How did three characters for _de_ emerge? I understand that there are three characters for de depending on the usage:

跑得快
快地跑
快的车

Would anyone know how it evolved into different characters when the purpose and pronunciation are similar?

The premise of the question is a bit backwards. It's not that de evolved into three different characters, it's that three different words evolved to have the same pronunciation in modern Mandarin Chinese.

Mandarin in particular, features unstressed syllables, which are commonly referred to as having a "neutral tone" rather than having one of the four main tones. Most of the Chinese languages are considered syllable-timed languages, including Mandarin, but it is less so compared to other Chinese varieties such as Cantonese, in which all syllables are stressed and have a tone. Syllable-timed languages typically allocate the same amount of time between all syllables in their speech rhythm. In contrast, stress-timed languages (such as English) allocate the same amount of time between stressed syllables. Mandarin seems to have some aspects of stress-timing in which neutral tone syllables are pronounced with shorter durations. As is typical with stress-timed languages, unstressed syllables often undergo vowel reduction, especially in fast speech.

This vowel reduction is one of the main contributors to how all of these words ended up being pronounced with a neutral de in Mandarin. As fefe mentioned in this comment, they are not necessarily pronounced the same in other dialects (for instance, 得、地、的 are respectively pronounced dāk, déi, and dīk in Cantonese). Here's how each of these characters came to be pronounced de in modern Mandarin:

得 - derived from its original meaning of "to attain". One of the features of Chinese is serial verb construction, in which multiple verbs can be stacked together. It is through serial verb construction that 得 evolved into its modern usage as a verb complement to indicate the degree to which an action was attained.

  跑得快 - "run and attain quickness" → "run quickly"

The pronunciation of this word in Middle Chinese (the Chinese of ca. 600 - 1000 AD from which most of the modern Chinese varieties evolved) had a -k ending, but the Mandarin dialects evolved to drop -k endings from all syllables, leading to its modern pronunciation of dé (for comparison, this word is pronounced dāk in modern Cantonese). When used as a verbal degree marker, it becomes unstressed, resulting in its neutral de pronunciation.

Also note that while the stressed dé and unstressed de appear to have the same pinyin spellings besides the tone, the vowel quality is different. Expressing this in IPA, the stressed dé is pronounced [tɤ] with a close-mid back unrounded vowel, while the vowel in the unstressed de has reduced to a schwa: [tə]
地 - the etymology of its use as an adverb marker is less clear, but this suggests that it's related to its original meaning of "place":

  Ōta (2003) proposes that it is a grammaticalization of etymology 1. The construction ADJ + 地 would have semantically developed as follows: "a ADJ place" → "in a ADJ place" → "in a ADJ manner".

The pronunciation of this word in Mandarin, dì, is very similar to its pronunciation in Middle Chinese. It also became unstressed when used as an adverb marker, and through vowel reduction, ended up being pronounced as de.
的 - the use of this as a genitive/possessive particle is actually unrelated to the original usage of 的 as a word meaning "target". It's most likely instead derived from 之, which is the genitive particle of Classical Chinese. While the pronunciation of 之 evolved to become zhī in modern Mandarin, it had also retained a second pronunciation that was closer to its original pronunciation in Old Chinese, dī.  The character 的 was later co-opted to represent this usage when it was pronounced as dī (historically 底 had also been used before modern written Chinese standardized on 的). Again, through destressing and vowel reduction, it also ended up being pronounced as de.

The previous answers here also provide more details about the evolution of the use of 的 as a genitive particle:

Michaelyus' answer to "Do 之 and 的 come from the same word?"
Betty's answer to "Why is 的 (de) sometimes pronounced “di” even though it is used as a possessive particle?"

As an aside, the use of 的 in its original meaning of "target" was also originally pronounced with a -k ending, which is why modern Cantonese pronounces this word as dīk, even though its modern borrowing for use as a genitive particle is not related to this original word and did not have a -k ending. Its use as a genitive particle is not a native use in Cantonese though, so Cantonese ended up applying the original dīk reading of 的 to its genitive meaning too.

this is so interesting!
First of all, 的 is composed of 白 and 勺，and勺 is pronounced as shao, 白is not日。
1. Not every Chinese character has phonetic components , in fact, all the的，地，得 do not follow that
2. There is a trend of using的 in many cases that should use the other two, especially in speaking Chinese


What is 侧面 doing in ...侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨? I can't quite see what 侧面 is doing in this sentence; any tips please? I'll include the previous sentence for clarity.

今天，杨先生的银行存款很少，绝大部分都用来投资股市，一年下来，收益远远高出利息。
实际上，市民理财概念的变化，侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。

Could I add 他的 or 市民的 or 杨先生的？  Such as in:

实际上，市民理财概念的变化，他的侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。

where we have:

他的侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。
his profile reflects the gradual integration of the (domestic) financial market into the international arena following China's entry into the WTO.

Or is that all wrong?

In this sentence, 侧面 is not noun but adverb, 侧面反映 = indirectly reflected.

In this sentence:

  实际上，市民理财概念的变化，侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。

侧面 is used to 市民理财概念的变化, the sentence can be:

实际上，市民理财概念变化的侧面反映了金融市场在入世以后逐渐与国际接轨。

It just say you can indicate something from something.


Difference between 新 and 生? Until now, I thought 新 meant 'new' in all contexts. In class recently, our tutor showed a slide in which he used 生词 for 'new words'. My dictionary gives the meaning of 生 when used as an adjective as 'raw, uncooked, unripe'. Is there some other subtle meaning of 生 when used in this context to distinguish it from 新 - when would I choose one over the over?

I am a Chinese.

新 means new and 生 means unfamiliar.

In your daily study, a word you first see could be either 新词 (new word) or 生词 (unfamiliar word) to you.

However, in public articles, 新词 usually stand for newly made word (ABSOLUTELY NEW TO EVERYONE), and 生词 stand for unfamiliar word (RELATIVELY NEW TO SOMEONE).

Hope this helps.

新: new
生: fresh. There are many meanings of this character also. Fresh is only one of them.


Is my translation of "I think Disney has a big influence on people's expectations of love" accurate? 新年快乐，大家！
I'm a long-time user of Stack Overflow for coding problems, but a noob on Chinese SE.
I was trying to say recently "I think Disney has a big influence on people's expectations of love".
My answer
I translated to "我觉得迪士尼对人的爱情要求的影响很大"
Doubts
Firstly I wasn't sure if simply saying 人 is appropriate to mean people in general. I was thinking about saying 老百姓 but I wasn't sure if this is a bit of a derogatory term.
Also I think maybe I could have used a better term than 要求 to mean expectations...possibly 希望，期望，期待 ? These three seem interchangeable in my inexperience...are there any differences in usage?

Yes, 人 would be sufficient to indicate "people in general" in this sentence. 老百姓, though not necessarily derogatory, gives the reader an impression that you're implying there exists some other non-general population group that are not affected/affected differently by Disney.

Next, 期待 and and 期望 are both fine for 愛情, but I would say the former is better, because all results from google gives 對愛情的期待 even when I searched 對愛情的期望. 要求 sounds too aggressive in my opinion, and we generally do not use 希望 for non-humans.

