What is the etymology of 居然? Usually X+然 has some kind of meaning related to X, especially archaic usage. However I do not see any relationship between 居 "to reside" and "unexpectedly". Are there any historical sources that explain where this expression came from?

out of my expection. I have never thought.

There is a famous 对联

  客上天然居,居然天上客

There are customers visiting the Natural House, Unexpectedly, They come from the Heaven.

Just a guess: the character 居 originally is made up "From person squatting 尸 and upside down baby 古. Meaning the place you were born, dwelling." according to http://www.chineseetymology.org

Maybe, the original meaning of 居然 was 'an unexpected pregnancy or birth'

There is an old character 毓 yù: give birth to; bring up, educate. In Cantonese this is apparently pronounced juk1.

Attached are 2 images, one from zdic.net and one from chineseetymology.org

One is an old version of 毓, the other is an old version of 居

All supposition of course!


Complement of result:完 or 好 I‘m currently learning how to form the complement of result and what are the translations of some common compound verbs. My book makes this examples:
• 看完=to finish watching
• 写好=to finish writing
• 吃好=to finish eating(with satisfaction)
• 学好=to finish studying

My question is: why does it use 完 just in the first example and 好 in all the others if the meaning it‘s always "to finish doing smth"?

完 is a verb complement, while 好 is a completion suffix. They are not identical, and  cannot be used interchangeably.

Trivially, 看好 means either look after (kānhǎo), or looking forward to something better (kànhǎo). Here it would be unwise to use 好 as a completion marker, so we always use 看完.

Likewise, 学好 means learn well rather than finish learning (do you ever finish learning, or is it a continuous process throughout life?). 读完 would be more appropriate here.

完 is a more unambiguous particle for expressing completion, while 好 is much more versatile. 完 is also more formal, while 好 is more common in vernacular speech.

grammars usually list a number greater than two of 结果补语， taking 外国人实用汉语语法 as an example 动词： 完，见，开，住，着（zhao２），在，到，给； 形容词： 对，错，好，清楚，干净惯，大。 Usually more than one are possible， different choices give different （shades of） meaning（s）。It would seem that in case of the ４ verbs 看，写，吃，学 both 完 and 好 are possible， the English translation need not be restricted to ＂finish＂。
regarding Answer ２， as quoted above
A Practical Chinese Grammar For Foreigners p.292 distinguishes between verb-complement of result phrases in which the complements are verbs ( 完，见，开，住，着（zhao２），在，到，给) and verb-complement of result phrases in which the complements are adjectives (对，错，好，清楚，干净惯，大). (The term suffix seems to be somewhat unexpected). Verbs with complements of result can have objects （in which case any difference between 完 and 好 sometimes becomes less obvious）,e.g. 看完（见，好）某东西，写好（完）一封信，吃好（完）早餐（iciba：那天恰逢我的生日，吃完早餐后全体工作人员为我唱了一首小夜曲），学好（完）某课本（iciba：这是门两个学期学完的必修课）。Of course instead of above examples it may be better to use ＂把＂－sentences，e。g。把某事物看完（好），把给妈妈的封信写好（完），把汉语语发课本学（习）好（完）（these phrases could be ended by adding 了）
好像值得指出的是＂好看＂这短语有个特殊的意义，请看一下现代汉语词典：看好：（１）（事物）将要出现好的势头：旅游市场的前景～｜经济前途～。（２）认为某人或某事物将在竞争或竞赛中占上风：这场比赛，人们～火车头队。


What response is expected to Chinese people's "Have you eaten?"? "Have you eaten?" (你吃了/吃了吗/吃饭没有 etc) sounds like a Chinese equivalent of "how are you?". However, I don't know what is the correct way to respond to the question.

What do Chinese people expect me to answer when they ask it? Should I just answer it literally?

I first thought they ask me to go in lunch together. But it is definitely not true... So if they want to ask me out, do they use a different approach or do I have to discern if they ask me out or just use the phrase as a greeting?

You can just answer it literally. Usually, I will response: 吃过了（or 还没有），你呢？

If people want to ask you out, they will go further with additional questions/requests: 我们一起去吃饭吧？

"吃了, 今天天气不错啊" / "吃过了, 你听说..." / "吃了, 真热啊"

(I'm so starving, since we won't eat together, let's finish this topic and switch to whatever)

"没吃呢, 你吃了吗?",

(I can't eat anymore, but I like to go out, let me ask it too to comfirm you was inviting me, if you response "我也没吃", deal. If you start to bullshit, that was just a greeting.)

"没吃呢, 待会儿吃"

(I am starving again, but piss off, I won't go out with you.)

"没吃呢, 不知道吃什么."

(I'm full, but I like you, I wish you can introduce an restaurant, so we can go out.)

"对付一口"

(Just put something in my stomach, I don't like guessing )


Is 你怎么知道怎么做中国菜? (How do you know how to cook Chinese food?) a grammatically correct question? This is from a problem from my Chinese book; I'm practicing the use of 怎么 (zěn me).

  美国朋友会做中国菜，你觉得很奇怪，问他：...
  Měiguó péngyǒu huì zuò zhōngguó cài, nǐ juédé hěn qíguài, wèn tā: ...

This translates to "An American friend can cook Chinese food; you feel it's strange.  [You] ask him: ... "  I came up with two answers:

The first I think is fine: 你怎么会做中国菜？ (Nǐ zěnme huì zuò zhōngguó cài?) meaning "How can you cook Chinese food?"

My second answer I'm uncertain about because of the repeated 怎么, and because it's an almost-direct translation from English:

  你怎么知道怎么做中国菜？
  Nǐ zěnme zhīdào zěnme zuò zhōngguó cài?

By this I intend to ask him "How do you know how to cook Chinese food?"

Question: Is 你怎么知道怎么做中国菜? a grammatically correct question?

你怎么知道如何做中国菜？

or without how

你在哪学会做中国菜？

Your Chinese is a bit awkward in this case as you suspected.  I would use

你怎么会做中国菜?


Fonts that compose Ideographic Description Characters into one character Are there any fonts that try to compose Unicode Ideographic Description Characters into one character? E.g., ⿰女子 would look like 好. I know the Wikipedia page says "rendering systems are not intended to automatically compose the pieces into a complete ideograph", but this could be helpful for scripts like Sawndip that aren't fully encoded in Unicode. Composing characters overlaid with ⿻ would probably be impossible, but it seems that it shouldn't be hard to at least try to compose characters that are put together just side-by-side with ⿰ ⿱ ⿲ ⿳, especially since something like this is already done for Old Hangul syllable blocks.

The question you are asking is basically, "how do I shape ideographic description sequences (IDS's)"? Text shaping is how the Arabic word خ‌ط ا‌ل‌ع‌ا‌ئ‌ل‌ة becomes خط العائلة.
It is technically possible. I am working on a proof-of-concept that can shape any IDS with a recursion depth of 2 or less. The recursion depth is needed due to limits of the number of glyphs possible in a SFNT-based font.
An SFNT-based font can contain 65535 glyphs. There are 26 presentation forms of a radical shaped in an IDS:

口_Plain.
⿰: 口_Left; 口_Right.
⿱: 口_Above; 口_Below.
⿲: 口_LeftOf3; 口_HMiddleOf3; 口_RightOf3.
⿳: 口_TopOf3; 口_VMiddleOf3; 口_BottomOf3.
⿴: 口_Surrounding; 口_Surrounded.
⿵: 口_SurroundingFromAbove; 口_SurroundedFromAbove.
⿶: 口_SurroundingFromBelow; 口_SurroundedFromBelow.
⿷: 口_SurroundingFromLeft; 口_SurroundedFromLeft.
⿸: 口_SurroundingFromUpperLeft; 口_SurroundedFromUpperLeft.
⿹: 口_SurroundingFromUpperRight; 口_SurroundedFromUpperRight.
⿺: 口_SurroundingFromLowerLeft; 口_SurroundedFromLowerLeft.
⿺: 口_OverlaidA; 口_OverlaidB.

If you take the 216 radicals and draw them in all 26 presentation forms, you have 5,616 glyphs. (You can prune the list some by remembering that not all radicals make sense in all presentation forms; for example, 辶 can never be Surrounding or Overlaid.)
You can then use contextual alternates (GSUB) and contextual substitution (GPOS) to begin shaping. Wherever possible, to reduce the number of needed glyphs, you want to merge where possible. So, to shape 務, you want to shape ⿰矛务, not ⿰⿹予丿⿱夂力; even if this means that you need more "radicals".
This is a broad overview; I am working on a proof of concept, and also font standards which would make things easier for font authors. I also wrote a paper on the subject for the Text Shaping Working Group:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NYKsNOjkOamIRdfMReZfxAhtOUMiHNm_TIidb0Daob4

you can edit two like a picture and insert it in text


Is it fine to use “锻炼” as in "good practice" or not? The sentence in question is "我觉得留学是一种很好锻炼" Can I use “锻炼” in this context?

If you want to express: I think studying aboard is a good practice, then your Chinese sentence "我觉得留学是一种很好锻炼" doesn't connote the same meaning in my opinion.

"我觉得留学是一种很好锻炼" means "I think studying aboard is a good way to train ourselves." The sentence doesn't specify the areas(willpower, ability to live alone and etc.) on which we can get trained.

Well, "studying aboard is a good practice" is like saying 出国留学是一种很好的实践 in Chinese.

Note that you should add a 的 in your sentence to make it more natural: 我觉得留学是一种很好的锻炼.

Absolutely.
Check out Oxford's definition of 锻炼：

3 磨砺 toughen
锻炼意志
temper one's will power
他在战争的熔炉中锻炼过。
He had been steeled in the furnace of war.


What does 你找我有事吗 mean? I got this from the Spoonfed Chinese shared deck on Ankiweb. The translation, which was included in the deck, was "Did you find me about something?" and Google says "Are you looking for me?".

If I translate it character by character I get "Do you find that I have something", but 找 apparently doesn't have the meaning of "think".

找 in this context means to contact/approach/seek/come to see. The whole sentence is very idiomatic and is a good pattern to remember. Roughly, we are asking Is there a particular reason/cause for coming to see me?, or Are you looking for me, because you have something to discuss?

You could also ask, 你来看我有事吗？ (Literally: "You come to see me because of some issue?")

Or even, 你给我打电话有什么事？ (Literally, What is the (particular) cause for calling me?)

You can use this pattern to express the goal/reason [e.g. to discuss something] of some action [e.g. to seek someone]. In Chinese, you don't need to express everything explicitely, e.g. a causative relation between to actions, as above, from the context this will be clear.

This mean:Do  you have any problem need my help?


What does 一不留神 mean ...还写了不少东西，一不留神写了不少军报头条? I get 'take care' or 'be careful' for 留神。

I‘ve seen '一不留神‘ translated as 'accidentally', but this guy did not write his stuff 'accidentally'. It seems to mean 'surprisingly' here. Is that right?

我是1970年入伍的。我主动要求当最艰苦的工程兵，我当兵10年，参与抢险、修路盖房子，还写了不少东西，一不留神写了不少军报头条。

一不留神写了不少军报头条。 Surprisingly, I wrote a lot of lead stories.

留神 means "pay attention"

一不留神 means " not paying attention for just an instance"

In the sentence,  "一不留神" implies " before I notice it"

  一不留神写了不少军报头条

"Before I noticed it, I had already written many lead articles in Military News"

You could use "Before I noticed it" or "Before I knew it"

“一不留神”means "没注意到变化或情况"
eg:
"我早上跑步的时候，一不留神踩到狗屎了"


What's the best way to improve Chinese after mastering the fundamentals? I think to learn a language including Chinese, you would need to first learn the fundamentals, such as the vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar. After that, native speakers go their own way to develop into a more proficient speaker/writer/communicator.

