.
北京往往下雪。 -- Wrong.
北京往往在冬天下雪。-- Good. Notice the constraint.
努力的人常常会成功。-- Good.
努力的人往往会成功。-- Good, maybe better.

However, 往往 can only live in the result, not in the condition:

如果你常常努力，你就会成功。-- 往往 is wrong.
如果你努力，那你往往会成功。-- Good. 常常 is also OK.

往往 focuses on the experience of previous observations, 常常 focuses on existing phenomena. This may not matter much depending on the context:

猫往往会把猎物带给主人。 -- It's an observation, a summary, and maybe also a prediction.
猫常常会把猎物带给主人。 -- It's just an observation, but really, no big difference.

When 往往 is used, there is often a slight enhancement of emotion or stress:

我常常加班到深夜。-- A general statement.
我往往加班到深夜。-- Notice the sense of disapproval.
我常常一加班就头疼。-- A general statement, but...
我往往一加班就头疼。-- The negative sense of 头疼 eludes the difference of 常常 and 往往.
小明常常在班里考第一名。-- A general statement.
小明往往在班里考第一名。-- Good. Though not negative, it sounds more emotional.
小明往往在班里考倒数第一名。-- Good. Negative and emotional.
北京常常在冬天下雪。-- A general statement.
北京在冬天常常下雪。-- Notice although 常常 appeared at different places, it's more of a decorator of the whole sentence.
北京往往在冬天下雪。-- Notice the slight stress. Winter, not spring.
北京在冬天往往下雪。-- Snows, not rains.

常常 can be used in the subjunctive mood. 往往 can't:

你要常常来找我玩哦。-- 往往 is wrong.
我建议你常常复习一下。-- 往往 is wrong.

常常 can be used in the imperative mood. 往往 can't:

常常来找我玩哦！-- 往往 is wrong.
常常复习一下！-- 往往 is wrong.
如果有时间，就常常复习一下！-- 往往 wrong, even with conditions supplied.

Also the negative form:

我不常常吹牛。-- 不常常 is good.
我常常不吹牛。-- 常常不 sounds weird because 吹牛 is an explicit action.
我常常不在家。-- 常常不 sounds OK because 在家 is a status.
懒散的人往往不会成功。-- 往往不 is good. It's the only form of negation.
懒散的人不往往会成功。-- 不往往 is absolutely wrong.

I think 往往 implies that the statement is made from one's judgment, while 常常 is a more general word.


Can someone tell me if this script is correct? I'm trying to write in full cursive with my own personal style and this is one of my first letterings.

I'm quite happy and I think that it does look readable, but I'm afraid that the two long line I left in the middle of the first sentence could break its logic. The long line in the second one should divide this "有形" from this "以太".
I found many different way to write the same Hanzi in cursive and I'm afraid I made up a mess mixing styles that don't match among them... but I almost like the final result and I hope it can be considered a good work.

According to you is this strange or wrong?
Do the Hanzi have a logical and coherent style?
Can you easily understand what it means?

I hope not to be off topic, if so I really apologize. I have no intention to waste anyone's time, I'd just like to have an opinion from people I can trust.

Hanzi have many different writing styles and there is no right or wrong as long as you can understand what you are writing.

For me, it looks like Caoshu style. But unfortunately that is one of the hard-to-read styles in Hanzi. I only recognize 4 out of 8 of them. (if I am counting right)

As for 太, it is not easy to recognize. The small dot should be more upwards, at least in between the two swipes.

If this is for display purpose, that is fine. But not in communication purpose as not so many Chinese these days could read Caoshu.

I can't easily recognize words in Chinese scripts, I guess my father too or my grandfather too, so it's ok about readable.

I can't tell this is written by Chinese or foreign by just looking at it, but Chinese people who do scripts would write traditional Chinese character instead of simplified even in China mainland.

And 太 is not that being written like the ones I saw before.


Pairs which are of the form AB / BA I need help with 实现 v.s. 现实 and 罪犯 v.s. 犯罪.

I find it hard to remember the distinction between these pairs which are of the form AB / BA. Can anyone help me grasp the underlying ideas/logic/feeling?

Also, I'd be interested in other similar pairs.

There're no underlying logic on those pairs you've mention.  It's just a coincidence that the 2 words can be used in form of AB/BA where both AB and BA is a word.  Note that in the examples, AB and BA have different meaning while there are some example that has the same meaning, such as:

油漆 / 漆油 (paint)
色彩 / 彩色 (arguable as 色彩=color while 彩色=color(ful))

I believe there are similar situation in English such as breakout / outbreak or overlay / layover.  It'll be easier for you to just forget the AB/BA format and remember them as separate words.

我实现了我的梦想，I achieved my dream
现实 reality
You can say 我实现了我的梦想，我的梦想变成了现实。I realized my dream,my dream has become realized.
A man who 犯罪,thence become a 罪犯


What is the difference between 怕，害怕 and 恐怕 Is 害怕 only used in the literal sense of "be afraid of, be scared", meaning "to be afraid of snakes", etc. and 恐怕, on the other Hand, for abstract worries? and can 怕 be used in both senses?

The context in which I would use 恐怕 is something similar to "I'm worried this  might be the case". I'd say it is used to describe a predicition or extrapolation, sometimes can be translated to be just "probably".