Generally we say "Noun 對 Noun 的期待/期望/要求", so the object should be 人對愛情的期待. However, this causes two 對's to appear, which sounds odd. So my advice would be to replace 人 with 人們, and replace the second 對 with 對於 to ease the effect of multiple 對's.

Finally the 的 before 影響 is optional, and since we already have a 的 in the object, we should omit the second.

The final sentence would be 我觉得迪士尼对人们对于爱情的期望影响很大

Quote:- "I think Disney has a big influence on people's expectations of love"

I am of the humble opinion that the English sentence itself requires improvement.

It should be "I think Disney's depiction / portrayal of love has a big influence on people's expectations"

Because it is not Disney itself, but its depiction / portrayal of love that has a big influence.


Why is 去 ("to go") in 也不去考虑以后会是怎样 ("...and don't think about how it will be in the future")? In the book 活着 (audio book, around 6 minutes 55 seconds into 第01集), we have:

  我只是感到和她在一起身心愉快，也不去考虑以后会是怎样。

Google Translate gives:

  I [我] just [只是] feel [感到] happy [身心愉快] with her [和她在一起], and [也] I don't [不] think about [考虑] what it will be [会是怎样] in the future [以后].

It mostly makes sense, but I don't understand why there's a 去 ("to go") in there.  Maybe it combines as 不去 ("to not go"), but it still doesn't make much sense to me.

Question: Why is 去 ("to go") in 也不去考虑以后会是怎样 ("...and don't think about how it will be in the future")?

It's an interesting question.

It's worth to know that "(不)去 + verb" can be considered as a fixed expression in Chinese. For example, （不）去做，（不）去想， （不）去听， （不）去玩， （不）去说，... ...

The literal meaning of （不）去 is "（not） to go". Let's say 我去看你， meaning I go see you.

Its literal meaning can be extended when the following verb doesn't require you to go literally, such as the verb 想, 听，说 and etc. It implies that you would get another place or take another time to do something. I found this dictionary definition can help:

  用在另一个动词前， 表示要做某事.

  你去问一问：please go and ask.

  我们自己去想办法： We'll find a way out ourselves.

For more detailed explanation, 我去考虑一下 vs 我考虑一下, 我去考虑一下 means I will go offline to think about it or I will take another time to think about it. Well, 我考虑一下 doesn't specify when I will think about it and it could mean to think about it right now or I will think about later on(offline).

Hope this can help.

I think it can be translated as "not going to" instead of "to go"


Can I use 我的上一辈子 when talking about an earlier part of my life which I almost don't recognize as mine anymore? Context: I posted a photo on WeChat of an event that happened a long long time ago to me. I was living a completely different life back then. Different country, job, I was much younger etc. It's surreal looking at the photo as it's just hard to believe that that was a period in my life.
Under the photo I left a caption 我的上一辈子. It is a kind of a simile or a metaphor, where I'm trying to express how surreal it is that that was once my life.
Anyway a Chinese friend got back to me and started explaining how it implies reincarnation and I should use a phrase more along the lines of "my younger years" or "an earlier part of my life".
But that is not what I was trying to express. I'm not trying to express "my past", I'm trying to express:

"although this really happened to me it is so hard to believe that, it's as if it were a faint memory of a past life".

To native and fluent Chinese speakers, would you understand what I meant by this caption or do you agree that it is flat out wrong?

in your situation, try the idiom “恍如隔世”.
http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000086679
some would write it as “仿如隔世”
here’s an example of it’s usage:
https://www.thestandard.com.hk/images/characters/20170222230555idoms.pdf
have fun :)

Because if you use "一辈子" which means a whole life. We would misunderstand that you are talking about "前世". In our thoughts you can't have a whole life if you are still alive.


Translation of clout I can't find any good translation for the word clout, which, it seems to me, is a fairly relevant concept in terms of the way things work politically in China. In some context like this,

"Does the business leader really have the clout to influence those regulations?"

it means social ability, connections, or prestige which affords a special influence. Clout

I found two examples when I looked it up in Collins COBUILD:

Mr Sutherland may have the clout needed to push the two trading giants into a deal...

  萨瑟兰先生也许有能力促使两大贸易巨头达成协议。

The two firms wield enormous clout in financial markets.

  两家公司在金融市场有非常大的影响力。

Hope these examples help :)

According to the Youdao Dictionary（有道词典），the word ‘clout’ means influence （影响力）


Is 我妈妈 or 我的妈妈 more natural? The possessive particle 的 is often dropped when I see an expression like this, especially when referring to a family member (such as in this case). Which is more natural in casual conversation and are both correct by grammatical standards?

In Chinese, when you are talking about family, close friends (我朋友) or a group that you are part of (for example 我班), you don't use 的. They are both grammatically correct, but it is more natural to skip it.

我的妈妈：for those at the elementary school age
我妈妈：for those at the junior high age
我妈：for those at the senior high age


Which verbs DO NOT go with 了 and or 过? I remember reading that some verbs don't accept 了 or 过.

Side question： When I use a word like 昨天 or 以前 do I use 了 or is it redundant? e.g. 昨天我去买了一台电脑 or 昨天我买一台电脑

过 and 了 are aspect markers, and can be used with any verbs, including 过 and 了 themselves.

过 is the experential aspect, indicating that an event has taken place (or the negation thereof), regardless of timeframe (there is no tense in Chinese). 我去过巴黎二十次。 (I have had the experience of visiting Paris twenty times.) 我没去过越南。 (I have not had the experience of going to Vietnam.) 我从来没看过电影。 (I have never had the experience of seeing a movie.)

了 is the perfectative aspect, indicating that an event has been completed, again regardless of time. 我买了个新脚踏车。 (I have bought a new bike.) 吃了饭以后可以逛逛街。 (We can go for a walk after we have finished eating [future]).

Both aspects can be expressed simultaneously: 我吃过了。 They can also be used with other complemented verbs: 我看得见过了。

Aspects can be used with any verb. The only restriction is context and combining conflicting aspects. For example, using durative 着 with completion aspects 过 and 了 makes no sense.

As for your side question: since there is no tense in Chinese, it does not matter in which time frame these aspects are used. The use of 昨天 or 以前 indicates the time, whereas 过 and 了 indicate completion, regardless of time.

昨天我去买了一台电脑 is correct.
When you use chinese sentenses which have a meaning similar to English sentence of present perfect or past perfect, 过 or 了 should always be used.

eg. 我通过了这次考试。I have passed the exam.


What is the meaning of 报 in 你有报语言培训班吗? A Chinese friend asked me:

  你有报语言培训班吗?

I understand what she means, but I wonder what meaning 报 carries here.
Anyone could help me?

I think the 报 here is referring to registering/signing up/apply as in 报名.

A: Have you registered/signed up for X class yet?
B: Yes, I have (registered/signed up).
甲: 你 X(课/班) 报名了吗？
乙: 嗯 我报了。

In this context 报 is used as a verb that means 'sign up for'.