This process takes time and results are uncertain (maybe). Any suggestions about more effective ways to improve Chinese for beginner and intermediate levels?

Thanks for everyone's comments. I think I got some answer to this question.

To improve Chinese beyond intermediate level, one can "use the language in context".

Single-person activities include

Reading Chinese in cartoon book with a topic you are interested in or familiar with
Watch Chinese drama/movies or translated drama/movies with Chinese voice/subtitles
Play Chinese RPG games in which you would see how the language is used in practice, and how people with different social status address each other.
Switch your phone or computer to Chinese language, and you can learn some new words and sentences. (though I think this one is intermediate level).

Multi-person activities:

Talk and interact with other learners or native speakers.

Many young people in  China use the APP like QQ or WeChat chat on the Internet,so you can find someone to be your friend.It is a funny way to learn Chinese.


Resources listing polysyllabic Mandarin words with same pronunciation differing only by tones? I'm interested in finding any webpages or books that list words and phrases of more than one character that share the same pronunciation but not the same tones.
For instance, here are some terms I've discovered in EDICT with the syllables "li" and "ji" in different tones:

Lǐjì 禮記 礼记 "Classic of Rites"
lǐji 裡脊 里脊 "(tender)loin (of pork, beef etc)"
lìjī 利基 利基 "niche"
lìjí 立即 立即 "immediately"
lìjǐ 利己 利己 "personal profit / to benefit oneself"
lìji 痢疾 痢疾 "dysentery"

I'm looking for something like this but with lots more words and phrases so that I can listen to the differences in tones in words and phrases, not just isolated syllables/characters, and without the distraction of also having varying pronunciation.
Resources including audio would be amazing, but just lists of words is quite good enough so that I can get a Mandarin-speaking helper to pronounce them for me.

Please do not paste a list or partial list as an answer

I suggest you use an online dictionary similar to this site: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=shishi

The linked site above allows you to hear the pronunciation (click on the arrows), however I suggest you copy and paste two characters into Google translate which has the audio and it pronounces it as a set phrase rather than separately as the first site does e.g. https://translate.google.com.au/?hl=en&tab=wT#zh-CN/en/%E6%97%B6%E4%BA%8B

Here's the ultimate one for you. 92-character poem by Zhao Yuanren (赵元任)

《施氏食狮史》
石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。
氏时时适市视狮。
十时，适十狮适市。
是时，适施氏适市。
氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。
氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。
石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭，氏始试食是十狮。
食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸。
试释是事。

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »
Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.

« Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »
In a stone den was a poet called Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten lions.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den


Do acronyms borrowed from English use neutral tone (aka tone 0 or tone 5) for all syllables? I was just reading a Q&A here about Chinese words for DVD and the discussion also included other acronyms from English.

It struck me that nobody wrote the pinyin for any of the terms which made me think it means the tones must be obvious so the logical conclusion was that they are all neutral tone.

But is this assumption correct and is it always the case? Also are such words ever affected by tone sandhi?

It seems this question is not clear to all readers. I'm specifically asking about tones, not about writing, though Pinyin is a good way to illustrate the tones. I couldn't find the pinyin for DVD but if the Wiktionary entry for CD is correct then it in fact uses the fourth, falling, tone for each syllable:

  CD (sìdì)

So maybe I should change the question to ask if they always use falling tone for all syllables?

I'm interested in both viewpoints: prescriptive (what, if anything, Standard Chinese has to say about borrowed acronyms) and descriptive (how various Chinese speakers pronounce them in their natural speech, especially those who do not know English).

In short: the standard pronunciation is the English pronunciation.

There's no Chinese standard way to pronounce English letter (how they are pronounced when they are used as pinyin should not be counted here, I think). Tone does not exist for English letters, as they are English, not Chinese. English intonation should take effect(in English, when 'DVD' is pronounced, some letter would be falling, others not).

However, as only few can pronounce English very good in China, and as the pronunciation is affected by the whole sentence(which is in Chinese), what mostly used is in fact Chinglish.

And the pinyin 'sìdì' for CD in wikitionary is definitely wrong. I've never heard anybody talk like that. Pinyin cannot be assigned to English letters.

From personal experience I would say A - Z are all pronounced in a certain way and this is different from the English A - Z.  These are written without tone marks.

So DVD is just DVD but it is not pronounced the same DVD in the west.

These are not affected by Sandhi or anyhting else. But they do have a reasonable exact pronunciation as A - Z has in English.


What is the difference between 鸡蛋 and 鸟蛋? I am learning Chinese with Rosetta Stone software and it is based on guessing the sense of words by pictures.

And I can't guess the difference between various types of "eggs".

When I see normal, probably hen's egg, they write

一个鸡蛋

but when I see some other types of eggs, they can write

一个鸟蛋

In these cases eggs are probably from different birds, not hens.

So what is the difference? Only bird genus or something else?

鸡蛋 is a specific term.
鸟蛋 is a general term.

When we know what kind of bird it is, we use a specific term.
Otherwise, we use a general term.

For example, we call the eggs of 鸭 (duck), 鸽子 (dove), or 鹌鹑 (quail) as 鸭蛋, 鸽子蛋, or 鹌鹑蛋.


不得不, 必须, 只好, 应该: what's the difference? This is what I'm thinking:

  不得不

pm. "cannot but, have to" this seems colloquial, and the fact that dictionaries think of this as a set phrase/fixed expression makes me think so. Also feels like the "can't help but" of 忍不住.

  必须

adv. "must, have to" this feels to me like it might be formal, is that right?

  只好

adv. "have to, have no choice but, be forced to" this sounds begrudging, like you have to or must, but don't really want to.

  应该

aux. "should, ought to, must" I think I usually hear this more often to mean "should, ought to" and not really as must, but I'm not that sure.

Can anybody clarify where I'm right and where I'm wrong in my thinking?

Thanks muchly

不…不… is more likely a language structure. There are 不能不，不想不，不好不 as well，they all mean have to do sth. and all of them are emphasizing that I originally not mean to do but under the circumstance I must do.

  我不得不离开我的家乡去打拼。
  （I have to leave my hometown to make a living)

  不能不说他的作品非常好。
  （We have to say his work is fantastic)

  谁做生意不想不赚钱？
  （Anyone who is a businessman doesn't want to make money?)

  他是我的老师，我不好不答应他.
  （As he is my teacher，it seemed not so well to refuse him）

必须，adverb.
（1）It's reasonable for you have to do sth.

  学习～刻苦钻研（(I/We) must study hard)

(2)Stress the imperative mood.

  明天你～来（You must come here tomorrow)

应该 is a auxiliary verb.
(1)take for granted.

  ~爱护公共财产。
  (We should protect public property.)

（2）estimate sth. must be...

  今天出门早，～不会迟到。
  Leaving home so early today, I won't be late.

只好，adverb. have no choice but.

  我等了他半天他还没回来，～留个条子就走了。
  （Waited for him for such a long time, I had no choice but to leave a note and then walk away）

Some parts maybe confusing to understand, this is a common issue for starter. The more usage you know about a word or phrase, the easier for you to know about the whole system and how it works.

As a chinese ， I  guess that there is barely no difference between 不得不 and 必须 in my daily life when I use them.But 只好 and 应该 ,they are different.


What is the difference between 通常，经常，and 常常？ What is the difference between 通常，经常，and 常常？

I hear them a lot in conversational Chinese, but I can't pick out the difference in meaning. The dictionaries I've checked don't seem to agree on their chosen English translations.

Generally, 经常 is used ahead of action, like 我经常加班

通常 is used to describe things happened frequently. like 事情通常是这样的

常常 can be used for both of the cases.

----- Edit -----

他通常说的都是对的.

我通常都是晚上开始工作.

both are okay to me too, you can see the differences.

常常 can always take place of 经常 (anyway, I cannot recall any examples now that cannot replace it).

通常来说， 常常 can also take place of 通常, but we just don't say 常常来说 :)

通常 = usually

经常 = frequently

常常 = very frequently


Stative verbs in Chinese: only for adjectives? I've recently discovered that in Chinese, adjectives can function as verbs. An answer on this site stated that "all adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs".

This was obviously an interesting discovery for a Chinese learner like me, and I actually never noticed that this sentence lacks a verb, yet it's one of the first that we learn:

  我很好。

or another simple sentence like:

  他很高。

But both sentences show like the "verb function" is served by "很" and not "好" or "高". As far as I can tell, "很" is an adverb not an adjective. Same with this one. "Not" is an adverb, not an adjective. Yet we have the same phenomenon:

  他不高。

So am I missing something here? Am I being too strict about that "adjectives" or am I misjudging something?

By the way, I'll take advantage of this question to ask: are really all adjectives able to be stative verbs or are there exceptions?

As a native speaker, I have noticed such a phenomenon for many years, but I have never thought of the logic or reasons behind it. Perhaps we should not (or even could not) go too far on this topic.

This topic is academic, I believe. You would find many papers on this topic when you search on the internet (I use the key word: "汉语 形容词 谓语"). After reading some papers and thinking of how I would say in different cases, I think we'd better say "some adjectives could be used as the predicate in Chinese" and there are some fixed patterns where an adjective is used in this case. I would like to elaborate on this topic from several points.

1. Types of the Adjective
As Claw pointed out, there are two types of adjectives in Chinese (though, in academic world, there are some disputes on this. Someone holds that the adjectives (the term used now) in Chinese should be classified into two different parts of speech): "attributive" and "predicative". The difference between the two types is: "Can this adjective be modified with 很 (very)?"

2. Patterns for Attributive Adjectives
You could use the construction "[subject]是[attributive adj]的". In English, the verb "be (是 in Chinese)" is indispensable and it's called "Link Verb". In this case, the use of the adjective is similar with that in English.

3. Patterns for Predicative Adjectives
The problem becomes a little complicated now. I can come up with some patterns.

1. degree adverb (很,非常,十分,有些,有点,不) + adj.
This is the pattern your examples use. In this case, I agree that the meaning of "很" weakens a lot. It seems that "很" works like a "marker". Of course, you may use "非常" or "十分" to express "very" if you really want to.

In general, it sounds very wierd "我好" ("你好" is another story, since it has been a usage or one interjection word, I think), "他高" in Chinese, but I think in some cases they are acceptable.
a. In a question and in the reply to that question.

  Q: 他帅吗？ Is he handsome?
  A: 他帅。He is handsome

b. Used in two clauses to express parallel, comparsion or condition.

  他胖，我不胖。 He is fat, (while) I am not fat.
  你高兴，我就高兴。 (If) you are happy, I am happy.
  这篇小说精彩，那篇也精彩。 This novel is excellent and that one is excellent too.

c. 又+adj+又+adj,既+adj+且+adj
Such patterns is used to connect two parallel words.

  这个苹果又大又圆。 This apple is big and round.
  敌人既凶残且愚蠢。 THe enemies are cruel and stupid.

2. Main subject (abbr: MS) + Subject's Property or Part (abbr: SP) + adj
This pattern is used to decribe the property of something.
Note: English translations in the parentheses are more formal, I think.

  他形容*憔悴。 His appearance is emaciated. (He looks emaciated)

Here, MS=他,SP=形容 and 憔悴 is the adj.
*形容 is a noun here, which means "the appearance of, the look of [a man]". Dont' be confused with "形容 (to describe)" as in "形容词 (adjective)".

  他工作能力强。 His work ability is strong. (He is capable of doing the work)

Here, MS=他,SP=工作能力 and 强 is the adj.

  我浑身无力。 My all body is feeble (I am feeble all over, from head to foot)

Here, MS=我, SP=浑身 and 强 is the adj.