這池恐怕有三公尺深 :　 The pool here is probably 3 meter deep (and that worries me)
我恐怕會被留校 : I guess I'm going to be in detention

怕 alone can be translated to "be afraid of":

我怕蛇 : I am afriad of snakes
我怕高 : I am afraid of height

... or "be weak against / be bad at"

我怕燙 : I'm weak against hot (food/drink)
我怕冷 : I'm weak against cold (weather)

... or "being a chicken and not willing to face it".

害怕 is more of a mental state and perhaps less of a verb. If it is, it's probably a intranstive verb.

我對這裡的交通感到害怕 : I feel scared by the traffic here
這電影院令人害怕 : The movie theather make me scared

The use of "害" usually implies "bad effect".

Now... there could be use cases in which 害怕 and 恐怕 are shortend to be just 怕. In this sense, perhaps 怕 is more abstract than the other two. In summary:

區別的方法只怕很難說明 : Describing how to disambiguate is probably going to be difficult.

:-)

online dictionaries have the answer (note example phrases): bkrs: 怕：动
（害怕; 畏惧） fear; dread; be afraid of:不怕疲劳
不怕任何困难  怕得要命  狼特别怕火  没有什么可怕的。
（担心） be afraid of; have a fear of; for fear; fear lest:她怕把孩子吵醒 我怕打扰你而没有来拜访你  副
（也许，表示估计） I'm afraid; I suppose; perhaps:会议怕要延期了 事情怕不这么简单

害怕to be afraid to be scared 因遇到危险、困难而畏惧或发慌。害怕得要命 她不再害怕他们会误解她了
这小女孩非常害怕打雷

恐怕(1) [I'm afraid]∶表示估计并担心
我恐怕迟到了 恐怕不成。
(2) [perhaps; maybe]∶表示估计, 相当于"大概"、 "也许"
天气那么热, 恐怕就要下雨了 他们恐怕需要我们的帮助 恐怕他是忘了

much more including English at bkrs


Is Sunday 星期天 or 星期日? I am using the ChineseSkill app to learn Chinese and I learned that 'Sunday' in Chinese is 星期天 (xīngqītiān). However, sometimes on the internet I see 星期日 (xīngqīrì).

Are both correct? Why is there such a variation in usage?

In theory, 星期日 should be correct.

The concept of a week was introduced from the west, the name of days came from the Sun, the Moon and the stars. When they were introduced to China, only Sunday was preserved, the other days were renamed from 1 to 6, so they became 星期日 (Sun -> 日), 星期一 ... 星期六.

But in Chinese, 天 and 日 could be used for the meaning of day both. So the people started to say 星期天 instead of 星期日, and the original meaning (i.e. Sun) was lost, which would be a "misuse".

Nowadays 星期日 and 星期天 are both correct. Basically in a formal context, such as in news, 星期日 is used more than 星期天.

话说“星期日”与“星期天”

both are understanding 星期天 or 星期日 both ref to sunday, nothing different, this is command sense for Chinese in world wide, no worry dude, you can use  both of it


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

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

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

For email,people tend to write simply and practicably。

Habitual formation。

example:

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

                                                       学生 Jacob  敬上
                                                       2015.04.10

example 2:

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

    敬请
 教安
                                                        授业  张三顿首
                                                        乙未 二月廿二

安康！(ankang)) means 'may you enjoy of a good health'; seems rather correct for a final salutation inside an email. Specialists can tell much better of course.


What is the most complex simplifed character? I'm interested in simplified only for this question - which simplified character retains the most complexity, defined by having the highest number of strokes?

To clarify: I'm after the most complicated character in use on the mainland - i.e. the most complicated character that remains in common use amongst the literate mainland population.

龖 (dá) from lol.wen's answer has 32 strokes, but I can better that by a bit ;)

齉 (nàng) has 36 strokes, and my favourite dictionary, YellowBridge, defines it as:

  stoppage of the nose; to speak with a nasal twang; to snuffle (as in nose with a cold); snuffling

I should however add that, like 龖, this character is the same in both simplified and traditional script.

Some other ones that appear in Jun Da's character frequency list, taken from a corpus of modern Chinese, include 鱄 (Zhuān, 22 strokes), 襽 (lán, 23 strokes), and 鑪 (lú, 24 strokes).

is the most complex unicode Chinese character by strokes (64).


Was the word 男朋友 borrowed from English (or maybe the opposite)? 男朋友 and 女朋友 have the same thought process as their English counterparts, as in both words are compounded of (the gender) + ("friend"), even though they're actually used to refer to a romantic partner of said gender. Are there any linguistic reasons for that? Did English and Chinese-speaking nations have any contact in the past or have these 2 isolated and totally different nations had the same logic for this word specifically?

Yes.

The English words boyfriend/girlfriend are modern; their usage to refer to romantic, unmarried relations dates to around 1922. This is also where other terms like "dating" arose.

Similarly, in Chinese, 男朋友/女朋友 do not exist in pre-modern times. Other terms like 佳人 would be used.

The Republican Era saw big changes in Chinese culture and adoption of Western culture and language. It would be easy to conclude, therefore, that the words 男朋友/女朋友 were borrowed from English during this time.