Is there any difference between 汤 and 羹? Are 汤 and 羹 used to refer to different kinds of soup or is 羹 merely a part of the full word for soup (汤羹)? For example, is one used to refer to light soups while the other is reserved for heavy broths?

In my opinion, 汤 is a more common to be seen. When it refers to "soup", the "soup" is thin. I mean, most ingredient is water, and you can find other things such as meat, vegetables,etc. inside the water.

羹 is a thick soup. Generally, we will add some 芡粉(qiàn fĕn)(most composition is the starch) to the soup(We call this action "勾芡(gōu  qiàn)"). The starch will absord the water, so it makes the soup "thick".

For 羹， have a look at this article at wikipedia.


Does 劳驾、做你有那个时？ sound natural? ("Excuse me, do you have the time?") I'm self translating common phrases in English, and I tried to translate "Excuse me, do you have the time?" And I came up with:

  劳驾、做你有那个时？

Is this a natural sounding sentence and is it correct?

Unfortunately it's not correct. You could say:

打扰一下，你知道现在几点吗？

or

对不起，现在几点了？

打扰一下=(bother for a while) 对不起=(sorry)
but the meaning still can be use for the sentences
and the 你知道现在几点吗 meaning is (do you know what time now?)

I'm Chinese so I know it,
more accurately
Excuse me=(不好意思)

for the whole translation is like this:
不好意思，你知道现在几点吗？(do you have the time)


Is there a more colloquial way of saying “vegan” than “纯素食者”? Like a more laypersons way of understanding what veganism means. Kinda like "我吃素的" as a vegetarian.

in cantonese, you may say 食全齋, sound files:  食
 全
 齋

or, colloquially, say 吃全素, in mandarin.

我是素食主義者。Might be a better choice, it also means, "I am a vegetarian".


What does "须发皆张" mean? 须发皆张

须 - Beard

发 - Hair

皆 - All

张 - Spread/Open up

If it was directly translated, it would be something like "[someone's] beard and hair all spread open", but what does that even mean?

I can't really imagine how the person would look, so would the person have hair and a beard that stood up, like how someone would after their hair was affected by static electricity?

言未訖，只見關公口開目動，鬚髮皆張，操驚倒

Before he had finished speaking, he looked at Lord Guan and saw:
His mouth was open, his eyes were starting,
His beard and hair were all bristling and crackling!

Cao Cao was petrified with fear.

A literal translation: beard and hair both stand on the ends.

Metaphorical meaning: to describe someone is displaying extreme anger.


怎么不 VERB (why didn't/haven't VERB) I have been facing a lot of examples of "why didn't/haven't VERB" in English translated as 怎么不 VERB. Why don't they use 没 VERB?

已经九点了，你怎么还不起床？（你怎么还没起床？）
你怎么不选一个更好的作文题？（你怎么没选一个更好的作文题？）

Thanks!

According to the book "Modern Chinese Grammar" (http://m.sanmin.com.tw/product/index/000225652), we can roughly distinguish:

不: this word is a negation that comes with the speaker's subjective feeling, which means that the speaker might think the other should have done something (for example in the first sentence, you should have already got up)
没: this word, however, is a negation which is more or less objective. That is to say, the fact that the other person did not wake up is noted.

To sum up, in both sentences, the contexts show very strong meanings that both speakers did not agree with what the others have not done, and therefore the negation word "不" was used.

As a native speaker, I feel that using the negation word "不" is usually more powerful and that implies the relation with the other is more close. Hope this answer can give you some clues.

没 is not a verb because there is no action in 没，nothing.

不 is not a verb neither because there is no action in 不，not.

The verb are 起 and 选:

已经九点了，你怎么还不起床？ (起 is the verb here, it means "get up")

你怎么不选一个更好的作文题？(选 is the verb here, it means "choose")


认识 vs 知道 based on glyph origins I'm trying to understand what 识 means and why 认识 is different from 知道.

As far as I was able to gather the information on 戠 is a depiction of an armed group of people which, while in battle, should be recognized and diffirentiated from other groups by the general.

Now, 识 is 言+戠 and the explanation goes two ways:

The relevant oracle bone form of 戠 combines 弋 stake + an abbreviated form of 辛 needle/cutting tool → use a sharp implement to notch a stake, creating a marker. 戠# replaces 辛 with 音 sound → mark/pay attention to a sound. And to obtain knowledge by marking another person's words.
You can read more about this view here.
But the best explanation I've come across is this: 识 is to recognize and it has a connotation "to recognize (battle groups) by own eyes (what is needed of you on the battle field while operating your troops) or to see".

If 2-nd theory/model is right, then it should explain a series of characters below (I need some help filling this list, I don't know all the meanings and maybe you know more characters with 戠):

幟 - a cloth + conspicuous group = military standard which serves as a battle field marker.
嬂 - it's a woman's name and, I guess, being conspicuous or differentiable in the crowd is a plus for a female. In other words 戠 should posess some positive connotation in order to be incorporated in a name for a woman.
樴 - adding a stick to 戠 - group of people with stakes (battle group), or a single stake (chinese does not differentiate between plural or singular).
膱 - dried meat? Well, I'm at a loss here, can't explain, maybe it has something to do with strong/conspicuous flavor.
旘 - banner of a group of people (same as 幟) but here the banner is flapping on a wind.
熾 - bright/conspicuous fire so you can see it from afar.
職 - can't explain it.
蟙 - google shows a spider for this character. Maybe it has smth to do with with marks on some spider. Can't explain according to the model.
織 - to weave. I don't know how this fits in to the model.
軄 - I don't know what this character means.

Again, if 2nd theory is true, then 认识 can be easily explained as "admit seeing". This also explains why 认识 is used mostly for "I have met(seen) him" or "I know him (he is my friend i.e. I've seen him)"

Questions:

As a native, does 识(to know) and 认识 convey "sensual, seeing" connotation to You, while 知道 does not convey this, as being more abstract "to know"?
Can you help fill the gaps in the list?

P.S. Please, don't provide answers like "认识 is for people and 知道 is for facts because it's the way it is". I seek explanation, logic ect., not a "rule of thumb".

I stated in my comment that I don't think study the etymology help you understand a character as much as cross reference the roles of a character in different compound words.

For 認
[1] recognise; identify; make out
[2] admit; acknowledge; agree; accept
[3] enter into a certain relationship with
[4] offer/undertake to do sth

~

For 識
[1] [v] know; recognize; discern
[2] [n] knowledge; opinion; view

~

For 認識 = to know, to recognize.
The logic behind it came from the meaning 'to recognize' in 認 and "to know" in 識. You recognize something, to know it

Similarly:
見識: experience(v) = (see + know)
*'to see to know'
見識: experience(n)= (see + knowledge)
knowledge from what you had seen
學識: knowledge; acquirements (n) = (learn/study + know)
knowledge from what you had studied
常識: common sense; general knowledge(n) = (common + knowledge)
knowledge that is common
Back to 認識, you know 識 is a knowledge you gain by '認' and from all the meanings 認 contained, only "recognise / identify" make sense, thus we know 認識 means "knowledge gained by identify something" or " to identify something to know it."
As for 知道 (to know about something)

知
[1] [v] know; understand; be aware of
[2] [n] knowledge; learning
[3] [v] to inform; notify; tell

~

道
[7] [v] think; suppose; wonder

~

知道: to know about something

you 知 (know; understand; be aware of) and 道 (think) - "you know and think of/suppose something as~"
From the information above, we can discern the difference between 認識 and 知道 :

認識 = 1.(v) to recognize to know  2.(v)know (someone/ something you recognize/ identified before)
you have to meet someone, or come across something to recognize and know him or it.
知道= to know (be aware of someone/something)
You don't have to meet a person to know him, you can know or be aware of someone by reading about him or heard of him.