3.Subject+Adjective+"了"
This pattern is used to express that the subject has been "adj" or has become (turned) "adj".

  树叶红了 The leaves has turned red.
  她漂亮了 She has become beautiful (Implies: she was not beautiful in the past but she is beautiful now)

4. Why do we need "很" here?<
fefe thinks that this is related to the length of syllables, but I don't think so. Because even with a two-character adjective, we still could not use the consctruction "Subject+Adj" to form a sentence (except for the cases I listed above). You won't say "她漂亮", though "漂亮" has two characters. Instead, you would say

  她很漂亮 or 她非常漂亮 (note 非常 has two characters)

In classic Chinese, ”是" was seldom used as "to be" and an adjective could be used as a verb or predicate directly. I really don't know why "很" or such adverbs are needed, but that just happens in Chinese.

  春风又绿江南岸  from the poem of 《泊船瓜洲》 by 王安石
  绿: [adj]green. Here: to make something green

  亲贤臣，远小人，此先汉之所以兴隆也。 from 《出师表》 by 诸葛亮
  远:[adj] remote, far. Here: to keep oneself from, to be far away from

I just read 《史记·淮阴侯列传》 (the biography of 韩信) and I found some good examples with adjectives in classic Chinese.

  信亦知其意，怒，竟绝去。 In modern Chinese, I would say,

  韩信也知道她的用意，很生气，最终离开。 Hanxin also understood her intention, so he became angry [at her] and left at last.

  信数(shù)与萧何语，何奇之。

  韩信与萧何交谈几次后，萧何[对他的军事才能]感到惊奇 After several talks with Hanxin, Xiaohe got suprised [with Hanxin's military talent]

  见信死，且喜且怜之。

  [刘邦]看见韩信已死，又高兴又同情。 [Liubang] found Hanxin was dead; [he was] happy and sympathized

She is (very) beautiful. ==>
她 是（很）漂亮。 ==>
她（很）漂亮。

So adjectives as verbs?

No, simply because "是" (am/is/are/was/were) is intentionally removed.
Besides, there is nothing to do with adverb like "很/十分/特别" etc.


position and meaning of 了 in "一...就" construction I'm a little bit confused how to translate these sentences:
1)今天我一下课就去看他 (is it "As soon as the class is over I'll come to see him"?)
我一下课就去看他了 ( "as soon as the class was over I came to see him?")
2)他一到中国就给我来了个电话("as soon as he came to China he gave me a phone call"?)
3)姐姐一毕业就参加工作了( "as soon as she graduated she started working"?)
姐姐一毕业就参加工作("as soon as she graduates she will start working"?)

can i say "我一吃了饭就出去了?

[一(X)就(Y)] is a very common sentence structure

(X) is the condition or requirement.  When this condition or requirement is met, then the following action or event (Y) would occur.

Depend on the context [一(X)就(Y)] functions as following:

[once (X) then / immediately (Y) ]

Example: [一(吃完飯)就(出去)] = [once I (finish dinner), then I would (go out )immediately]

吃完飯 is the condition / requirement that being met; 出去 is the following action that only occurs after the condition is met.

[Whenever (X) then / immediately (Y) ]

Example: [一(上課)就(睡覺)]= [ whenever I ( go to classes), I would immediately (fall to sleep)]

上課 is the condition/ requirement that being met; 睡覺 is the resulting action/event that always occur when the condition/ requirement is met.

  can i say "我一吃了饭就出去了?"

If by saying "一吃了", you meant 'once I finish eating', you can say "我一吃了饭就出去了". But it is better to say "我一吃完饭就出去了" (once I finish dinner, I would go out). Because "一吃了" in "我一吃了饭" can also be interpreted as "whenever I eaten dinner".

You didn't mean to say "I go out whenever I eaten dinner" I suppose?

As for your example sentences:

今天我一下课就去看他 - (下课=X; 去看他=Y ) "Once I finished classes for today, I went to see him immediately."
他一到中国就给我来了个电话- (到中国=X; 给我来了个电话=Y)" Once he arrived in China, he immediately gave me a phone call."
姐姐一毕业就参加工作了- (毕业=X; 参加工作=Y) " Once my sister graduated, she joined the work force immediately.)

All correct.

You can say 我一吃了饭就出去了(I went out as soon as I finished my food.).
If want to express "I'll go out after finishing this meal". i would say "我一吃完饭就出去".


Use of “是不, ...” to introduce sentence In a video I recently watched, the narrator introduced an idea by saying

是不, ...

Can someone tell me what the best way is to understand this for an English speaker?

Thanks.

Edit: here is one instance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsFGZ1dyJnc

At 35 seconds, in accord with the subtitles, the narrator says:

是不，一下車我們就..., which is translated, "That's why, as soon as we got out of the car,..."

So in this case I take it to mean, "for this reason,..." "that's why...," or the like.

Edit 2: Correction, it is 这.

I checked the video at 35", it's 这不, not 是不. I don't think there is 是不 to start sentences with.
Basically, you can understand 这不 as a shortened version of 这不是嘛(isn't it [so]) which is rhetorical and means 是这样的(it is [so]).
In speaking, I think its function is just something to get listeners attention by marking the start of a point or narration. I don't know any expression in English that is quite the same as 这不. But I think there are some possible flexible translations:

这不, 一下车我们就直奔XXX
So, we went straight to XXX after getting off our cars.

Here it can be translated to ‘so‘, or 'that's why' (like they did in the subtitle of the video) because the content before that was saying the city had a long history, considering which so they went to the museum first. However, 这不 doesn't really indicate causality in general, it's just a casual piece of word to connect sentences which can be interpreted in many ways. Some times it would be better translated as 'now' or 'here'. Examples:

A: 他怎么还没到?
Where is he (literal: Why hasn't he arrived?)
B: 他这不来了么
(Now/look) Here he comes.

P.S:
I don't think it's standard Mandarine, it feels more a northern (Beijing/Hebei at least) dialect to me. The whole video is narrated in such style to be more approachable, I guess.

Must have been 是不是 I think.

是不是你刚刚做完的电影有很大的。。。。


承認 for confessing admiration Is 承認 appropriate when describing the following situation? I've known a girl a while and she recently confessed that she liked me. I know "承認" is used for admitting that you have committed a crime or done something else wrong, but liking someone isn't wrong. I imagined Chinese would have a more nuanced word for this situation.

承认 means 'to admit'. It isn't only used when the deed being admitted is wrong or illegal. It can be shameful, embarrassing or simply too shy to admit, which I believe is the situation in your example.
Although 承认 is fine to use, I think an even better word is 坦白, which means 'to confess'. Just like the English word (and like 承认), it's commonly used for sins or guilt, but it can be used for embarrassment or shyness as well.

We confessed that we like each other.
我们坦白了彼此喜欢对方。

suggestion：search web using ＂承认钦佩＂ （confess  admiration, of course 承认钦佩 may not be acceptable Chinese）， this seems to show that 承认 can be used in the stated context，。e。g。 Dict。cn。has
。。。承认我是星球上最美的人,服饰最好的人,最富有的人,最聪明的人


快: why does "fast" also mean "happy"? The character 快 is usually used for the meaning of "fast", but it is also used in the sense of "pleasant" or "happy" - for example, in the words 痛快, 爽快. It seems that both meanings are quite ancient.

According to the morphology, you'd expect this character to originally have the "happy" meaning - it has a 忄 radical - but the "fast" meaning is also very ancient, e.g.

  此马虽快,然力薄不堪苦行。——《晋书·王湛传》

How did this character pick up two meanings, which are not quite related?

And yes, 快 also has other meanings.

Not a very satisfying answer but anyway:

說文解字

  喜也。从心夬聲。苦夬切

說文解字注

  喜也。引申之義爲疾速。俗字作駃。从心。夬聲。苦夬切。十五部。

Notice the 引申之義爲疾速 from above, happiness extended to mean fast.

I don't know exactly the mentality of 喜 -> 引申 -> 疾速 but apparently people did think they were related at one point in time.

Maybe it has to do with 俗字作駃

大汉语词典

  駃 kuài［1］快马。“参见駃马”。［2］同“快”。

Must have been some mix-up somewhere.

when 快 exist alone it means fast
when it bundles with 乐（happy) like 快乐 it meaning happyness.


Is this a spoken contracted form of 現在【现在】？ In this video at time stamp 0:07 the Taiwanese speaker (according to the subtitles) says:

我們現在是在臺北。。。

However the what she actually says for 現在 is one syllable that sounds like /xia1/ to me.

What am I hearing? Is this a complete other word, or is it a common contraction of 現在?

This happens frequently in oral expressions. Yes, this is a "contraction" as you stated. The context is specific to everybody, so the speaker can shorten some words to express more information. Here the full word /xiànzài/ is shortened as something like /xià(n)ài/, where the sound /z/ and the nasal sound are in fact pronounced but in a very short period, and the recording seems like that the one just omitted /z/, /n/. You could try yourself by reading the word "现在" as quick as possible without altering the leading consonants [or, to be more exact, 声母] the tone and the vowels [韵母], and you might get the same result.

haha,  yes, you are  right,  it's a  voice, you don't care it. there are many voice,  my mean is accent,,,   hope you  can understand


Pinyin capitalization when sentence starts with a number The first letter of a sentence in Pinyin is to be capitalized. Does this remain true if the sentence starts with an arabic numeral? For instance, Google Translate turns "23万人" into "23 Wàn rén" instead of "23 wàn rén", as one may expect from European languages.

This may be hard to answer definitively. (It might be documented in the ISO 7098:2015, but it's behind a paywall.)

In any case, it would be natural to transliterate a sentence beginning:

  23万人...

as

  25 wàn rén...

We certainly know sentences start with capital letters:

  6.3.1 句子开头的字母大写。例如：
  - Chūntiān láile.（春天来了。）
  - Wǒ ài wǒ de jiāxiāng.（我爱我的家乡。）

  中华人民共和国国家标准，汉语拼音正词法基本规则，2012。
  (Basic Rules of the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet Orthography, 2012.  Source.)

In the given example, the sentence starts with 2 (not 万).

It also seems reasonable to believe that pinyin follows English capitalization, like it does for other forms of capitalization (start of a sentence, people's names, etc.).

Some related observations...

It is possible to use Arabic numerals in pinyin, the above document contains this example:

  635 fēnjī（635分机）
  (extension 635)

along with examples where the pinyin corresponds to what is pronounced:

  èr fēn zhī yī（二分之一）
  èr líng líng bā nián（二〇〇八年）

I didn't find a definitive example where a numeral in Chinese was transliterated to its pronunciation in pinyin.

And there's also examples of place names where Chinese characters are converted to numbers in pinyin:

  二马路 (2 Mǎlù)
  三环路 (3 Huánlù)
  中国地名汉语拼音字母拼写规则（汉语地名部分），1984。
  (China Place Name Hanyu Pinyin Letter Spelling Rules (Hanyu Place Name Part), 1984.  Source.)

Wouldn't the number be written out in Pinyin? i.e.:

  23万人
  Èr shí sān wàn rén


Why is "cult movies" translated as 邪典电(電)影? Does anyone know why the word "cult" (cult film) is translated as "邪典" (邪典电影) ? Thank you for your help in advance !

Fully translated, 邪典電影 is cult classic movie:

邪 = cult-ish/heterodox, c.f. 邪教 (religious cult)
典 = classic, c.f. 經典 (classics, classical)

In English, cult movie is really just short for cult classic movie.

In fact, the definition of 邪典 is something that can pollute a person's mind. But unfortunately you can't define 邪典电影 literally; its real meaning refers to some movies which some groups like, but is not universally popular.  Usually these movies involve a director's subjective mind or their style is strange.