I think in English we say boy/girl friend for friendship and boyfriend/girlfirend for relationship. In Chinese, the counterpart is 男性(Xing )朋友/女性(Xing )朋友 for friendship. 男朋友/女朋友 indicates relationship in general.


Problem with Windows 10 Chinese Input Disclaimer: I started to learn chinese a few weeks ago..

I just installed the Chinese Simplified input method on my Windows 10 laptop and started doing some tests with pinyin and Microsoft Word. However, something seems to be wrong or (more likely) I am missing something:

when I try to type "girl" in pinyin I got the wrong characters completed. That is, I enter nuhai I got this: 奴孩  is this the correct character for girl?

In Chinese , you should press "nv" instead of "nu". "v" here means "ü" in pronunciation.

For more about Pinyin, you can see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

nv hai

or

  guniang (姑娘)

It  is girl  in Chinese language


Can you omit the 的 after 举办 in 北京奥运会是2008年举办的？ I know that this sentence is correct:

北京奥运会是2008年举办的。

But can you omit the “的” that is after the verb “举办”？

Like this:

北京奥运会是2008年举办[ ]。

I think, I have read some sentences that has omitted the “的” after a verb in the end of a sentence, but I'm not quite sure.

If you can, please provide me some examples.

北京奥运会是2008年举办的。

"北京奥运会是2008年举办的" is a [topic + comment/opinion] sentence

Topic: 北京奥运会 (Beijing Olympics)

Comment: 是 2008年 举办的 (is hosted by 2008)

(It is obviously wrong, it makes 2008年 the subject. I will state the correct sentence later in this post)
The '的' here is a [possessive marker]. It marks the omitted object to be possessed by [2008年]

2008年 举办的(项目)
2008年 is the subject; 项目 (or other noun refers to 北京奥运会) is the omitted object

The correct sentence should be:

"北京奥运会是在 2008年 举办的" (Beijing Olympics is hosted in 2008)
the subject '北京' is omitted, "北京奥运会是(北京)在 2008年 举办的"

In this sentence,  '的' is an [adjective marker]. It turns "在 2008年举办" into an adjective phrase "在 2008年 举办的"
This adjective phrase describes 北京奥运会 (Beijing Olympics that is hosted in 2008)
'的' cannot be omitted in this sentence.
To avoid using 的, you can change this [topic + comment/opinion] sentence into a [SVO] sentence and write "(北京)在 2008年 举办北京奥运会" - "(Beijing) held the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008"
Since we do not omit the subject '北京' here, we can omit the '北京' in '北京奥运会' instead -- "北京在 2008年 举办(北京)奥运会"

Let's say this in English.

  The Olmpics was held in 2008.

The held can be either considered passive voice or as a adjective. Your sentence

  北京奥运会是2008年举办。

matches neither. 举办 is a verb. But with 的, it becomes a valid adjective.

Using passive voice is not encouraged here, which would be:

  北京奥运会在2008年被举办了。

Unless you really want to say this in a very objective manner, it is very uncommon to say it this way, especially without any adjectives or adverbs.


Proper translation of "dancer"? I would like to have characters for "dancer" engraved on a present for a female friend of mine.

What would be the most appropriate?

舞娘
舞蹈家
舞者

If you are serious, I don't think any word like 舞娘 or 尬舞 is a good choice. (Probably 舞娘 is from the song by Jolin Tsai.) 舞蹈家 is a title for professional and experienced dancers. I don't know if your friend could be called a 舞蹈家, so if yes, just go with 舞蹈家. But 舞者 would always be a good translation.

My suggestion : Don't, non of those are appropriate to named in a present.

Let's me put it some way : will any fan kitsch enough to give Sylvie Guillem a gift that with "excellent dancer" engraved ?

Please ask around and use proverb or metaphor for a dancer.


What is the Chinese term for "StackOverflow"？ What is the Chinese term for "Stack Overflow" website and how do I pronounce it?

Stack Overflow == 堆栈溢出

堆栈 == stack

溢出 == overflow

This is a very technical term. Only people who work in programming and other related fields would be able to understand this.

According to wikipedia: 堆疊溢位
(http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A0%86%E7%96%8A%E6%BA%A2%E4%BD%8D)


Asking a cafe/restaurant if they have Wi-Fi *and* electricity for using a device In my travels in China I've found myself in need of a place to use my internet device. Its battery has recently ceased to hold a charge so I also need to be able to plug in my AC adaptor.

My Chinese is at a level I describe as "pre embrionic" and my attempts are usually not fully understood. Here are the kinds of things I've been trying:

Wi-Fi 和 电 有马?
无线 和 电 有没有?

I think there are two problems. The minor one is whether to try to use a Chinese or "Universal" (English) term for Internet/Wi-Fi.

The major one is how ask if they have a place with an electric outlet/socket. Literally asking "do you have electricity" does not seem to convey my need.

Actually the literal translation of English sounds natural in this case: 你们有Wi-Fi和电源吗？  or 你们有Wi-Fi和插座吗？

Here 电源 means power source, and 插座 means electric socket.

You can just pronounce Wi-Fi or Wu(up) Xian(down).
It's "you wifi he dian yuan ma? " or "you wuxian he dian yuan ma?"


Why do so many people pronounce "馄饨" as hún dùn? According to dictionaries, the correct pronunciation of "馄饨" is hún tún, but I have never heard any native speakers pronounce the word this way; instead, almost all native speakers say hún dùn. Why?