认识是可以通过外观辨别客体，客体多为人，也可以为其他实物。
知道是全部或局部了解客体的特性，客体可以是实物，也可以是虚物，例如道理。对于客体的外形却未必了解。如：可以说知道一个没见过的人。


What etymology dictionaries are available? What dictionaries (online, software-based or in paper form) explain the origins of a word and its evolution over time? E.g. how the character was once written, how the usage – and the meaning – changed over time.

Wen Lin is an amazing piece of software that has all of the etymological features you are looking for. The central downside is that it is a bit pricey. Most universities have a copy, though, and there may be the opportunity to get some kind of student pricing discount. (Not sure if that applies to your case.)

辞源

This is the exact book you should refer.


How to stylized back-to-back or consecutive western-style quote marks? It seems most punctuation marks in Chinese are automatically stylized with spaces. Periods (。), commas (，), question marks (？), exclamation marks (！) and even book title marks (《》), as oxford likes to call them, all have spaces either in front or behind them.

Western-style quote marks (“”) on the other hand do not.

How should they be stylized?

Back-to-back quotes look even worse. I'm working on the following sentence:

  《明珠缘》第三十七回：“体乾醉了，应星却未吃酒，兼之少年精壮，隔席把张体乾轻轻一把提过来，丢翻在地，拳打脚踢。”“丢翻”意为打翻或摔倒在地等，可能源于武林。

Where we have this ugly looking

  ”“

in the middle. An end quote mark followed by an opening quote mark with no spaces in between.

Is this correct? (It doesn't look so)

Chinese quotation mark is called 引号 「」 『』

  “.......” =「......。」

~

  單引号 (single quotation mark) 「」

  Use 單引号 for quote「........。」

~

  雙引号 (double quotation mark) 『』

  Use 雙引号 for quote within quote...『....「...」....。』

~

  An end quote mark followed by an opening quote mark with no spaces in between.

  Is this correct?

There have to be space between back to back quote, Chinese quotation mark is automatically stylized with spaces.

《明珠缘》第三十七回：『体乾醉了，应星却未吃酒，兼之少年精壮，隔席把张体乾轻轻一把提过来，丢翻在地，拳打脚踢。「丢翻」意为打翻或摔倒在地等，可能源于武林。』

If you use English quotation mark for quotes, you have to put space between back to back quotes as if it was Chinese quotation mark .

《明珠缘》第三十七回："体乾醉了，应星却未吃酒，兼之少年精壮，隔席把张体乾轻轻一把提过来，丢翻在地，拳打脚‌踢。" " '丢翻' 意为打翻或摔倒在地等，可能源于武林。"

Just use any chinese Pinyin input program like 搜狗拼音输入法 to input chinese quotation, the quotation is different betweeen tradtional Chinese and simplified chinese.
《明珠缘》第三十七回：“体乾醉了，应星却未吃酒，兼之少年精壮，隔席把张体乾轻轻一把提过来，丢翻在地，拳打脚踢。”“丢翻”意为打翻或摔倒在地等，可能源于武林”。


Is there such a thing as a run-on-sentence in Chinese? In Chinese articles I often find these long, never-ending, main-point-less sentences.

For instance check out these three sentence-paragraphs from this news article ("请给90后创业者多一些宽容")

  尽管随后余佳文在微博上专门发文针对知呼上对其学历、融资额、用户数据等等质疑做了相应回应，但是从舆论上依然负面不断，尤其是与之前马佳佳的炒作放在一起，总的来说给人一种90后创业者“不靠谱”的感觉。

  与很多创业项目不同的是，这个被推到风口浪尖的超级课程表团队基本都是出身草根的90后，没有显赫的背景、华丽的学历、光鲜的职业履历，白手起家硬生生从零开始做到成功拿下阿里的风险投资，不管盈利多少、用户多少、融资多少，能走得到这个阶段当属不易。

  如果真有错，就错在这位90后CEO太过高调，打破了华南地区创业者一向低调务实的传统，更是广东地区的创业者罕有的登上了中国互联网圈子的头条，之前的马佳佳、郝畅、雕爷的案例基本都诞生于京城，很少有外地的案例引起主流互联网圈子的关注。

Is this just bad writing, or is there no such thing as a run on sentence in Chinese?

Actually, this is some quite advanced writing.
And no, there's no such a thing as run-on sentence in Chinese. At least not exactly as in English.
The structure used in this article is called 排比(parallelism, http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%8E%92%E6%AF%94). Parallelism is "a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure."
If you look carefully, you can identify multiple groups of phrases with similar pattern describing a common subjective/objective:

这个被推到风口浪尖的超级课程表团队基本都是出身草根的90后，没有

显赫的背景、
华丽的学历、
光鲜的职业履历，

白手起家硬生生从零开始做到成功拿下阿里的风险投资，不管

盈利多少、
用户多少、
融资多少，

能走得到这个阶段当属不易。

You should also consider it phonetically. This kind of structures are usually used in a speech or a debate. Because of those similar structures, when you say it out loud, you'll get nice rhythm, stronger/firmer tone and look more confident in your content in front of your listeners. It helps with getting your ideas across or intimidating your opponents.
People are always looking for patterns in stuff (even when it's not there). Just give it to them.

Well,it contains a lot of information in one sentence.In my view,the weakness of this article is paragraphing.The author tried to gather the information in one sentence regardless of paragraph.


How do you translate "hover over"? I would like to say something like:

Please use your mouse to hover over the attribute icon

but I do not know the Chinese equivalent for "hover over", as used in technology / software.
Would 停留 be understood, or is there a better way to say it?

It's called (鼠标)悬停 in mainland China.

Please use your mouse to hover over the attribute icon
请将鼠标悬停在属性图标上。

If you search this phrase on the internet you'll see more examples how it's used, e.g.

鼠标悬停效果是网页制作的常用特效之一。
'Mouse over' is one of the most used special effect in web design.

You should note that many Computer related words are translated very differently in mainland China ('zh-cn' in locale terms) and other Chinese speaking regions, especially in Taiwan where there is a complete different set of words. You may want to update your question to clarify your user locale. If it's different from 'zh-cn' you may want to wait for another answer.

so what you mean can be you just wanna "say" it in spoken language, or what you really want is put it into something technical like a user's manual where you're pretty sure that it'd better be formal language construct.