Is there really no word for individualism in Chinese? In his book Selfie Will Storr claims that:

  In Chinese, there isn’t a word for individualism (the nearest they have translates to ‘selfishness’.)

I’m pretty sure there is a, modern, word for individualism and it is:

个人主义

and I’m also pretty sure it doesn’t translate to selfishness.

His concept is a good one and I would love to buy into it, but I’m not really seeing it.

Any ideas?

In my opinion, the term 个人主义 might be a valid direct translation of the word individualism, but I don't think it always conveys the same meaning.

The suffix 主义 in Chinese hints to an actual ideology or ideological system. Whereas in English it can have a narrower application, as you can call an individualist someone who lives an independent life. So that would be 独立。

  西方人比中国人独立很多
  Westerners are more individualists than the Chinese.

Perhaps you can argue that 独立 here is used as an euphemism but what they mean is actually "individualist", which - also in English - means an independent person who doesn't need much support from others without being maliciously selfish.

yes, you are right. In Chinese selfishness is 自私

On the other hand, individualism is 个人主义


How do I overcome my inability to think in Chinese? I instead translate what I read into English I am not sure why, but whenever I read something in Chinese...I don't know how to say this, it just doesn't click, Every word I read is instantly translated to English, If I try to force my self to not do so, I tend to get confused. I am not too sure if some one who faced a similar problem could tell me if I am maybe learning the wrong way.

How do I overcome my inability to think in Chinese?

Everyone learn differently, everyone progress in different speed.
I would say this question will not has a definite answer.

In my opinion, it is not a bad thing that you automatically translate foreign language into your native language in your mind at the beginning of your study. Eventually, you will get familiar with that second language enough and able to think in that second language. It will take years and you need to listen, speak and write that second language day in and day out to get better.

I learned English by watching a lot of T.V, read news paper everyday and talk to a lot of people.  Nowadays I often encounter some English words that I understand their meanings but can't translate it into Chinese. At this point, I think my English is quite o.k.

In Chinese, character instead of word is more basic. In fact, if you grip a "feel" to every character, it's natural to understand how and why a word is formed so that you can think better in a "Chinese" way. You may try an interesting method to develop your feel to a character:) You can coin a word with two characters (after you have a basic idea of their meanings) and try to guess  its meaning and then then look it up in an online dictionary  to check whether it is valid and if it is, compare its true meaning with your guess... Chinese  is actually a very free language~ Basically everyone can understand my self-made words.


Why is the radical of 难 > 隹 and not 又? 难 nan2, difficult; hard. Kangxi radical 172 隹.

My teacher says the radical for this character is 又 but the dictionary says clearly it's 隹.

As @50-3 has mentioned, the 难 is the simplification of the traditional character 難. Most Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds (形声字), in which the radical hints at the meaning while the phonetic hints at the pronunciation. In the case of 難, the phonetic component is 堇 while the radical is 隹. In modern Chinese, the pronunciation of 堇 has diverged from 難, but their pronunciations in Old Chinese were presumably closer.

Why is the radical 隹, which typically refers to birds? This link gives the explanation: http://font.zenque.com/zidian/4796.html

  難，今单用简作难，读nán，本义指一种鸟。因其从“堇”（火焚人祭雨）取得声义，故借以表示①困难；艰难

難 originally referred to a type of bird, but because the pronunciations coincided, the character ended up being borrowed to also refer to hardship and difficulty.

I am sure the radical for this character is 隹 , I can list the characters of 又 radical：
又叉及反双友収发叏叐叒叓变取受叔叕叛叟叙叚叝叞叜叠叡叢


What is the meaning of 么? If you want to say "This dog," you'd say, "这只狗". If you want to say "This thing," you'd say, "这个东西". If you want to say, "This much," you'd say, "这么多".

I understand the reasons for the 只 and the 个, but what does the 么 really mean?

么 has lost most of its lexical meaning in modern usage, but it appears to have originally been derived from the word 物, meaning 'thing'. Chinese by Jerry Norman, pp. 119-20 makes mention of the etymology of various modern words featuring 么:

  In an insightful article, Zhāng Hùiyīng (1982) has shown that shénme 什么, the standard modern word for 'what', comes from shí wù 什物 (MC źjəp mjuət). This form (in a number of different phonological shapes) makes its first appearance in the Tang dynasty. Shí wù 什物 originally meant 'vessels, household utensils, things (of various sorts)'. The development of a interrogative meaning 'what' from a meaning 'thing' finds a parallel in modern Italian, where cosa 'thing' is also used to mean 'what'. ...

  ...

  [Regarding 'how'...] In the late Tang and Wudai periods, a different form begins to be found; it consists of the verb zuò 作 (MC tsuo-) plus one of several variants of the morpheme meaning 'thing, what' discussed in relation to the origins of modern shénme 什么 ... In the Wudai period, a fusion word zěn 怎 (from an earlier *zěm) based on these forms appears for the first time. It is this fusion form that is directly ancestral to the modern zěnme 怎么 'how'. Zhème 这么 'in this way' and nàme 那么 'in that way' were probably analogically based on this form.

Notes:

The article by Zhāng Hùiyīng 张惠英 referenced in that excerpt refers to an article entitled 释「什么」in《中国语文》1982年第4期, pp. 302-5. I wasn't easily able to obtain a copy of that article though.
MC in that excerpt refers to how the words were pronounced in Middle Chinese (ca. 600-1000 AD).

While it's interesting that 么 in these words was derived from a word meaning 'thing', it's essentially a bound morpheme that is no longer productive and can't be used on its own. In effect, its modern usage doesn't have any particular meaning in practice. In many ways, it could be considered a cranberry morpheme.

Agree to Drunken Master, just a suffix here.
怎～。这～。多～。什～。

It has no meaning, just sounds better.
I think "so much" is closer to "这么多".


A Golden Rule for When Chinese Repeat a Word Twice X Twice? 热热闹闹 I have come across several times reading Chinese that they repeat words twice and then again.

For an Instance what is the difference between 热闹　and 热热闹闹　？

what is the grammar meaning when words get multiplied in that manner？

As a native Chinese speaker, I've never learned the AABB "grammar rule" from book. This means it's never considered as a kind of grammar rule at least in my student age.

But I don't agree with @gcd0318. There is difference between AB and AABB. In Chinese, repeating usually means emphasize the AB word, or to make the sentence sounds good to phonology.

e.g. 勤恳（diligent and conscientious） vs. 勤勤恳恳
Although they have the same mean, but use 勤勤恳恳 always make the audience feel that the speaker is highly applaud one's diligent and conscientious. Use 勤恳 doesn't have the strong emotional feeling.

Back to your example, 热热闹闹, it's the same as usage of 勤勤恳恳. It emphasize how  bustling it is.

And see this great answer for usage of repeating words in Chinese.

XXYY (sometimes XYXY) has nothing special comparing to XY, just an oral style. But not all adj. or adv. have such usage


Chinese Year on a Postmark Another postmark question: I don't know which year it is (perhaps 1918, 1928?).

It's most probably written vertically, right to left:

七年八月十一 Year 7, Month 8, 11(th day). 1938/8/11 (Year 1 is 1932).

No idea what the 九/9 at the end stands for.

EDIT

As Wang Dingwei says, Henan wasn't part of Manchukuo. So year 7 is probably 1918. 紀元轉換

Guessing here: 18th January 1941, that is Manchuguo year 9 in Jigongshan, occupied Henan.


When to use "他的太太" and when "他太太"? I've read the two different sentences, of which one uses "他的太太" and the other uses "他太太". How can I tell the difference between the two?

For example, in the following sentence:

现在他想他的太太。
现在他想他太太。

Which is the correct sentence? And why?

When you want to express possessive relations concerning family members or relatives, you don't need 的.

我妈妈，你爸爸，她男朋友，我们家老大, etc.

I have done some searches with different expressions with and without 的, and I see that this rule is not applied consistently.

EDIT: There are ambiguous cases, e.g. 你们孩子 could mean "You children" or "Your children" (with plural you in both cases, of course). In such cases 你们的孩子 would make it clear what the speaker means.

In China, people usually speak 的 very quickly and in a low volume. So in oral Chinese, many people omit 的 in many situations.

的 is often kept in written Chinese, such as newspaper, literature and some other official publications  although sometimes 的 is omitted for convenience.


Can you help translate my Korean name (Kim Hee-Joon) into a Mandarin/Traditional name? Need help translating my name Hee Joon Kim into Mandarin symbols for a name chop. In Korea, we spell our last name first when writing our name, so I am looking for a translation of " Kim Hee Joon ". Thank you very much.

I don't know Korean but I found a K-pop star named Moon Hee-joon who's official translation is 文熙俊. So, your name's translation is probably 金熙俊。

下午好"金贺俊"， 帅哥！
英俊：handsome


What does 丫 mean? 丫是什么意思？ I'm currently watching a TV show called ”匆匆那年“, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Tub19BTX4&list=PLn8V6LgDVrvJ3SAHEtI4i6hEL_ODIulko&index=7. I've only watched half an hour of the seventh episode, but I've already heard the word "丫" a few times. For example, at 30:22, one of the characters says, "你丫不会要哭吧“, and I understand what the sentence means, but why is “丫" used and what does it mean? I've never heard it in China, is it used in some parts of China and others not? Are there only certain contexts when it could be used? Unfortunately, I can't find the other times I heard it in that episode currently, but I know I heard it and saw it a few times. I've tried searching on Google and various online translators, but I couldn't find a conclusive answer on when to use it or what it means.

我正在看一个电视节目叫”匆匆那年“。我就看了半个小时的第七集，已经听过了一些次句话用“丫”。比如，在这个 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Tub19BTX4&list=PLn8V6LgDVrvJ3SAHEtI4i6hEL_ODIulko&index=7) 的30:22，一个人说，”你丫不会要哭吧“。我听懂这句话的意思，可是“丫”是什么意思，而且为什么需要用它? 我在中国没听过了，有的中国部分用它很多，有的没用它吗？ 不好意思，我现在不会找到那些其他次我听过了“丫”，但是我知道我听过了它。我在Google上查资料了它，也不会找到一个好的解答。谢谢！

另外，我知道我的中文不好，如果你会改善我的写作，请帮我！

It is a short word for "丫头养的" only used in area around Beijing city，"丫头" means slave girl or young girl servant. "养的" means feed by.

This is bad language saying somebody's mother is young girl servant, some kind of "son of bitch". However this talking is generalized nowadays, "你丫..." is more compare to "You fucking ..."(你他妈的...)

丫 means "why", like Y, and is used when you happen to have a question about a subject.


What's the difference between 生态环境观 and 生态伦理观？ I think that "生态环境观" refers to ecology and that "生态伦理观" refers to environmental ethics. Can anybody confirm this or correct me?

In my opinion,  "生态环境观" is more objective, it include ecological and environmental sciences. Whereas "生态伦理观" is "生态环境观" plus ethics. Specifically, "生态伦理观" is a branch of ethics, and is relative to the moral connection between human and nature, the research object is the moral connection between person and person affected by the relationship between human and nature, such as Good, evil, morality and immorality.

They aren't equal, and we won't say these things since it's so strange, and what actually do you mean?
Ecology should be 生態學，while environmental ethics is same as your original answer 生態倫理觀


Is “之” usually used as a possessive pronoun (attributive) in Classical Chinese? True or False Question:

In classical Chinese,
 “之” is usually used as a possessive pronoun (attributive), “其” is usually used as a subject, and “彼” is usually used as an object.

a.       True b. False

I think the statements about the “其” and “彼” are true. I'm not sure about the statement regarding “之”. I don't think "possessive pronoun" and "attributive" are equivalent. It's quite true that 之 can be used as a possessive marker (e.g.,美国之音).