Because native speakers don't actually know the tone without being taught it.

Northern Mandarin pronounces it as húntun ~ húndun, with the second syllable having the light tone (轻声). The morpheme 饨 is not used anywhere else, so it only appears in native speech without a tone.

It's not rare for native speakers to reinterpret this syllable as "originally having the 4th tone" because of the acoustic similarity when pronouncing it with the light tone (there's a slight phonetic fall particularly as it follows a 2nd tone syllable). So when they try to shake off the light tone accent which is associated with being regional vernacular, they arrive at húndùn.

Note: Pronouncing t as d is unusual. It may be a sporadic change. The only other word I can think of, where the initial (声母) may be lenited in a light tone, is 糊涂 hútu ~ húdu. Many people do "correct" the pronunciation incorrectly to húdù, but this problem here is less severe because, unlike 饨, 涂 is widely used elsewhere with the known pronunciation of tú. Hence when speakers (especially literate ones) try to enunciate it, they arrive at hútú correctly.

This is a matter of habit. Many Chinese pronounce it wrong，But people are used to it and don't affect communication.


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

How would you say this?

靈犀?

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

心有靈犀一點通

or, in the past, 紅線 + 月下老人

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

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

info added.

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

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

the fourth explanation:

人與人或事物之間遇合的機會

"有緣" is the simplest usage

As you said 2-character word I guess you want 默契.


Is it common to learn individual characters before two-characters words? 'Characters frequency lists' and 'words frequency lists' are not mutually inclusive.
Most words are composed of two characters. For instance, 我們, 可以, 自己, etc.
Is learning characters individually first the most common way to go about it?

I can tell you about my experience, I typically follow a mixed approach learning at the same time multiple characters words and its individual components. I learn Chinese doing lessons following the HSK exam levels (currently I am doing the HSK level 3). In every lesson, they introduce new words given by the HSK level. The order in which the words are introduced correspond approximately to their usage frequency; I believe learning the most used words and grammar structures is the optimal way for learning to communicate in Chinese (note, for example, the top 500 characters are used the 79.2% / 72.1% of times).
So my main goal is learning the words in this order. However, I find very useful for multiple character words to look for the meaning of their individual characters. Some of them are very general and abstract and they are not helpful, but in other cases they have clear meanings and help you understand and remember the multiple character word, such as 飞机 (flying machine: plane), 照相机 (machine for taking pictures: camera), 头疼 (head hurts: headache), etc.
In conclusion, if your aim is to communicate in Chinese, I would suggest to focus on learning the most frequent words. However, to understand multiple character words, it can be useful to look for the meaning of each character and on the way, sometimes learn these.

在跑之前要先学会走路。
Yes, it is useful and necessary to learn characters.
Yes, it is meant to be the first step.
If you want to learn, you have to follow the steps.
And most Chinese single characters could be used, has its meaning, such as 省，市，区，跑，吃，笑，云，雨，红，绿，黄，。。。
Only few words are combined by 2 or more characters, e.g. 玻璃，坦克，沙发，逻辑（seems most of them are translated from other languages )
Anyway, try your best to remember the single characters, they are about 3000 in total, quite simpler than GER, TOEFL (8000+ or 12000+ word in English )


Why is stroke order important when writing Chinese characters? I often see people having a big focus on correct stroke order for writing Chinese characters.

My question is, for most learners, is it important to know the stroke order, and if so, why is it important? Where does the rigid adherence to stroke order stem from?

The stroke order is important, yes. The main reason that explains why the stroke order is so important is that the it helps to write the character correctly, with better speed and in an easier way.

Pick a character, and try to write it with the official stroke order, and then with another one: you'll find out that in the second case it will be sometimes harder to write it and mostly it will come out with a different shape, i.e. incorrect shape, and also ugly sometimes. This is because when using the official stroke order, the character will appear with more harmonious proportions and therefore, more beautiful.

Also, I'm not sure the following are "official reasons", but I suppose that:

it helps to memorize the character and retain it too, because your muscles "remember" the movements and so does your brain;
when reading someone else's handwriting, the shape changes a lot and the movement of the pen/brush can help you to read since you know the stroke order.

I'm a chinese. For my point that stroke order is necessary but not very important.It's a way to write them just like we write English. And the last question, I think less people could know


Does "免费" mean "free" in terms of price? Does "免费" mean "free" when we are talking about price? Or is it like "freedom"?

"免费" is "free" in terms of price.

"免" means "exempt"; "费" means "costs" or "fees". "Exempt from costs" = "free".

"自由" is "free" as in freedom/liberty.


Meaning of 对拆 (對拆) in 套路 names There are different sequences of movements in martial arts (套路 - forms) all having their names. Some of these names are quite clear but some are hard to understand for me. For example a double hand form is called:

工字伏虎拳對拆 (工字伏虎拳对拆)

This form name comes from 洪家拳 system which is well-known in southern China  (Guangdong province). So the names of forms are in Cantonese dialect.

The part of the name 伏虎拳 is clear for me but I can't find anywhere the meaning of 對拆. It should mean something like 'sparring set' or 'versus' but only 對 (对) can mean 'versus'.  Is 對拆 some kind of a regional Cantonese word? Also, an additional question: how could 工字 be translated (if it can)?