Casual

When you wanna just "say" it casually, in spoken language, em, take me as an example, I just say:

  把鼠標晃到那屬性圖標上頭
  ba3 shu3 biao1 huang4 dao0 na4 shang4 shu3 xing4 tu2 biao1 shang4 tou2
  Hover the mouse over that attribute icon, please.

Formal

  請把滑鼠移動到屬性圖標上方。
  Pinyin : qing3 ba3 hua2 shu3 yi2 dong4 dao4 shu3 xing4 tu2 biao1 shang4 fang1
  Please hover the mouse over that attribute icon.

Discussion

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean a better one. But in the terms of natural feeling, my example shows a commonly used one in my area. You don't wanna presume that all people say it in the same way in such a vast piece of land. Mandarin is one way to make people from different area understand each other, but yet this way has not yet achieved one hundred percent victory.

停留 is a good one too, I use that sometimes and heard about people use that too.

If you need any reference to proof what I'm talking about here is not non-sense or want me to make things clearer, please leave comment.

靜候疑者 (Waiting for any enquiry with open arms.)

Welcome to the world of Chinese language :D


Where can I find recordings of old Chinese pronunciation? Old Chinese phonology and Reconstructions of Old Chinese seem to be two things that keep cropping up every now and again.

Baxter–Sagart seems to be the big one these days.

Are there any recordings of Old Chinese pronunciations available?

I doubt it.  Baxter and Sagart themselves mention, in their recent book on Old Chinese, that the reconstruction is at least partly schematic: The symbols are meant to be phonemic, not phonetic.  Roughly speaking, that means that their main function is to trace the etymology of the spoken language, not to reflect how the sounds were actually realized.  In many cases, they know no more about a particular sound than that it was a consonant of some sort, or sometimes that it was a velar consonant, or a guttural consonant, or some kind of lower vowel, or whatever.  However, they have decided to use a convention that makes sense, that whenever a sound has so-and-so kind of reflex in the modern languages, or in Middle Chinese, then it will be represented with such-and-such a symbol in their Old Chinese transcription.

In reality, in most cases, the sound probably was something like what they transcribe, but not reliably so.  At one point, a few years ago, Baxter and Sagart produced a "simplified" version of their reconstruction, which filtered out some of the uncertainties and made various specific decisions about which sounds went where.  They decided in the end to scrap that version, because they felt it conveyed an unrealistic level of assuredness about the sounds of Old Chinese.

At any rate, even if one were to pick a particular realization of the phonemes of Old Chinese, it would probably take a lot of effort to learn to speak it fluently enough to read, say, Confucius, and no one is going to put in that much effort if there's a good chance a large percentage is just plain wrong.

You can read 《汉语史稿》《说文解字》to learn the ancient Chinese pronunciation. But they might be difficult to understand if you can't use Chinese like a native speaker.


How to say "I'm finished"? When we've finished doing something like I've finished (doing my homework) what we should say.
Can we say 好了 "I'm finished"? (Hǎole)

How about "are you finished"?  Can we say "好了吗"?. (Hǎole ma)

Depend on the context, 好 and/or 完 can be used.

好 is more oral friendly as there is no emphasize of any difference between the speaker and the listener. In some cases, using 好 may show a closer relation between the parties of conversation than 完.

On the other hand, 完 is more formal. It is a better parallel to "finish" comparing to 好 as the latter has broader usage. Be weary while using 完 as it is often used when the parties involved in conversion are not equal.

For instance, 完 is used when your boss speaks to you, your teacher speaks to you, your group leader speaks to you, etc. 好 on the other hand, tend to be used when your friend speaks to you, your partner speaks to you, etc.

You might consider 完 and its associated words for the meaning of "finished."


Is there a word for 1/3? So I know that in Mandarin, 1/2 is 二分之一 or 一半. Is there a similar word to 一半 for 1/3? I mean, instead of 三分之一, something like 一——？

因為十進制在中國已被使用了很長的時間，故比較少分數字詞；其中只有「半」作為單字詞，於中國古代應用如下。
Because the decimal system has been used for a long time in China, there are fewer fractional words.
半 is the only single word, which was used as follows in ancient China.

1/2 one-half 半、中半
1/3 one-third 少半、小半
2/3 two-thirds 太半、大半
1/4 one-fourth, a quarter 弱半
3/4 three-fourths, three quarters 強半

中國數字分數系統中，稱呼分數時，先稱呼分母，後稱呼分子。
In Chinese fractional system, the denominator is addressed first, and then the numerator.

例如：其亡者三二 (Two-thirds people died)。

Source: 中文數字

一比三，三分一，三分之一，一除三： all work!! but of course, is there a half word in English for 1/3? No, there isn't.


What's the difference between 舅舅 and 叔叔? My favorite short story in modern Mandarin, 2015 by 王小波, is basically a long, humorous digression about the author's 舅舅:

  我舅舅是个无照画家，和别人不同的是，他总在忙些正事。有时他在作画；有时他卖画，并且因此蹲在派出所里。他作画时把房门锁上，再戴上个防震耳罩，别人来敲门听不见，打电话也不接，独自一人面对画架，如痴如狂。因为他住在十四层楼上，谁也不能趴窗户往里看，所以没人见过他作画，除了一个贼。

This word is translated as 'uncle.'

But why isn't the man a 叔叔? What's the difference in usage?

Uncles of mother's side are called 舅舅, while uncles of father's side if he's older than your father you have to call him 伯, and 叔 for younger ones. If you have more than one 舅 or 叔 or 伯. You need to add some prefix to specified them, like 大舅 for the oldest brother of you mother, the following are 二舅, 三舅... For 叔叔 伯伯 they apply the same, except there is no 大叔, and the 叔's numbering should inherit from 伯s(e.g., 大伯，二伯，Your Father，then 三叔,四叔).  There also have a word 大叔, but it's just a term to refer to some random older man...

For 叔叔, 伯伯 they can also refer to your parents' friends of their generation or your friends parents who are of same generation of your parents. Usually you won't use the term 舅舅 for this kind of acquaintances, but it happens when the guy is your mother's distance relatives, they might come from a same village with a same family name.

EDIT: 叔叔 is also used as a term of address for men (unrelated to you) who are roughly your father's age.

I call my mother's brothers "舅舅",
and I call my father's brothers "叔叔"


"niyao" meaning strong-armer? A comment on a New York Times article about violence towards doctors in China reads:

  The situation is explosive. In 2010 there were 17,234 cases of violence against medical personnel reported by CCTV. Hired thugs
  called "niyao" beat up or kill doctors for 100 yuan ($16 US) plus
  cab fare. China Daily says attacks increase 20% per year.

I could not find the characters for "niyao" anywhere or a definition of a "niyao" as a strong-armer. Can someone point me to a source?

I think it is mistyped. There is something called "医闹" (yinao), which inherently means affrays in hospitals made by some troublesome patients because of medical disputes.

However, the situation was, some patients hired some "agency" to make all the affrays for them. Before 2011, it was quite common, and those people get hired are called "职业医闹" (zhi ye yi nao). The payment is 100 Yuan per day.