Thank you for your help.

之 is a common way to say ‘him/her/it’ in classical Chinese.  It’s usually in the object position, not the subject one though:  殺之 ‘kills him’;   由之  ‘from it’.  The use like modern Chinese 的 is different.

其 is actually a possessive pronoun, as in 其妻  ‘his wife’.  More generally, it substitutes for ‘noun + 之’.

彼 can be used as a third-person pronoun in either subject or object position, but mainly it is a demonstrative (‘this’ or ‘that’).  There are other words that work the same way and appear as pronouns.

All of this is based on the section on pronouns in Edward Pulleyblank’s ‘Outline of Classical Chinese’, esp. pp 79-80.  You can find it on Google Books.

The answer is no.

In classical Chinese, "之" has the following meaning:

1.It means "的", it turns the former words into adjective or adverbial for the later word. It's just for pronunciation. e.g.,缓兵之计, 不速之客, 莫逆之交

2.It means "of". "美国之音" means "音" of "美国".

3.possessive pronoun. "等闲视之”

4.It means "go to". "吾欲之南海"

For more information, you can check here


Why is 儿 in different positions in "儿子" and "女儿"? 儿 [Er] child

  儿子 [Érzi] son
    女儿 [Nǚ'ér] daughter

So, why is 儿 in different positions in each word but they are both valid?

This is an interesting question, because it allows us to look at how words are formed in modern Chinese.

The Characters

Both 兒 and 子 meant "child" or "son" in ancient Chinese. 兒 was more specific, while 子 had a variety of other uses, like "master" (as in 孔子 - master Kong/Confucius). When 子 meant child, it was somewhat inclusive of female children, although it can also refer to males only, as in the sentence 无子,有女二人 [he had] no sons, but two daughters.

兒 can sometimes be used for "children" in general, as in the modern 兒童, but in ancient Chinese, it tended to be male-specific. The Qin dynasty proto-dictionary 倉頡篇 Cangjiepian gives the definition:
男曰儿,女曰婴 male [young children] are called 兒, female [ones] are called 嬰.
When 兒 refers to the child of someone, it means son.

女 means daughter, but has always also meant "woman" or "female (human)".

Forming Two-Syllable Words

As the pronunciation of the Chinese language changed over the centuries, many one-syllable words became homophones. In order to clarify which word they meant, people formed two-syllable words that were less likely to be confused. Three very common ways to do this are:

putting two words with very similar meaning together, as in 房屋 (house-house), 幫助 (help-help) or 美麗 (pretty-pretty)
adding a more general word that clarifies the type of thing being described:  偉大 (grand-big) or 月亮 (moon-light)
only for nouns, adding 子: 桌子 (table), 梨子 (pear) and 褲子 (pants) all mean the exact same thing with or without the 子

It’s easy to see how 兒子 follows all three of these rules. I suspect it was formed by the third rule, because the 子 is pronounced in the fifth / neutral tone, which suggests it does not carry the meaning of the word.

So why 女兒 instead of 女子? Firstly, 女子 can mean daughter or "female child". But it can also refer to "women" in general. So 女兒 is more specific.
And why not 兒女? The word "daughter" would not be formed this way, because 女 is more specific than 兒, which can be gender-neutral. Therefore, 兒女 reads as "sons and daughters", which is indeed what it means.

I see the above answer can not say wrong, but I feel a little strange. "儿" You can understand the children of parents. 儿子的"子" Represents men: the child is a boy. 女儿的"女" represents a woman: the child is a girl. In Chinese, parents said a son is "儿子" or "小儿" (xiao er), and a girl is "妮儿" (nin er).

The above mentioned is limited to "儿子", "女儿". If you have to connect to (桌子) the table, this is without any meaning. Do you understand?


How to distinguish between rat and mouse in Chinese? I know there are two words here: 老鼠 and 鼠. However, the dictionary states that 老鼠 (rat) can also mean mouse; how do you specify rat?

I imagine that 仓鼠 (hamster) and 沙鼠 (gerbil) are often abbreviated to 鼠???

If so how does one specify that you mean mouse, rather than rat, hamster or gerbil?

P.s. maybe someone could also drop in a comment about whether or not these animals are common house pets in China / HK / TW?

Actually, in ordinary life, Chinese don't distinguish mice and rats(Frankly speaking, when I was a student, studying English and met the two words, I was also wondering why there are two words in English?). We just call that dirty animal that often appears in the houses "老鼠" or "耗子"(oral word,common in dialects).When we see a mouse(rat?) in a field, we may call it "田鼠"(田 means the field).

仓鼠 is a kind of pet(one of my friends raise two). Wiki tells me rat is "大家鼠" and "mouse" is “小鼠", but I and people around me don't care this.

Of course, in scientific circle, academical researchers will adopt the Binomial Nomenclature(in Chinese, 二名法) system to distinguish them.

Google translate suggests "small rodents" for 小老鼠.

I think that when you say "老鼠" most Chinese will think of "rat" first, but perhaps it is just an example of a slight mistranslation? Maybe, like the poster above said, it is really referring to the whole family of small mammals we call rodents, which includes rats, mice, gerbils, etc.

I have heard "白老鼠" used to refer to mice, specifically little white mice like the kind used in science experiments.

I have no idea how to say gerbil.


Why was 幸 simplified to 扌in 報(⿰幸) to 报(⿰扌)? The simplification of 報(⿰幸) to 报(⿰扌) is slightly peculiar. The particularly intriguing area is in the simplification of the left-hand side, with 幸 being simplified into 扌.

There is another similar instance with 執 being simplified to 执. Another 幸 to 扌simplification.

There must be a method to this madness but it isn't immediately evident in the characters themselves.

Ideas?

As with many simplified characters, cursive scripts (Caoshu) can be informative.

In "Chuyue tie" by the famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi, 報 is written as follows:

As @dROOOze mentioned in the comment, the radical 幸 came from the character for handcuffs, which could indicate that the use of 扌(手) might related; but I can't find any source for this so far.

Simplified Chinese is created with simplicity in mind, and one side effect is that words lose meaning. That's a mass generalization on overall language structures between Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

To put in simple, there isn't a particular reason why 幸 goes into 扌, as 幸(ㄒㄧㄥˋ/Xìng) means luckily (likely referring to 報 as "report, I see it as reporting good/幸 news); and 扌 isn't a word in itself, but an extension of other prefixes.


Reasons for Chinese changing from monosyllabic to disyllabic? Classical and Middle Chinese are often considered monosyllabic languages - most words are single syllables. Modern Chinese however is considered disyllabic - most words are two syllables.

For example, take this excerpt about the Battle of Red Cliffs, from Records of the Three Kingdoms, a text written in the 3rd century, in Classical Chinese:

  公至赤壁，與備戰，不利。
  (Cao Cao came to Red Cliffs, fought with Liu Bei, and lost.)

If that passage were to be written in modern Chinese, a lot of words might become disyllabic. For example, 公 = 曹操, 至 = 到达, 備 = 劉備, 戰 = 作戰 and so forth.

My question is what are the main reasons for this transition?

The Phonology of Standard Chinese by San Duanmu (端木三) has an entire chapter devoted to this topic (The Word Length Problem):

  In this section I review six previous approaches to the disyllabic phenomenon in Chinese. For convenience, I call them (a) the homophone-avoidance approach, (b) the speech-tempo approach, (c) the grammatical approach, (d) the rhythm approach, (e) the morphologization approach, and (f) the stress-length approach. These approaches are not all proposed by different people. For example, Guo (1938) suggests that both (a) and (b) play a role, Lü (1963) suggests that both (b) and (c) play a role, and N. Li (1990) suggests that both (c) and (d) play a role. I argue that none of the approaches, nor combinations of them, can explain the disyllabic facts adequately.

In my own readings, I found that the homophone-avoidance approach (which @user58955 explained in his first point) to be the most common explanation. It feels true too because phonological changes since Old Chinese have merged the pronunciation of many words that were once distinct, and modern Chinese languages that have been more phonologically conservative tend to retain more monosyllabicity (such as Min and Cantonese). The book points out several issues with the homophone-avoidance explanation though:

  ...as Lü (1963) points out, most increase in disyllabic words took place in the past 100 years or so, during which period there has been little change in the phonology of Chinese.

However, this objection could be partially explained by the rapid incorporation of modern concepts (which @user58955 explained in his second point).

There is another interesting point concerning the homophone-avoidance approach:

  ... many proponents of homophone-avoidance ... assume that classical Chinese mostly consisted of monosyllabic words. However, when Chinese characters were created ... Chinese already had numerous homophones. ... In other words, there must have been many homophones from the beginning. This raises the question of why people did not create disyllabic words to avoid ambiguity then. The answer, as suggested by Guo (1938), must be that classical written texts did not reflect the spoken language, in part because of the scarcity of writing materials, and in part because characters offer more distinctions than speech. ... In any case, there is no clear evidence that classical spoken Chinese mostly consisted of monosyllabic words.

Anyway, the chapter is an interesting read. The conclusion eventually states:

  I have also argued that, unlike a popular belief, homophone-avoidance does not play a clear role in the increase of disyllabic words in Chinese. Instead, the increase is mainly due to an increase in new words...

  Finally, I have argued that word lengths are constrained by metrical structure, in that some positions prefer a disyllabic words and other prefer a monosyllabic word. ...

It is just the difference between formal and informal, not about age. And actually, in most official document, you can still see many monosyllabic words, especially in countries using Traditional Chinese.


What's the difference between 不停 and 不斷？ What's the difference between 不停 and 不斷 (不断) ? Both mean incessant or unceasing. According to what I know, 不停 is an adverb, while 不斷 (不断) can be an adverb or adjective.

However, this sentence seems to mean the same with both words:

She kept working (she didn't stop working).

  她*不停*地工作.  她*不断*地工作.

You can understand it by each character in the words. 停 means stop while 断 means no more. Thus, 不停 means keep on going while 不断 means it is not the end. You can also compare with 不息 and 不止，there is a saying that 生命不息，奋斗不止 which means I will struggle till the end of my life. 止 has the same meaning as 停 sometimes, for example, 停止. 息 also has the same meaning as 停 here.

If you go by the meaning of both sentences they mean the same. But these are the words with the same meaning when if you go by the context.  But if you see the meaning of 2 words individually they have altogether a different meaning.
Like

不停 means STOP (adverb)
不斷 (不断) means constantly or continued

As you said the second option can be an adverb or adjective, which depends on how you will use that word. So don't go by the meaning of sentences, see words alone.


What is the English original of 精致的平庸? A Chinese scholar living in the US tells in her article that for some disciplines in the west, especially those of humanity and social sciences, researchers are simply doing something not worth the efforts, that is, their conclusion of the study is bullshit if you read it carefully, or that they have spent a lot of time and efforts and money for something which is not unusual, like "if you do not eat, you will die." Such is known as 精致的平庸, a phrase she translated from the original of English. So what is the English original?

I agree with  user3306356.

  Liu (2010) characterises as ‘exquisite mediocrity’(精致的平庸) the kind of
  research that is centred on determining the accuracy and elegance of
  norms and procedures rather than on creating something of functional
  value to society.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14708477.2017.1261642#aHR0cDovL3d3dy50YW5kZm9ubGluZS5jb20vZG9pL3BkZi8xMC4xMDgwLzE0NzA4NDc3LjIwMTcuMTI2MTY0Mj9uZWVkQWNjZXNzPXRydWVAQEAw

I'd, daring to be different here, like to offer my two cents on 精致的平庸, i.e.
chic cliché


How to say “tastes bad” for inedibles? The standard phrase for tastes bad is 难吃. But plenty of stuff tastes bad without being edible. For instance toothpaste. I performed a google search for:

难吃的牙膏

finding no exact and just one near match.
So, how to express tastes bad, when the subject is not edible?