Also I wonder: can I write/say 對拆套路 by analogy to 武器套路 or 拳術套路 (拳术套路)?

Here 拆 means 拆解，dismantle something into basic component, so as to understand and apply it to handle complex combination.

bkrs：对折
1) 对半的折扣。（一半的折扣） fifty per cent discount; 50％ discount; reduced by one half:
照货价对折 allow a fifty per cent discount off the price; reduce the price by one half
2) 对半摺叠。to fold in two 。print.folio
freq. rank #60050
linguee:sell at a 50% discount
不常见: fold in two  folio e.g. 以书中第 6 对折页（ 图 16）为例 as seen in folio 6v (image 16),
 also note example in TV show 今日说法
http://tv.cctv.com/2019/04/08/VIDEVF1V14RsBWtaIkbNuEzg190408.shtml?spm=C52056131267.PkHCdznQvTLi.0.0  ）；０：１５：有去无回的外出 ０：１８：普通的案件的话 ０：１９：police officer: 车牌不会对折
bkrs: 工字 in the shape of character 工，工字形(梁)断面 I-beam

对拆："对拆"什么意思!? https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/140590125.html 合起来就是说，俩人相互（演练自己的招数并）拆解对方的招数（，从而找出对方的破绽，用来修补破绽），现在的话讲就是找BUG。


Is there a lot of value in learning to write Chinese characters? I have noticed that a lot of my friends that study Chinese at university spend a lot of their time learning to write Chinese. I would estimate more than 50% of their Chinese study time is spent on memorizing how to write Chinese characters.

I'm considering studying Chinese at university, but I'm unsure because I would have to learn to write, which I feel would be a big investment of my time which could be spent  practicing reading, listening and speaking.

Even with English, I feel I hardly ever write anything with a pen. Everything is done on cell phones, computers, etc. now and I feel this trend is only going to continue.

So, is there a value in learning to write characters by hand, if I know how to write them via pinyin input? Or should I continue to focus my time on learning to read, speak and listen instead?

You're right that most of the time, you use a computer or cell phone when "writing" Chinese characters. In fact, many Chinese will tell you that - beside their own name (used as a signature) - they almost never write any Chinese characters by hand.

Today, writing Chinese characters is more for memorization than for practical purposes. You might know a few characters and you might know how to type them in your computer, but the only way to really keep them in your mind, and being able to read them fluently, is to write them. It is however rather tedious so it works better if you have some interest in Chinese characters to begin with, otherwise it might get boring.

The best way might be to just try. Write a few characters every day and you might find yourself interested in all the subtleties of Chinese characters.

Edit: There's a related question about the relation between writing and memorizing on the Cognitive Sciences Stack Exchange - https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/68/63

I have an Italian brother in law who is dyslexic. He can read fine but can't write even the simplest thing without mistakes because for instance he can't remember the difference between p and b. That is the condition of many of us learning Chinese, even quite advanced speakers. We constantly make mistakes that even small children wouldn't make. I don't think there is any real answer: we will just have to learn to live with our disability.


What software can correct pronunciation? What software is available which can record my voice and warn me about problems with my pronunciation and tones?

Rossetta Stone has that feature standard. I've not used it, but I have friends who have with great success. Unless you get the tone correct, the software doesn't let you advance to the next word. It's pretty impressive.

Don't know of any free options, though.

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. Then a teacher will evaluate your pronunciation. Its awesome!

waichinese.com


What's the difference between 否则, 要不, 不然, and 要不然? They all mean "otherwise", and beyond that 要不 is more colloquially used I'm not sure how they differ in usage or meaning.

否则 is often time more formal and comes across as more strongly worded (directly admonishing the listener). Much like saying "you need to do X, otherwise/if not, Y will happen (as a consequence)."

E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，否则后果自负

要不 comes across as the softest (has the same as either/or, in the same manner as a suggestion), but it might the nuance of sounding as if one is being admonished, depending on the context. Much like saying "you (either) need to do X, or Y might happen."

E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，要不老板会生气的

However, note that 要不 is (more commonly) used to as a way to directly or indirectly ask the listener for consent (based on the context it's used). Seeing the 吧 typically will indicate that this is a suggestion.

E.g., 一个人看电影没意思，要不我们俩一起去看吧.

不然 is often used when you want to assert a matter of fact (typically in a neutral manner), the manner of speaking is probably somewhere between 否则 and 要不 in terms of strength. Much like saying "you need to do X otherwise Y might happen."

E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，不然老板会生气的

要不然 is a about the same as 要不, but in a bit stronger tone than 要不. Much like saying "you need to do X， or otherwise/or else Y might happen." In my opinion, 要不然 can be used interchangeably with 要不, but only in when used in the context of "otherwise."

E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，要不然老板会生气的

Let me clarify it a bit:

否则. 否=not(negative), 则=then. 否则=if not then.
要不然(要不 and 不然 are simplified forms of it). 要不=要是不=if not. 然=like this/that.

So there are almost no difference. You can switch one by another in modern Chinese. 要不然 is weaker than 否则 in general.


Translation of 这里开了家医院 I found a translation of 这里开了家医院 to "There is a hospital here" but this translation seems to ignore the word 开了。

Does the word 开了 add addition meaning to the sentence which the translation does not include or is it a perfectly valid translation?