In recent years, as most of the 职业医闹 get caught into prison, much fewer reports of that events are heard, but "医闹" still exists, though most of the events didn't cause very serious consequences. But recently, a patient killed a doctor in Zhejiang, which is an open book.

"niyao" is Chinese pronunciation, just a hired murder's name the doctor-killing group's name, but as a Chinese, I didn't hear about that yet.


What's the correct classifier for `房子`? In my little bit of Mandarin experience, I have got that the classifier for 房子 is 座, and also felt that 座 is usually used to refer to a building. However, I have just read that someone here over Chinese Language Stack Exchange says the classifier is 栋, and so I wonder which should be used to refer to 房子.

Later I found that the classifier for 房子 may include more; in this online dictionary, it shows 栋, 座, 套, and 幢. So I wonder how I can decide which to use and also like to know why.

Also, even if the proper classifier for 房子 is 栋, could I still use 座 in that context? Or do they give two totally different meanings?

All of them are OK to use to classify 房子, it depends on the type of house itself, which one is considered the more adequate.

幢 is preferred when speaking of large and tall buildings
栋 tends to be used to refer to buildings that are wide
座 is used for buildings that are “stable and steady", e.g. palace, temple, large mansions (mostly with public purpose)

Source: Chinese University of Hong Kong

As for 套 I have no reference, I suppose it has its own specific set of buildings it can classify.

Only describe the number of property who owns can use 套：
Tom has 3套房子 in Beijing. He want to sell one of them for operation cost.


Meaning of the name Didi Chuxing/滴滴出行？ Apparently the successful taxi app 滴滴出行 was originally called 嘀嘀打车. What is the meaning of 嘀嘀 here and why was it considered acceptable to change 嘀嘀 to 滴滴?

why was it considered acceptable to change 嘀嘀 to 滴滴?

This news (嘀嘀打车改名了! 正式更名为滴滴打车) has an explanation about it.

  更名是公司长远战略发展的需要，“滴滴”较“嘀嘀”更具有文化内涵及寓意。【滴】是水滴下落的清脆声，有着滴水成河的凝聚意义。

According to its official 微博, the name was changed for the needs of long-term strategic development, 滴滴 has more cultural connotation and moral than 嘀嘀. 滴 means the clear and melodious sound of water dropping, has the cohesion meaning of "many drops of water make a river".

This news (嘀嘀打车改名为“滴滴”) has another explanation about it.

  依据小桔科技官方的解读，更名为“滴滴打车”，一是取与象声词“嘀嘀”的谐音，二是取“滴水之恩当涌泉相报”之意。

According to the official story, the name was changed because (1) 滴滴 has the same pronunciation with the onomatopoeia 嘀嘀; (2) takes the meaning from 滴水之恩当涌泉相报 (drop the boon of the water, be to flow out spring to report mutually).

  业内分析认为，滴滴改名也是出于商标侵权避嫌考虑。

According to the industry analysis, the name was changed to avoid trademark infringement trouble.

(BTW: 滴滴打车 still had trademark infringement trouble even after changed the name. See 改了名字也侵权 滴滴打车再次成为被告.)

  What is the meaning of 嘀嘀 here

As the above statement mentioned, 嘀嘀 is 象声词(onomatopoeia), I guess it came from the voice of car horns.

well, taxi is called "的士" in hong kong. in mandarin speaking area, it's translated as "計程車" or "出租車".

about 1990s, it's trendy to use "的士", instead of "計程車" in mainland china; the action of using / calling a taxi is "打的".

so 的 --> 嘀嘀 --> 滴滴

they share the same syllable :)


Pinyin vs. Pronunciation of 嗯? I've seen the word "嗯" many times in conversations and songs. I know that it pronounces like "hm", expressing curiosity. But when I check the pinyin of it, according to Wiktionary, it is like such:

  ńg, ń, en

which for me doesn't seem to sound like the way it pronounces. Why do they differ?

And what's more, I've never seen the pinyin like "ńg, ń", particularly for the tone mark, which should be placed on top of vowels instead of consonants. They seem to pronounce like "éng, én", which are valid nasal finals. Are those pinyin valid? If so, why it's not written as such: "éng, én"?

Very interesting question!

嗯 is pronounced as ǹg，ńg，ňg，ǹ，ń，ň.

ńg, ń: means what？, or 什么？It expresses surprise or raise a question.

ǹg，ǹ: means I get it, I know it, or 好，我知道了

ňg，ň: means no, I don't want that, we say 嗯，不是，...

The way to pronounce ǹ，ń，ň is that you put your tongue in the place while you pronounce the phonetic notation /n/ in English and then apply the tones.

To pronounce ǹg，ńg，ňg , put your tongue in the place while you pronounce [ŋ] and then apply the tones.

Of course, ǹg，ńg，ňg，ǹ，ń，ň are unusual pronunciations in Chinese.

If you are asking for Pinyin, it should be "en".


Are "我在哪里可以买火车票" and "我哪里可以买火车票" both correct sentences? Are "我在哪里可以买火车票" and "我哪里可以买火车票" both correct sentences? If one isn't, why?

"我在哪里可以买到火车票?" is the correct way to ask where you can buy the ticket, but in oral language "我哪里可以买到火车票?" is used quite often.

Actually there are 2 ways how "我哪里可以买到火车票"  can be interpreted. The first one is a question asking where you can buy train tickets. The second one is a statement meaning there is no place where train tickets can be bought. In oral language people will know what you mean by the context, the tone of your voice and your expressions.

BerR's answer is correct. I have a supplement of the second expan of "我哪里可以买到火车票". It is not only a statement that there is no place where the tickets can be bought, but no ways, no time or the tickets are sold out objectively like and so on, any situations that you can not buy the tickets, you can say that sentence with falling tone.


What is the equivalent in English for 喷子？ This expression is not the conventional one found in a normal dictionary, but in a large number of posts online. In my guess, it means somebody who is unsatisfied with the real world, right? I am not sure. Perhaps you can share your understanding of it.

troll

One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument

by Alien Entity September 22, 2002

Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll

"噴子" is a nick name,means "Gun"!
The reason is when you shoot with a gun,The gun always splay the bullet!


How to say, “In Chinese" in Chinese If I want to tell someone they can speak to me in Chinese, how can I say it?

My guess is:

  你可以给我说用中文

Is this correct, and is there any other way to say it, for example using the 把 structure (i.e. 你可以把中文给我说)。 Is this correct???

你可以给我说用中文 is a little weird, you can change the order to 你可以用中文给我说. And you could just say 你可以说中文 or 你可以用中文说.

你可以把中文给我说 is wrong, it means You could say Chinese to me, not You could say sth in Chinese, Chinese become the object of say here, not the method. You could say 你可以用中文把xxx事情说给我.

You may use these expressions:

说汉语/說漢語
说中文/說中文
讲汉语/講漢語
讲中文/講中文
讲國語/講國語

汉语/漢語: The language of the Han nationality
中文: The text of China
国语/國語: The national language (commonly seen in HK, TW)

Before the foundation of PRC, the government of ROC draw up the China's common language called 国语 (national language), later its name changes to 普通话/普通話 (universal common speech) in mainland China, but the name is still used in HK & TW. People in mainland China in these days prefer to use 说中文/說中文 or 讲中文/講中文, 说汉语/說漢語 and 讲汉语/講漢語 are commonly used in the past tens of years, but less used nowadays, it is still acceptable. The word 中文 is not suitable name in theory, for there are many languages in China.