味道不好的牙膏 ？

苦口的牙膏 ？

Perhaps only for bitter pastes?

味道不好的牙膏 ？

Yes, 味道不好 or 味道很差  would do
味道不好 (doesn't taste good) e.g. 这漱口水味道不好，像消毒酒精一般的
味道很差 (taste awful) e.g. 这口香糖味道很差，像咳嗽药水一般的
这牙膏味道不好/很差，薄荷味太重
Also: 難以入口 (too awful to put in mouth)
Example:
嚼烟草对不吸烟的人来说是难以入口的
这有苦味的口香糖真是难以入口
这有重酒精味，难以入口的漱口水也拿出来卖？
imrek wrote:

X(的)味道很难受: X tastes bad

Yes, you can substitute 不好(not good) or 很差(very bad) with 很难受 (hard to take) in the first three examples I provided
Beside 漱口水，口香糖，牙膏， 嚼烟草 and 檳榔 , I can't think of anything else with a taste that you put in the mouth but not supposed to swallow it

For bad tasting inedibles inadvertently introduced to the taste buds:
真恶性！
Horrible!
For inedible edibles:
这个菜馊了！
This is rancid!
Although, yesterday, I mistook the jar with monosodium glutamate for sugar and put it in my delicious 中咖 coffee! 真恶性！


吃 Vs. 喝 in this sentence: 既然敬酒不吃那就吃罚酒 So I watched a movie, in this sentence why did they use 吃 rather than 喝?

"Drink" is one possible meaning of 吃. From the Taiwan Ministry of Education dictionary definition for 吃
(emphasis added):

口中咀嚼食物後嚥下。有時吸、飲液體亦稱為「吃」。如：「吃飯」、「吃茶」、「吃藥」。

It also has an entry specifically for 吃酒.

Just remember have usage like that, it's not necessary to know the different behind it,most of the Chinese didn't know why.


What's the most usual way to say "hand sanitizer" in Chinese? I'm finding in the non-touristy places in China where I'm spending my time in cheaper places etc that there's often no place to wash your hands, or it's dirty, or there's no soap.

I've been recommended to buy some hand sanitizer, but the Wikipedia page doesn't link to a Chinese equivalent and Wiktionary doesn't even include an entry for hand sanitizer.

I've never been one to use it before so I'm not an expert, but I think the key things about hand sanitizer that make it different to liquid soap is that 1) it is alcohol-based and does not require water, and 2) doesn't just clean but disinfects, so is better than soap for preventing spread of diseases such as the common cold.

Google Translate offers several alternatives though:

洗手液 xǐshǒu yè
洗手 xǐshǒu
免洗洗手液 miǎn xǐ xǐshǒu yè
消毒洗手液 xiāodú xǐshǒu yè
的洗手液 de xǐshǒu yè

Of these, I don't trust 2. and 5. - the first because it translated back as "wash your hands" and the second because starting with the character 的 doesn't seem right for a noun phrase.

So on the face of it, 1. looks most versatile with 3. and 4. just being alternative long equivalents. But is it so simple in reality.

(For me right now the term most useful in Hebei province is probably what I want.)

If you want to say hand soap (not necessarily for sanitation), you can use 洗手液. To specifically ask for hand sanitizer (for disinfection/sterilization), you may want to use 消毒洗手液. Below is an analysis for the options you've listed.

  洗手液 xǐshǒu yè

(Liquid) hand soap. Here soap is in general sense, could be sanitizer, scented soap, skin smoother, etc.

  洗手 xǐshǒu

(Verb phrase) to wash hand

  免洗洗手液 miǎn xǐ xǐshǒu yè

Waterless hand soap. Though not explicitly stated in the name, the waterless hand soap products are mostly sanitizers.

  消毒洗手液 xiāodú xǐshǒu yè

Hand sanitizer. (消毒 means to sterilize.)

  ___的洗手液 de xǐshǒu yè

(Incomplete phrase) hand soap of _

1.洗手液 xǐshǒu yè

This is what you are looking for.


Tool which can convert web pages from Hanzi to either Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao Are there any tools that can convert an entire webpage from characters into either Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao?

Ideally something like Google Translate. So perhaps a website where I enter the URL of the page I want converted. Or a browser extension that allows me to convert whichever page is currently displayed in the tab or window.

I don't mind if it does only pinyin or zhuyin, but one that handles both would be great.

Something like this is handy when you want to focus on learning or practicing words and phrases, comprehension, etc when you don't know all the characters, especially when you don't have any speakers to practice with.

(Yes I know there are all kinds of tools that can pop up the pronunciation of an individual word or character in running text in the browser. Or where you can cut and paste plain text. For the purposes of this question I'm only asking about full-page conversion please.)

On Android you could try the "Pinyin Web Browser" app in the Play Store (free and no ads), or "Cantonese Web Browser" for Sidney Lau / Yale.  Both apps print their romanisation with word-groupings, formatted as large as the characters, and cope with on-page changes made by Javascript etc (the two apps also share their bookmarks with each other).  But because every line of text ends up being twice as high as the webmaster intended, sites will break if they use too much "pixel-perfect" vertical positioning (which was not part of Tim Berners-Lee's original plan for the web, but too many webmasters do it anyway).  The app does contain a couple of kludges for the layout code of sites listed on its start page, but one dev can't fix the entire web so YMMV.

The underlying annotators were trained using a variant of the Yarowsky algorithm and therefore take context into account for things like 差 (chāi or chà) and 为 (wèi or wéi) although it still makes some mistakes.  Training data included proprietary documents, so, although the apps are free, the data cannot be fully open-source, and annoyingly CC-CEDICT could not be used because its CC license conflicted with this situation.  But there are some limited English definitions available, or the apps will link to Pleco or Hanping if you have either installed (tap on any word to access the popup definitions and Pleco/Hanping button, unless that word is part of a web link, in which case tapping on it just opens the link as normal).  The code without the data is Apache-licensed if you want to re-train it on another corpus yourself, but the results are not likely to be as good unless you have access to a better corpus than I do.

There exists code for an iOS version, but the Apple developer programme is incredibly unhelpful (1 they only accept apps compiled on a decent Mac with latest OS, not a few-years-old one, 2 they demand 100 pounds a year to subscribe to the programme, universities can be exempt but individual university members cannot, and 3 I have no idea how much extra they invoice for testing new releases).  There are however a couple of established iOS developers who have been given the back-end code, so let's hope they release browsers soon.

As for desktop browsers, I have had some success making "bookmarklets" (like mini browser extensions), but these rely on sending the page to a third-party server to get the pinyin and are therefore not great for privacy unless you can also set up the annotation server on your own machine.  Also an increasing number of sites are blocking the use of bookmarklets altogether in their "Content Security Policy" (CSP), so if you want bookmarklets you now need a browser extension to turn off CSP as well (or a proxy that does the job, but then the proxy has to rewrite secure HTTPS into insecure HTTP; an increasing number of sites have user-side scripts that break when this happens).  There is however a Windows 10 developer who has the back-end code and is making a Win10 "universal app" for both desktops and mobile devices.  In all cases the problem remains of fixing up the sites that are too fussy about layout.  (You could work around this by cramming pinyin into the very small existing space between the lines, but the result would not be half as easy to read.)

Several browser extensions now do this. For Chrome try "Convert Chinese to Pinyin (Mand)"


What's the purpose of 上 in "王教授给那儿的学生上英国文学课, 他课上得非常好"? What's the purpose of 上 in the following sentence?

王教授给那儿的学生上英国文学课, 他课上得非常好, 学生都很喜欢她的课

Although I understand 上 can mean "to attend (class)", I don't see how that fits in the above example.
In the first part of the sentence (王教授给那儿的学生上英国文学课), the only other verb is 给. There is no verb meaning "to teach". Thus, in this case can 上 mean "to teach"?
In the middle part of the sentence (他课上得非常好), what is the meaning of 上? Does it just mean "to go" as in "The class went very well"?

So I checked Cihai and it specifically says 上課 goes both ways:

教師講課或學生聽課
To teach a class, or to attend a class

The subject is 'Professor Wang' (王教授). The verb is 'to teach' (上, note: only makes sense when seeing 上課 together), the direct object is 'a lesson' (課), and the indirect object is 'those students' (那兒的學生), which in Chinese is marked by a second verb literally meaning 'to give' (給).
The second 上 still means 'to teach', with the direct object understood and omitted.

王教授给那儿的学生上英国文学课, 他课上得非常好, 学生都很喜欢她的课。

We may need to clear up 王教授's gender!
课上：in class
他课上得非常好
he/his in class 得 very good
he teaches/lectures very well
课上有大量阅读。
There is lots of reading in class.
他在一次练习课上扭伤了背部。
He strained his back in a practice session.
我们在生物课上解剖了一只青蛙。
We dissected a frog in biology class.


Is 老鸽 (lit. "old pigeon") slang? I've seen some cases (in stories, on the internet) where people call each other '老鸽'. As the literal meaning 'old pigeon' doesn't make much sense, I think it's slang but I haven't been able to find out the meaning.

So what exactly does '老鸽' mean?

老鸽 is an intentional typo.  鸽(Pigeon) can mean "get stood up"(被鸽了，被放鸽子) or "stood sb. up"（放某人鸽子）.  So this is the combination of both 'bro' and 'a guy that often does not show up in appointments'.

It is not 老鸽.Is 老哥.

Usually, it have two mean. one means brother who are older than the speaker. Another is mean kind of like bro in English.

If you are sure that 老鸽 is the right word ,it can be somebody's nickname.


When can I say "说差了"? I'd like to know when I can say "说差（了）". My dictionary says the "差" means 错误 which means "wrong" in English but I'm still not clear on the usage of 说差. Is it the same as 说错? It would be appreciated if you give me some examples like short conversations that show how 说差 is used. Thanks in advance.

Usually we just say 说错了 if we found we made a mistake in a talk or statement. 说差了 is not a common usage for 'I made a mistake' regarding to what you said. I wonder if you actually want to discuss about 说岔了 instead of 说差了. 说岔了 usually means 'misunderstanding on either the topic or the opinion caused by confusing words/expression/context'. For example, when a group of friends are discussing about 吃醋 in a context to compare which vinegar is the best; you jumped in and told them that your girl friend likes 吃醋 (be envy of other girls you know). They may told you that 你说岔了!

There are black and white, and also grey. 差 is the grey area where you are not totally wrong nor totally right. For example, if a Chinese call you a 老外 (old foreigner)，then，you can say：你说差了，我不老，我只是外国人。 or you can say it like this, same meaning, but more sophisticated : 君此言差矣，寡人并不老，人家只是一名外国人！

also Chinese people never use "说差" at all。 It's not a thing in Chinese. We use: 此言差矣 in situation where someone has said something slightly wrong.


Can someone translate this Chinese calligraphy into English? This was written by a relative of mine, Ahn Jung-Geun

Main text:

  一日不讀書口中生荊棘

  Thorns will grow in your mouth if you go one day without reading/studying.

  (하루라도 책을 읽지 않으면 입속에 가시가 돋는다)

The rest:

  庚戌三月 扵旅順獄中 大韓國人 安重根 書

  Third month of 庚戌 (1910), Imprisoned at Port Arthur, (written by) Ahn Jung-Geun, Citizen of the Korean Empire.

这句话想表达的意思是：不读书就不会说话或说不出精彩的话。
类似于宋朝的名言“三日不读书，面目可憎” 。几天不读书，就感觉自己很很粗鄙。


Why is 是 in 这件事情到底是解决了? Can someone help me understand why 是 is in this sentence?