这里 开了 家 医院。
Here opened a hospital.

They opened up a hospital here.

Translating is also a task of creation. Translators can change a bit the original meaning so the sentence sounds better in the target language.

I think it just means "has just been opened". It is much like the use of the  English perfect tense to give news.


Can you apply 男子汉 and 女汉子 to non-Chinese? The term 汉奸 probably only works for Han Chinese traitors, but what about other '汉's?

男子汉 means a manly guy, a strong man, or a courageous fighter.

The grammar doesn't seem natural in Chinese. It actually originated in a foreign language and borrowed to Chinese. Here is some text about its origin:

据考证称呼成年男子为男子汉起源于汉武帝时代，众所周知自汉高祖刘邦白登被围后，西汉政权对北主的匈奴一直采取的和亲战略，因此匈奴人对汉人十分瞧不起，到武帝时期经过前几代皇帝的休养生息，西汉国力强盛，士卒训练有素，在汉武帝的命令下，西汉军队在卫青、霍去病两位将军的带领下，与北方的匈奴展开了激烈的战争，经过数次大战终于打败了强大的匈奴，当时的汉朝军队士兵战斗力强悍，在对战中经常以一敌二或敌三，死战不退，一扫有汉以来匈奴人对汉人的蔑视态度，因此从那时起匈奴人对汉朝士兵的称呼即为“汉儿”、“男儿汉”，此称呼后来传回中原，风靡一时，后来人们逐渐对成年男子即用男子汉称呼。

It can be used for people of any ethnicity in China (not just 汉族，but also 满族、蒙古族, etc). So foreigners can also use the word without any problem.

男子汉 means a man whose body or inspire is strong and who has no fear to face the difficulties.But the word"女汉子" means different.First of all, it is a word about the girl,and second, it means the girl acts like a man.


Some 阿-prefix Sichuanese Hakka words (阿妹, 阿姐, 阿妈, 阿孃, 阿祖) - what do they mean? Sichuanese contains a lot of words from other topolects (Hakka, Min, Cantonese, etc.) thanks to the great migration.
There are a bunch of 阿-prefixed forms of address
《四川方言词典》explains:

阿 a1 (缀)
用在某些亲属名称的前面（川西部分地区）：～爹|～伯|～哥。

While also offering the following examples:

阿爸 a1 ba2 (名) 叔父。
阿伯 a1 be2 (名) ①上了年纪的父亲。②伯父。
阿爹 a1 die1 (名) 指年轻的父亲。
阿兄 a1 xiong1 (名) 弟弟 (同“阿哥”相对)。

Here 阿哥 is clearly, also marked as a an 阿-prefixed Sichuanese Hakka form of address - meaning 哥哥 presumably.
《雨城方言》also lists

阿妹
阿姐
阿妈
阿孃
阿祖

What do these words mean:
阿妹, 阿姐, 阿妈, 阿孃, 阿祖?
I can guess, but I'm sure I won't be right. (They very well might differ from proper Hakka, as well).

According to this site:

阿:

  釋義： 1.放在稱謂（如爸、嬸、公、姐等）前，表尊敬。2.放在名字前，表親切，同輩之間或長輩稱呼晚輩時使用。  用例：
  1.阿爸、阿媽、阿公、阿婆、阿叔、阿嬸……2、阿明、阿小珠、阿飛……

阿妹: 1. 孩子（不管晚輩男女，長輩都可稱其阿妹）。2. 女孩子。

阿姐: 姐姐（部分地區也指姑姑）。許多地區稱姐姐為“阿姊”。

阿妈: 媽媽，母親。

阿孃: 1、伯母，伯父的妻子（五華、惠州等地）。2、泛指老婦女。

阿祖: unable to find; I guess it might belong to meaning 2: "放在名字前，表親切，同輩之間或長輩稱呼晚輩時使用。" So, 祖 might be just a person's name.

Let's keep it simple:

If you are a American or familiar with them, you must hear that someone whose name is Lawrence/Timothy/George..... sometimes also can be referred by Larry/Tim/Georgie....

Now you're witnessing the Chinese version of it. And the Chinese version also add rules like Father->something like "Fatherie"? I make it up myself.


At what rate can native speakers of Mandarin Chinese read? This study found that Chinese native speakers read aloud at an average rate of 255 characters per minute (CPM) with a standard deviation of 29 CPM. Presumably this rate is significantly slower than if the test participants read silently.

Are there any studies that had test participants read a text silently, and then tested their comprehension of that text to make sure they weren't just blindly skimming?

This study initially seemed promising, but they don't present enough data (specifically, the length of the texts used in characters) to calculate a reading rate in CPM. I have contacted the authors of this study, and will report back here if they reply.

300-500CPM. This data is from a Chinese search engine.


Shorter name for PRC than 中华人民共和国 Is there a shorter term for the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国)? Seven syllables is quite a mouthful. There's 中国 and 大陆 but they aren't quite the same.