What is the English for "地宮"? I know that "underground palace" can be a translation of "地宮", but I'm not too sure on the "correct" translation.

Seeing some pictures on baike, "underground palace" doesn't really seem to fit what the pictures depict.

From what I see, I think that something like "underground maze" would suit it better, stemming from "迷宮". However, with the English translation of "underground palace", should the "palace" then not be taken literally as a "palace"? I'm a bit confused since from the pictures, "地宮" seems to be more like an "underground tomb" than a "palace".

Without the context its kind of hard to know which definition you're looking for, but Oxford gives us two definitions with explanations:

NOUN
1 地下陵墓 tomb chamber

Underground tomb/mausoleum

2 地下藏经室 underground shrine housing Buddhist relics

Buddhist sutras collection room

how about tomb palace? it is indeed a tomb


Is 视死如归 seen as "See death as returning home"(Respect to someone who died) or "Not afraid of death"(arrogance) I cant understand chinese at all and I found this phrase: 视死如归 which translates to "See death as returning home" but also to "Not afraid of death". I think the second translation comes over as very arrogant.

If you would say or write this to someone, would they take it as so to speak "Death could be a good thing(as you will find rest when you die or something like that)" or "Be tough"? If this is more hanging to the second translation, is there a better chinese sentence that would mean something like the first phrase?

Both definitions are correct.
多功能成语词典 explains:

解释 视:看待;归:回家｡把死看作像回家一样｡形容不怕死｡多指为了正义事业而勇于牺牲自己的生命｡

视: treat ;归: returning home. to treat death the same as returning home. To describe being fearless in the face of death. Refers mostly to bravely sacrificing oneself for a righteous cause.
They also give an example sentence:

例句 面对敌人的屠刀,革命先烈视死如归,大义凛然｡

A, more literal, translation would be something like:
Facing the butchers knives of the enemy, the martyrs to the revolution treated death as returning home, righteousness abounds.
Another translation you can have a look at from A Chinese-English Dictionary:

刘胡兰临刑时, 大义凛然, 视死如归。
Liu Hulan faced the executioner's ax with a fortitude that commanded admiration and respect.

This phrase is mostly seen in connection with martyrdom and warfare.
Some other definitions that might help:
ABC

face death unflinchingly

Oxford

meet one's death like a hero

CC-CEDICT

1 to view death as a return home
2 to not be afraid of dying
3 to face death with equanimity (idiom)

I doubt you'd ever use this phrase to console anybody, even if you did it'd be strange unless they were dying for some big cause or fighting in a war.
There is an antonym: 贪生怕死 which CC-CEDICT defines as:

1 greedy for life, afraid of death (idiom); craven and cowardly
2 clinging abjectly to life
3 only interested in saving one's neck

视死如归 is more like second translation
if you want use first translation
i suggest use
落叶归根


How did 东西 come to mean "something" in the expression "吃东西"? I was chatting with a Chinese penpal recently and when I asked "what are you doing?", I received the following answer:

  吃东西，你呢？

Now, "东西" means "east and west" and so "吃东西" literally means "eat/eating east and west".

After I asked for explanations, I got this reply "I am eating something". The explanation included the fact that this depends on context.

So, how did 东西 come to mean "something"? And in what contexts can it be found with what meanings?

If the list is long, include only the most famous cases (5, 10 cases).

This is a good question about etymology of Chinese word. Most native speakers are not interested in etymology as they can speak out of habit while non-native speakers are more curious on how the sense of words evolves. Back to your question, there are nice articles on both Wikipedia and Baidu Baike that explains the etymology of "东西". Since there are acutally quite a few explanations for this one, so I cannot translate them all here. But I can help you if you have trouble to understand particular sentences.

I like how nobody even tried to answer the question at the end, "and in what contexts can it be found and with what meanings?" Here are a few that I always heard:

mai dongxi which means to go shopping. (lit. buy stuff)
chi dongxi which means to eat something. (lit. to eat stuff)
nvhai you tai duo ge dongxi which means girls have too much stuff.
ni xiang mai shenme dongxi? which means, "what do you want to buy" (lit. you want to buy what stuff?).

Now you have to understand that "something" is a very unique word to English that has many many meanings. To my knowledge there is no Chinese equivalent word, so dongxi is really just a word that basically means stuff in the physical sense.


What is the role of 都 in 你网上小店都卖什么东西啊？ What is the role of 都 in this sentence?

  你网上小店都卖什么东西啊？

Should  I read:

你卖 = you sell
你的小店卖 = your little shop sells
都卖 = all sell
你和你的小店都卖 = you and your little shop both sell

Basically, who is the seller??

都 is an adverb. The subject is 你(的)小店.

  你最近都在做些什么啊？
  你都去过那些地方？
  你平时都听些什么样的歌？
  你都怎么想的？
  ...

When 都 is used, the question sounds less specific. The speaker either expects a long or complete list, or expects the listener to elaborate at length or in detail.

都 here carries a similar meaning as "usually".

i.e., "What goods does your mini online shop sell usually?"


What exactly does 阅兵 mean/translate as? The word 阅兵 has been used a lot the last couple of days, for obvious reasons, mostly for one specific activity. Dictionaries define as follows:

CC-CEDICT

  to review troops

KEY

  ◊ review troops

zdic

  [military review;review troops] 即检阅车马兵员装备等

but these don't really fit...

BBC Asia

calls it a

  parade

and a

  war show

What exactly does 阅兵 mean/translate as?

[we're talking about the "parade"/"show" here]

Generally I think BBC is a good place to learn English. As "阅兵" is a pretty big event recently, you can see it on news in most English speaking countries. So, just take a look of a news title from BBC: China military parade commemorates WW2 victory over Japan.

"Military parade" looks good to me. However, if you are one of the officials, then you are in a different position. You would call it "review troops". But for outsiders like us, it's an event, a "military parade".

阅兵 should be always translated into "Military Parade". Period.


What does the word 绑架 mean in these contexts? (not "kidnap") For example here are a couple of topic titles from 知乎:

如何看待道德绑架行为？
我不想让我的女儿继续经历现在的「审美绑架」

And a comment I found on a youtube video:

现在的共产党使用的统治方式和封建时代的中国没什么两样，就是用国家主义绑架中国老百姓。按理说，其他的民族也没那么容易被统治者绑架，但中国老百姓偏偏容易被绑架，因为从一开始就被绑架了，一直没有明白过来。

Obviously in these sentences it does not mean "kidnap". So what does it mean? How can I translate it, and how do I use it?

Thanks in advance.

Here 绑架 means "force sb. into doing sth.".

  道德绑架

force (your) moral beliefs on others

  审美绑架

force (your) aesthetic beliefs on others

  被绑架

being forced to others' belief.