这件事情到底是解决了

I can't figure out what role it plays, and I think I usually see such a sentence without it. Does it form the passive or something? Thanks!

Simply put, it's for emphasis. In English you might say "has in fact been resolved".

Simply speaking, '是' is equivalent to "is", and '了' is often used in perfect (or past) tense.

So, it means "is (是) eventually resolved (解决了)".  If one sentence ends with "了", it often tends to describe a state of a thing.


Are [ɚ] and [ər] interchangeable for (儿化) er-hua? I've got different resources doing different things for er-hua, e.g.:

包儿

resource material #1

  [pər]

resource material #2

  [pɚ]

is [ɚ] and [ər] interchangeable for (儿化) er-hua?

I would hazard to guess that [ər] is just a lazy [ɚ].

They should be the same. It is just differences in notation. [ər] is commonly used by Sinologists, while [ɚ] is actual IPA.

In the Beijing dialect (and standard Mandarin), 包儿 should be pronounced as something like [paʊɻ] (probably written by Sinologists as [paur]). It looks like you're looking at something like Sichuanese, where 包儿 is pronounced as [pɚ].

Take a look at the Wikipedia article on erhua for more details.

The first:
[ɚ]=[ər]=[ə^ɹ(as e^x )] [ər] for print convenience.
The second:
包儿 is [paur]


Why is Zhenya Wang's surname in English "Wang" but sometimes pronounced "Wong"? Australian politician Zhenya Wang, sometimes called Dio Wang, Chinese name 王振亚, has his surname written in English as "Wang", but it's sometimes pronounced in English as "Wong". Another Australian politician used "Wong" in an English sentence, and was accused of getting his name wrong.

From an English speaker's perspective, a name written as "Wang" being pronounced "Wong" seems wrong, even by English's ghoti-y standards. Is there an explanation relating to the Chinese language for this, such as how Chinese speakers describe their name in Chinese with Pinyin?

Ideally, answers to this should be understandable for someone with no prior knowledge about Chinese.

Pronunciation ≠ Spelling!
It's very important to distinguish spellings from pronunciations, so I'm using IPA throughout my answer. I don't know how you pronounce "wang" or "wong", but it's very likely that the closest pronunciation available in your dialect of English is neither of them.
Chinese pronunciations
I'm basing my IPA off of the Wikipedia help pages on IPA for Mandarin and IPA for Cantonese.

The Mandarin pronunciation of 王 (ignoring tones) is /wɑŋ/. I'm assuming this is the correct pronunciation of the politician's name.
The Cantonese pronunciation of 王 (ignoring tones) is /wɔːŋ/.

Chinese transliterations

The Pinyin (standard transliteration for Mandarin) spelling of 王 is "wang".
The Jyutping (standard transliteration for Cantonese) spelling of 王 is "wong".

English pronunciations
There are many dialects of English, and they have wildly divergent pronunciations. I'm basing my IPA choices off of this chart. If you're confused about what the "TRAP vowel" or "CLOTH vowel" mean, see this article on lexical sets. They're by far the easiest way to talk about English vowels.
I give the concrete pronunciations for RP (Received Pronunciation), GA (General American), and AuE (Australian English).

If "wang" is interpreted as having the TRAP vowel (i.e., the same vowel as "bank" or "hang"), then:

RP = /wæŋ/, GA = /wæŋ/, AuE = /wæŋ/
This pronunciation is not the correct pronunciation of the politician's name.

Some people who are more savvy to transliterations and loan words might approach "a"s in unfamiliar foreign words as being the PALM vowel (i.e., same vowel as "father"). Then "wang" becomes:

RP = /wäːŋ/, GA = /wɑŋ/ or /wäŋ/, AuE = /wɑːŋ/
This is the best match to the Mandarin pronunciation available in the given dialects.

Almost certainly, "wong" will be interpreted as the CLOTH vowel (i.e., the same vowel as "long" and "wrong").

RP = /wɒŋ/ or /wɔŋ/ (free variation?), AuE = /wɔŋ/
About half of GA speakers have /wɔŋ/ and half have /wɑŋ/.
Almost all of these are not correct, as they have a rounded vowel. Only the cot-caught merging speakers of GA have a good match to the Mandarin.

Not only in Chinese even in Luo speaking community(Acoli in Northern Uganda and South Sudan  and all the Nilo people) do refers to "Wang" as water source(source of something) . This means in sounding is the same. example like Wang Oo=where friends and families gather during evening fireside,Wanglengo= village in Lamwo,Wang Bur= wound.


"I am good" in Chinese I would like to know if you can say "我好", when someone asks you "你好吗?".
I am aware you can answer "我很好" as in "I am very good", but can you say "I am good"?
Please fix my mistakes if I have any.

-Thanks, Orangalo

We never answer “我好” when asked “你好吗?”. Indeed, these days it's not very common for people to greet others with “你好吗？” face to face, but simply “你好” will do just fine. When greeted with “你好”, we can acknowledge it with the same “你好”. 我很好 sometimes means I am ok (so don't worry about me). Imagine two lovers just broke up but still treat each other as friends. In their letters later on, one may write 我很好，不用担心我. This is the scenario that popped into my head when I first saw this quesiton.

a: Are you ok？

b: 我很好(I'm good).

In this case, 很 does not mean 'very'. It means 'quite'


Chinese words for "everything can be viewed from a positive side" What Chinese idioms or sayings (哪条成语或者俗语) can be used to express the following?

Everything can be appreciated, when its own context is taken in consideration.

凡事多往好的方面想。

by Zedong Mao （毛泽东）

天无绝人之路 - God will always leave a way out for you.
车到山前必有路 - You will always find a path no matter how high the mountain looks.
天塌下来有高个子顶着 - It's up to the tall guys to worry if the sky falls.

These phrases are all idioms. And they well expressed the meaning of your English sentence. Literally, they reveal THE positive side in a hopeless or emergency situation, respectively.


What is the relation between 寨 (zhài, "stockade, stronghold, fort") and 塞 (sài, "place of strategic importance; pass; fortress")? Most dictionaries say 寨 = 塞 + 木, but on its face, we could just as easily have 塞 = 寨 + 土.

There doesn't seem to be much relation between「寨」and「塞」, although it takes some evidence to demonstrate why this is the case.

Firstly, the reason why many dictionaries say that「寨」is「塞」plus「木」is because「塞」is popularly but very likely mistakenly interpreted as the modern character for what was originally「賽」. The evolution of「賽」from oracle bone script to modern form is considered by some paleographers to be the following:

Basically, what appears as「工」in this character (and some others) is considered by several experts as a simplified form of「玉」, and sometimes was written as「玉」, while the two hands「廾」were sometimes removed in certain variants and「貝」was sometimes added as a semantic indicator. The character was a compound ideogram depicting the offering of objects to spirits inside a temple, and the primary meaning was to do with some kind of ritual, preserved in the ancient words「賽神」and「祭賽」.

As stated near the beginning, many important sources however say that the first two forms is the ancient form of「塞」(plug, fill in). For example:

  段玉裁注：“凡填塞字皆當作。”

(「」is the second form in the evolution sequence depicted above. With a bit of stroke joining and simplification, 「」becomes「」, which is the top part of「賽」and the other characters mentioned in this question.)

Note that these sources, although traditionally very well reputed, do not appear to provide any paleographic or lexical evidence for this assertion, and so cannot be trusted for this specific character. Despite this, many dictionaries will follow these sources and treat「」as the original character for「塞」, and subsequently interpret「寨」as「」(mistakenly thought as 塞) plus「木」.

Interpreting the primary meaning of「賽」as a religious ritual, it is then very likely that「寨」and「塞」merely use「」(賽) as a phonetic component.

「塞」uses「土」as a semantic component to indicate the meaning stuff, plug, fill in. This is an ancient definition that has survived very well intact to the present. Note that the synonym「填」uses the same semantic component.
「寨」is only one possible form of the word it represents, the other commonly seen one being「砦」.
The only time when the two characters have anything to do with each other is for the meaning fortification.

Further reading:

季旭昇《說文新證》
于省吾《甲骨文字釋林》
何琳儀《戰國古文字典》

Please note that this explanation is tentative, and there will undoubtedly be differing opinions on these characters. More evidence is required to make a more solid case.

寨  (pinyin) zhai4
stockade; fence; stronghold; camp

The radical of 寨 is 宀 (#40), which means  屋頂 (roof), it describes a temporary or semi-permanent building structure for people to gather for specific purpose. For example, 营寨 (camp) 营 means 'camp' and there's no such thing as 营塞

塞  (pinyin) sai4
frontier; strategic stronghold along the frontier

The radical of 塞 is 土 (#32) , which means soil, it describes a permanent building structure of strategical importance. For example 要塞 (fortress) 要 means 'important', and 要寨 would mean 'important camp'

Basically, 塞 is a base and 寨 is a camp


Is 桌上战争游戏 the term used for "Tabletop Wargaming / Miniwargaming"? Wargame is 战争游戏 and tabletop game is 桌上游戏 so I'm assuming that "Tabletop Wargaming" is 桌上战争游戏? Is this the term used?
This type of game is also called "Miniature Wargaming" or "Miniwargaming," is there another word for this is Chinese?
(I am referring to tabletop strategy war games played with miniature figures and terrain).

At least on the Chinese Wikipedia article about Warhammer 4000, 桌上战棋游戏 is used.

I think the answer should be 陆战棋 or 军棋. Although in the original designs the pieces don't look like figures, the game rules are similar.


How would you say 悲凉 in English? How would you say 悲凉 in English? For example,

  每当想起自己的经历，心里就阵阵悲凉。

悲 means sad and 凉 means cold. So you feel both sad and cold. You can translate it as desolate or dismal.

Some definitions from different dictionaries:

According to 《现代汉语规范词典》 悲凄  is 悲伤+凄凉 and 悲伤 means sad, sorrowful and 凄凉 means desolate, cold and lonely.
According to 《现代汉语词典》 悲凄 is 悲哀+凄凉 and 悲哀 means grieved, sorrowful, sad and 凄凉 means desolate, cold and lonely.
Comprehensive Chinese-English Dictionary has sad and cold
MDBG has sorrowful, dismal

I would translate your sentence as Every time he recalled his own experiences, he felt sad and cold in his heart for a while.


Is there a character for `biu`? biu is a fun onomatopoeia for the sounds guns and other shooting devices make.

This image is all over the net as the supposed character for biu

Is this correct?

I can't find much info on a ⿰口⿱比由 character.

Simple answer: No.
I know that such onomatopoeia is quite funny and useful, unfortunately they are quite recent that Chinese is too slow to generate a proper character for it.
The picture you showed is just a fake character that doesn't even exist.
So how do we express it?
Simple: Pinyin.
Another example: Duang.


Can I use 我的腿累了 for "My legs are tired"? I play soccer with a bunch of Chinese friends regularly and I want to say "my legs are tired".

I already know 我跑不动了 and 我的腿很酸, but I'm not sure what is the best fit for the Chinese equivelant of "my legs are tired" in English.

Google translate gives me 我的腿累了 and there are plenty of search results where this is used, but this sound doesn't sound right to me, kind of like something a Westerner would say in Chinese. Maybe I'm wrong!

我的腿累了 is not as good as 我的腿好累
The former one seems to suggest your leg tires on its own accord and sounds unnatural, where the latter one just states that the legs are tired (a condition). As a comparison, 我的手累了 is quite normal, where the hand seems to be a more active body part.

While other alternatives have subtle differences:

我的腿无力  = My legs are weak. (Maybe from hunger)
我跑不动 = I can't run (Maybe need to catch a breath / or guy is too fat)
我的腿很酸 = My legs are sore. (Maybe from sitting too long in a wrong posture)

Not so good.