中国 (China) can include the Taiwan, the Republic of China's territory, under a One China principle
大陆 (mainland) doesn't include Hong Kong and Macau

Following are the internationally recognized terms used. They should be very clear for you to find out the English equivalent:

中(华人民共和)国 — () usually omitted unless very formal
[中国]大陆 — [] not often omitted
台湾{地区} / {中国}台湾 — {} showing political preference
{中国}香港 — {} showing political preference
{中国}澳门 — {} showing political preference

Fortunately, there is already an entry on wikipedia here zh-cn and here en-us, plus many other language pages. You will get to know all alternative names of China, both contemporary and conventional.


How to write "Everyone" in Chinese？ Can anyone tell me how to write to "everyone" in Chinese. The symbol to write "everyone ". In a video they showed it to write people symbol 2 times. But when I am searching on Google it is not correct.

我们＝we, us

everyone＝每人，人人，每个
"every" means 每 in Chinese.
"one" indicates people or thing.

So, the correct translation would be 每人 or 每个; and, in Chinese, 每人 is the same as 人人.

it's easy, everyone means 所有人！all  of  us!


Is 呆 just a casual description or a medically-related thing I'm not too sure about 呆. If you say 这个孩子有一点儿呆， does that translate as this child is a bit stupid (just slightly offensive opinion, like 笨), or is it more like 'this child has a learning difficulty' (medical condition)?

呆  mean "dumb" or "stupefied".

"呆" in "这个孩子有一点儿呆" modifies a noun, therefore, it is an adjective for "dumb" or "silly"

"this child has a learning difficulty" means  "这个孩子有一点学习障碍" which is a medical term for such condition

Example of 呆 as "dumb": "呆子" (dumb person); "呆頭呆腦" (dumb looking)

Example of 呆 as "stupefied": 呆了一呆 (stupefied for a moment)

I think the first slightly stupid.

not learning difficulty.


What methods are available for looking up a character? Some dictionaries provide a radical lookup for finding characters. Are there other systems available besides radical lookup for finding the meaning of a word when one only has the character?

This question could probably best be answered by Wikipedia as there are many, many methods.

One relatively common one is to look up the character by stroke count, then by stroke order. In this system, there are five types of strokes and each is assigned a number.

+--------+------------------------------+
| Number | Stroke type                  |
+--------+------------------------------+
|      1 | Horizontal, or rising        |
|      2 | Vertical                     |
|      3 | Falling to the Left          |
|      4 | Dot, or Falling to the Right |
|      5 | Turning                      |
+--------+------------------------------+

This is the method used to look up characters in 现代汉语通用字笔顺规范, the official character stroke order reference in mainland China. For example, below is the character 永 in this book:

If you want to look up this character, you will first go to the page with the 5-strokes characters, then you would search for the dot stroke (4), then the hook (5), etc. Basically, its code would be 45534.

You can also use Wiktionary to look up a word if you know the pronunciation and the meaning but you don't know the character.
Example: ye4
I also quite frequently use Google HK to perform a search, which is useful for when you have a sentence, and type in something like shanshuihua, it will provide you a list of options in Chinese.


What is the meaning of 能者多劳? I've seen this word 能者多劳 being used in multiple senses on the Internet:

One can interpret 劳 as a verb that means working, as in 劳动. Then it gives us able people (should) do more work, or loosely translates to "from each according to his ability".

Google translate has this translation verified by Translate Community.

Or one can interpret 劳 as an adjective that means tired, as in 劳累. Then it gives us able men are always busy.

Wiktionary defines it in this way.

Which interpretation is correct? Is there an authoritative answer, or is both interpretation acceptable?

I would say both interpretations are acceptable.

The more works(劳动) you have to do, the busier (劳累) you would get.

A good example in real life.

My sister can't cook, so my brother in law cooks all the meals for the family.

My sister can't drive long distance, so my brother in law has to drive when they need to go to far away place.

My sister's English is poor, so my brother in law does all the talking when they have to deal with English speakers.

He has to do more works because he has more abilities; he is also busier because he has to do more works.

IMO 多劳 means "work more" and "work more" make you "busier".

You can say 能者多劳 means "the more able man get more works and get busier".

With great power comes great responsibility.


Does an existential sentence with "有" only carry a non-specific noun? Sentence 1: 桌子上有一本作业
Sentence 2: 桌子上有我的作业

I think both sentences are correct. However, I just watched a grammar video which mentioned the existential sentence with "有" can only carry a non-specific noun. If so, "桌子上有我的作业“ wouldn't be correct, because "我的作业" is specific. So I am confused. Can anyone explain this?

Yes, normally, in standard usage

  zhūozishàng yǒu wǒde zuòyè 桌子上有我的作业

isn't supposed to be correct. You'll hear it a lot, though, especially if a different specific noun phrase is contrasted, such as

  … dàn méiyǒu nǐde zuòyè 但没有你的作业.

My Better Half, a native speaker, swears there's nothing wrong with

  … yǒu wǒde zuòyè 有我的作业.

Addendum: The preferred way of dealing with stating the location of a specified noun (modified by a personal pronoun (wǒ 我, etc.) or a deictic pronoun (nà 那, etc.) is to make it the topic of the sentence, giving it greatest focus, as befits a specified noun. So

  wǒde zuòyè zài zhūozishàng 我的作业在桌子上

etc.


What is the difference between 几乎 and 差点儿? Recently I've studied these two words: 几乎 and 差点儿. My book says that they have different meanings and they are used in different contexts, however I don't quite grasp in what way they are different, even if I've been provided with loads of examples.