I have never use this because it sounds strange.

Follow your feeling, don't use these words that you don't like to use.


What is the difference between using the 能 and 得 potential forms? For example, "我不能睁开我的眼睛" and "我睁不开我的眼睛" (不 obviously being the negation of the 得 potential form). What is the difference in nuance between these two sentences?

我不能睁开我的眼睛

This sentence means, "I cannot open my eyes," with the implication that the speaker is not allowed to or otherwise constrained.

  我睁不开我的眼睛

This sentence means, "I am physically incapable of opening my eyes." (睁不开 sounds like, "[my eyes] are unopenable").

The first sentence may have two possible meanings: that one is not able to open his eyes, or that he is not allowed to.
The second one may only infer the first meaning noted above.


What does the term "Chinese" mean? The Wikipedia article on Chinese says that many varieties of Chinese are mutually unintelligible. That is, I can't just learn "Chinese" and speak "Chinese" with anyone living in China or Taiwan.

What does the term "Chinese" mean? What makes a variety of Chinese count as Chinese, and what makes a non-Chinese language count as non-Chinese?

user3306356 provided a good answer for the language, but you need to know that written Chinese and oral Chinese can be quite different.

  A Mandarin speaker might say yī, a Cantonese jat1, and a Hokkien chit, but all three will understand the character 一 "one". -- from Wikipedia

Also I want to answer more on the Cultural aspect. For Chinese as in Chinese people, that's really complicated.

Historically, the Chinese culture influenced many others such as Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc. so you may see Chinese characters, traditional clothing and buildings in their culture. The modern China split into different "areas" (I can't say country because it surely will stir up a political debate), mainly mainland China and Taiwan which ruled by 2 different political parties, the Communist Party from mainland calling itself the "People's Republic of China" and Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party) stayed in Taiwan calling themselves the "Republic of China". There are also Hong Kong and Macau, I recommend to watch "Are Hong Kong & Macau Countries" on YouTube for a better understanding. These four areas have different cultures while the core is the same. Most Chinese there use Mandarin while "dialects" are also used (some see those dialects as separate languages. Spoken Cantonese being one which used by people from Hong Kong, Macau and many from southern China.) There are also Tibet and other "minorities" which got their own dialects/languages.

For "some" ("many" depends on your view) people from Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, they think they are culturally different and should be called differently (e.g. Hongkonger, Taiwanese), so Chinese, AFAIK, are mainly refer to mainland Chinese while it can also refer to ethnic Chinese in some occasions.

You are making it a bit complex. Chinese is a language that Chinese people speak. The standard Chinese is called mandarin or 普通话。Besides mandarin, there are many dialects in Chinese.


How to ask a simple maths / arithmetic question I'm trying to internalize numbers by forcing myself to think of them numerically rather than associating them with their English translations. So I thought it might be a good idea to learn my times table in Mandarin using Anki flashcards.

Is the following a valid way to ask an arithmetic question that expects a number as an answer?

七乘以六等于什么

I've tried to search for an answer online, but I can only find examples of arithmetic statements and equations, not questions. Is it ok to take an equation and change the right hand side to 什么 as I've done above, or is there a more idiomatic way?

The method is correct, but the word should be '几' , not '什么'. If you ask 等于什么? it will 等于数字 ever, brain-teaser :)

几 is used more when you calculate simple questions, can be replaced with 多少 which is a common word.

七乘以六等于几?
七乘以六等于多少?

12345乘以4545等于几?(acceptable, but 多少 is more appropriate due to the complexity).

you can cut the 以, there's no difference in practice.

Here is a video lesson my team and I put together on this a topic. If you click the link you should be able to view the video.

Ref: https://chinesepod.com/lessons/lets-do-math-in-chinese

Here are some typical Math equations:

一加一等於二
one plus one equals two
yī jiā yī děngyú èr

一百五乘以二等於三百
One hundred and fifty multiplied by two equals three hundred.
yībǎi wǔ chéngyǐ èr děngyú sānbǎi

六除以三等於二
six divided by three equals two
liù chúyǐ sān děngyú èr


What’s the function of 還, 了, and 呢 in the sentence, “我還以為他不走了呢”? After many attempts to understand how the sentence is grammatically structured, I think I'll just ask here.

The sentence "我還以為他不走了呢" is from a children's book that was originally in English. I'm confused as to what the function of 還, 了, and 呢 is in this sentence. Is there some kind of sentence pattern?

The English translation of it is :I thought he'd never leave."

I found there's a "以為...呢" sentence pattern, which is used for denoting a past action that one believed to be true, but turns out to be false. Is there any other function to 呢 in this sentence?

Is 了 in this sentence acting as a sentence-end 了 (modal particle) or as a perfective aspect particle?

Does 還 indicate 'unexpectedness' or does it means 'really'? Or does it indicate/mean something else?

I found another sentence pattern, "還...呢", which is for an action that's still continuing and persisting. It could be translated as "still" added to the sentence. But that doesn't make sense to me for this particular sentence, so I don't think it's relevant in this case.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

I am  a native speaker, but keep in mind that some native speakers suck at grammar.

呢 just adds to the tone and doesn't really mean much, but if left out in some sentences, the sentences would not sound natural. I guess you're right about the “以為‧‧‧呢” sentence pattern.

了 here indicates an action done, like the past participle tense. 不走了 means "(decided) not to leave". Interestingly, 了 can sometimes also function like the present progressive tense, too. For example, 我走了 means "I'm leaving". Therefore, I think that sentence may also be translated as "And I thought he's not leaving / decided not to leave." Note that even though 決定 (decided) isn't in the original sentence, I feel that it is not a bad translation because an action done is a decision made anyways, whether or not that decision was made consciously. Anyhow, I can probably explain it better if I know the context well.

還, as you said, indicates 'unexpectedness' in that sentence when paired with “以為‧‧‧呢”.

An example of the “還‧‧‧呢” sentence pattern used for an action that’s still continuing and persisting would be 我還在吃飯呢！ "I'm still eating!"

As far as I know, 不...了 means "not...anymore".

So I guess the sentence should be "I still thought he wasn`t leaving anymore".


How to say "cool" in Chinese Basically I am looking for words in common usage which are roughly synonymous with English "cool", "wicked", "awesome", "sweet", and related positive slang adjectives.

I would also like to know how common these kind of words are in Chinese (because in English there are so many).

酷！= "Cool!", transliteration from English
酷毙了！= "Cool to die for" (was a popular phrase in the 90s)
牛！ = literally means bull, but here means "genius"; used to describe people only

  他数学太牛了！He's so good at math!

  这个杂技演员太牛了！The acrobat is so talented!

太棒了！= literally "Too great!", or "Fantastic!"

  爸妈下周带我们去海边。Mom and Dad will take us to the beach next week.

  太棒了！Awesome!

帅！= "Handsome!" ("帅翻了" is also a popular phrase used among teenage girls. I don't know how much adults understand/like this usage.)
帅呆了！(was a popular phrase in the 90s)

  周杰伦已经过气了，现在最火的是许嵩。你看了她新出的MV了吗？Jay Chou is passé. Xu Song is what everybody's been talking about lately. Have you seen the music video he just posted?

  一个字，帅！(Literally:) I can only use one word to describe it - handsome!

爽！= what you say when you are feeling refreshed and comfortable (after having some ice-creams on a hot summer day, taking public revenge on your long-time enemy
爽死了！
真好！= "Really/truly good!"
真不错！= literally "really not bad"; "Really good!"
厉害！= used to express admiration of someone's skill (If you want to use it in a sentence, remember to say "他很厉害/他特别厉害/他超级厉害"; "他厉害" is incorrect.)

"cool" 醋，不错
 "wicked"没道德的，不良的
 "awesome"太棒了
 "sweet"  好，甜


Dog radical (犭) for non-Han ethnic groups As far as I understand, the dog radical (犭) was used for all non-Han ethnic groups before the Chinese Communist Party took power on the mainland. Is there truth to that? If so:

Why did the CCP stop the use of 犭?
Why do we still see the the 犭 radical in some ethnic descriptors, like 犹太 (Jewish)?

I can only provide a partial answer:

Many of the characters used in the names of non-Han ethnic groups were originally derogatory. After the founding of the PRC, the government conceptualized New China as a multiethnic state (多民族国家), and they changed many of the characters that were perceived as derogatory. I don't know if this process started under the KMT (国民党), as you suggest, and I also don't know why no one bothered to fix the one for the Jews.

Edit: The character for the Jews is a little different from those for other ethnic groups. For one, it was not an invented character. Rather, (in modern-ish times), existing characters were picked for the transliteration. Also, although it does have the dog radical, the other meanings of the character are not negative (or related at all to animals). The only extant meanings (besides being part of 犹太) are seem (好像；如同) and still (还；仍然).

犭has nothing to do with dogs, it is often used in names of animals and its meaning can be rather neutral, such as 猛. Comparing human to animals may sound a little weird, but in modern Chinese, 犹 has four meanings and none of them is derogatory.


Translation/Colloquial Equivalents: “There's More Than One Way To Skin A Cat” I've come across a few, very poor, literal translations for the English, “there's more than one way to skin a cat”:

  给猫剥皮不止有一种方法

  （谚）达到目的的方法不止一种

  到达目标的设施多得很。

What colloquial equivalents exist for this phrase? (which basically means: there's more than one way to do something)

各施各法

Each person does (it) his own way. It comes from a longer phrase:

八仙過海，各施各法

Which is about eight fairies in Chinese mythology. When they needed to cross the ocean, each did it his/her own way.

How about this I found: 不要因为不能马上成为某事物的专家而失望.

Or this: 有多于一种的方式

Or this:     达到目的的办法多得很。


How can I put the understandability of classical Chinese and modern Chinese into scale? I am trying to explain to English-speaking people how different classical Chinese (文言文) and modern Chinese (白话文) are. I would like to put this into scale.

Basically, if an average modern Chinese person sees a text in classical Chinese, how much of it would he be able to understand? Would he be able to understand as much as an average English person understands early modern English (like in Shakespeare's works)? Or maybe Middle English? Latin even?

in short, it's middle english.

a long explanation, in general, roughly:

i would define classical chinese as "text from bc770 to bc221 (春秋 - 先秦),  afterward, it's literary chinese. there're big differences between this two, mainly, the grammar, style, vocabulary & underlying assumption.

for classical chinese text, thought modern average people know most of the characters and words, they would have great difficulty to understand an article without help. if you ask them to write in the same style. it's no.

it's like asking a land buddy to read the bowditch

for literary chinese text, modern average people would have difficulty to understand the articles, they may guess the meaning of words, clauses. if they've help (dictionaries, mentors), they could grasp the meaning roughly. i guess there're very few people can write literary chinese now.

it's like asking a high school children to read university level textbook.

next, types of articles has huge differences in the comprehension.

poems, correspondences and novels are easier to understand; while religious, medical, astronomical related materials are, very very tough.

have fun :)

Basically classic Chinese is a so broad topic. Like culture, religion, you can't simply compare two things and get a scale. If you can narrow down your question to a very specific topic, you may lucky guess an answer.

Like Oracle bone script, Bronze inscriptions, Large Seal Script, Small Seal Scrip, normal people may able to guess a few characters from an article.

For philosophy book, like Laozi DaoDeJin, even all words are printed in simplified Chinese, and you may know each word, but you just don't know the meaning. Not only normal people don't understand, university graduate is the same.

But for some novel, like Journey to the West, I think most content can be understood by normal people.

Classic Chinese history can be traced from Shang Dynasty to early 20th century. Compare to classic Chinese, even Latin is a young language.