My teacher mainly focused on the meaning of 差点儿. According to her, this word have a slightly negative connotation, it indicates lack of something.

Maybe 差点儿 is more colloquial (口语)?

What do you think? Is there a clear difference between these two words?

Thank you!

差点儿 is more emotional.

我差点儿迟到了。 implies that I feel lucky I was not late and I would feel bad if I were late.
我几乎迟到了。  states a fact and sounds like it's not a big deal even if I was late.

Visualize such a scenario. I run across the road and a car nearly hits me. My girlfriend says 你差点儿就被撞了！ It's a blame but I can feel she's really worried and feels grateful I was not hit by the car. I would be really sad if she says 你几乎就被撞了。

Furthermore,差点 has a mean “at this time”，几乎means“most of the time”


What does it mean by "失敗就懷孕"? I'm reading a web novel, and it states:

“大約是失敗就懷孕之類的任務吧……”

What does "懷孕" mean or represent in this context?

之類 = this kind/this type

就 = clause: if xxx 就 (then) xxx

失敗 = fail / failure

懷孕 = pregnant

任務 = task

the kind of task where failure results in pregnancy = if we fail we're screwed

Maybe, it is only a joking for 不成功便成仁.

And 仁 has the same pronunciation as 人...


Asking Someone How Their Chinese Studies Are Going I have a friend who has started learning Mandarin, and I want to ask them how their Mandarin studies are going. The first phrase that comes to mind is this:

你中文学习得怎么样？

I'm not sure, however, if 怎么样 is correct. I don't actually know its exact meaning, but I've always thought of it as "how's it going?", such as in “你过得怎么样？”. Therefore, in this case, "it" would be the person's Chinese studies.

Is this correct? If not, what would be a better way to ask this question?

It's correct. It sounds native enough.
"怎么样" in this sentence is used for asking how the things are. i.e. Are they good or bad? It's the same in "你过得怎么样" (literally "How are you getting along (these days)? ")
Your friend could answer "还行" ("not so bad") "很好" ("very well") or "不怎么顺利" ("not so well"), as a few examples.

你的中文学得怎么样？colloquial
你的中文学得咋样？dialect
你的中文学得如何？style of written language


Difference between 必 and 一定 Both words kinda mean “must, necessarily, certainly”. Can someone explain the differences between the two?

Since you are not asking what is the difference between '必定' and '一定' or the difference between '必' and '定', I would just go ahead and state the  difference between '必'  and '一定'
From my answer to this question:

Meaning of 的 and 之 when both are used in the same sentence
之 is the classical Chinese counterpart of 的 in modern Chinese

必 is the classical Chinese counterpart of 一定/必定 in modern Chinese
Examples:

Classical Chinese style: "兵家(必)爭之地"
Modern Chinese: "軍事決策者(一定/ 必定)會去爭奪的地點"

~

Classical Chinese style: "中此毒者(必)死"
Modern Chinese: "中了這個毒的人(一定/必定)會死亡"

~

Classical Chinese style: "日軍稱三月內(必)亡中國"
Modern Chinese: "日本軍方宣稱三個月內(一定/必定)能覆亡中國"

'必' on its own has other meaning and usage, but the question only asked for the comparison between '必' and '一定'. The most obvious difference between the two is as this answer stated.
Notice: Actually, I should say '必' is more literary and '一定' is more colloquial because classical style wording appear mostly in writing

我必须去 I must go there (because of some reasons).
我一定去 I must go there (really want to, no matter what) .

They all mean you must go there sometime in the future.

However, 一定 is subjectively, 必 is objectively.


When is 的 needed to express "of"? Consider the following two sentences:

早晨的太阳为什么是红色的
中午太阳又变白了

For the first sentence: the second 的 is because 红色 is 区别词 and the first 的 expresses alienable possession (i.e. no close possession).

But in the second sentence: there is no "的" after "中午" as I would expect. Why?

I also found the following sentence: 你还得提高教育质量. In English, I would say "quality of education" and not "quality education". Hence, I would also expect a "的".

Another difficult case is "科学模型" vs "科学的模型".

Can somebody clarify how to use "的" to express "of"?

早晨的太阳为什么是红色的
中午太阳又变白了

中午的太阳又变白了 is a correct sentence. But, if you put that 的, you'd change the parsing:

[中午的太阳][又变白了] vs [中午][太阳又变白了]

The original sentence uses 中午 adverbially, which is for the effect of contrast: Why the sun in the morning is red, while at noon(when it comes to noon) it becomes white.(I'm curious how come).
中午的太阳又变白了 would reduce that effect dramatically.
So, the question here is not about grammar but the way people express their ideas.
P.S. I might think to add a comma after 中午 would probably be a little bit improvement? Maybe, not everyone would agree with that.

早晨的太阳为什么是红色的
中午, 太阳又变白了

中午太阳又变白了 == 中午“的”太阳又变白“的”了

Here both “的” are omitted.

per your example of 教育质量 (quality of education), is short for 教育"的"质量 as 教育 is noun.

科学 can mean science (noun), or a short form of 科学的 scientific (adj). here  in "科学模型",  科学 is the latter, hence 的 is omitted.

another similar example is 数学模型 == 数学的模型 == mathematical model