如何看待道德绑架行为？
How should we regard the hijacking of ethics? (Maybe: ‘using religion for political ends’)

过度追求网红脸？你的审美是否被绑架？
Too much desire to be an Internet celebrity? Has your sense of esthetics been hijacked?

我不想让我的女儿继续经历现在的「审美绑架」
I don't want to let my daughter continue to experience the current hijacking of esthetics. (Maybe: he  doesn't want his daughter to have anorexic super-models as role models.)

In the text below, 绑架 refers to the hijacking of people's opinions through the medium of strong nationalism. (Personally, I think the 共产党 is doing a good job of ruling China. Is your country's  government perfect?)

Anti communist rant （not from me):

现在的共产党使用的统治方式和封建时代的中国没什么两样，
The Communist Party's current method of ruling China is no different to rulers in feudal times,
就是用国家主义绑架中国老百姓。  (真的吗？中国梦不好，美国梦好？？）
that is, use nationalism to hijack ordinary people's opinions.
按理说，
It is reasonable to say that
其他的民族也没那么容易被统治者绑架，
other nationalities would not be so easily mislead,
但中国老百姓偏偏容易被绑架，
but the Chinese man in the street is, unfortunately, easy to delude,
因为从一开始就被绑架了，
because his opinions have been hijacked from the beginning,
一直没有明白过来。
he just doesn't know it.

(I suppose the American man in the street is all so clued up. As long as he can keep his rifle to shoot school kids and Afro-Americans, he doesn't even register that he has a government.)


的-地-得, when do you use which? So the age old question of 的-地-得, when do you use which? When spoken, it all sounds the same, but on paper it depends on if it's a verb, noun, adjective. But I don't quite remember if that is all that matters or which applies to which.

Can someone refresh my memory?

The usage of “的” is in possessive or adjectival context.  E.g., (posessive) “我的狗”, or (adjectival) “真正的生意人”.  Generally a noun is modified, so a noun follows it, unless it doesn't, such as “有点儿不足是难免的”, (some insufficiency is unavoidable) which is still an adjectival modifier (unavoidable), even though it modifies the noun (insufficiency) in front of it.

“地” is used usually as an adverbial modifier, following the modifier and preceding the verb.  For example, in “她伤心地说” (she said sadly).

The last one, “得”, is distinct, because it's a potential complement, not a modifier.  It follows a verb to show the result.  So the structure is VERB + 得 + RESULT.  One of the things I found confusing about this, coming from English, is that it leads to some structures that have bit of repetition.  So to say "she speaks Chinese very well", you use something like "she speaks Chinese, speaks very well", i.e., “她说中文说得很好”.

Since both “得” and “地” come between a verb and something else, they can be easy to confuse.  But just remember that if "de" functions as an adverb, the verb comes after it and “地” is appropriate, but if you are trying to complement or completes the verb that precedes it, then use “得”, even in weird cases like “好得很”!

For short, just remember: “地” usually appears before the verb while “得” appears after the verb. eg. “这件事漂亮地完成了。” and “这件事完成得漂亮。”  these two sentences are correct in grammar, although they have slight differences in emotion.

的 and 地 are easy to learn. 的 is used for adj. 地 is used for adv.
得 is not clean to be translated well.

But one good thing is even Chinese young people cannot do this separation well. The new Chinese culture book for primary school in China mainland is use 的 only. This question will be meanless within 2 decades.


How did 外国人 become 老外? From Baidu:

  老外，是中国人对国外人的一种俗称，类似与老张、老王、老李之类的称呼。称呼中加“老”显得亲热，比如“老乡”“老表”，称呼你老外，就像称呼老张老李那样，大大咧咧，随便亲切。过去中国人对外国人的称呼都是用在第三人称上，只有“老外”可以用于第二人称。

To translate, it says laowai is a colloquial term for foreigners, similar to nicknames such as laozhang and laowang. The word lao is added to sound friendly. In the past, Chinese used terms that address foreigners as third persons, the term laowai can be used on a second person.

From Wikipedia:

  Laowai is a commonly used Chinese mandarin word. It is the shortened,
  informal version close to wàiguórén 外国人 ("foreigner"), a better
  translation of Laowai would be "alien"... So Laowai 老外 is more of a
  neutral term which can be used as: "an obvious foreigner", "very
  exotic", or "adventive", "alien".

Based on the above, there are two lines of thought: one saying that 老 is added as an indication of friendliness to foreigners; another saying that 老 is added to indicate that a foreigner is "always" an outsider.

Does anyone know the exact origin of this term?

As Wikipedia mentioned, “老” is an empty prefix. Laowai is neither positive nor negative.

Actually, the word is often used to refer to a variety of races like Caucasians, Indians, Africans and Middle Easterners, who look drastically different from Asians. You will rarely hear a Chinese person call Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos 老外. That's why you hear some Chinese use this term even in the United States and Canada.

The word emerged in Beijing and became popular there. In southern China it is used less.

What's the reason you hear this word used frequently in China? Because westerners attract more attention in the public as they look different. The quickest way to refer them is with 老外. Saying 外国人 is too formal.

The word might become less popular when more foreigners start living in/visiting China. It'd be less strange to see them in the public.

The word is also used less among those who are better educated. He has a name, why call him 老外? Regardless of whether the word is negative or not, saying such is not really polite.

as you metioned, "Wikipedia saying that 老 is added to indicate that a foreigner is "always" an outsider".is totally wrong.Chinese has never ever use 老:LAO before person or object to imply "always".when use |老:lao" to mean "always",it's use just as*always* .just think there isn't something like"always person" in English.so you can image there isn't something like “a foreigner is "always" an outsider” in Chinese.Baidu is more familiar with Chinese than wiki,it's native Chinese.so you can accept the explanation of "老外".


请问您这个职位缺了多久了？Can I lose one 了 Actually 2 questions:

1) Are these sentences all good Chinese?
2) If they are acceptable Chinese, is there any difference in meaning between them?

请问您这个职位缺了多久了？
请问您这个职位缺多久了？
请问您这个职位缺了多久？

They are almost the same, but the first and second sentences keep the last 了, so they are more colloquial. And the third one omits the last 了，so it sounds more serious.

In Chinese, 了 sometimes can express a kind of state, for example, 自行车修好了，the bicycle has been fixed. 吃过了，I have already eaten.

Here, the second 了 is a modal particle.

The first one is better, just like you are asking somebody.

you can say any one of those sentence and people can understand.

By the way, you can say

  请问您这个职位空缺了多久了


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5) Top to bottom = thin to fat

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

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

Just keep practising... Writing the same character again and again for 50 times or now? You'd be glad to know that's exactly what the education in primary school is like in China...


if 奥巴马 was a sentence in classical chinese, what would be its meaning? if you look up the characters used to transscribe obama in chinese, you get the following:

奥 = mysterious
巴 = to long for
马 = horse

a simple sentence pattern in classical chinese is:
adv. V O

Is it possible to interpret 奥巴马 as a sentence in classical chinese with this peculiar sentence structure?
If it is possible, would the translation be:

in a mysterous way longing for a horse

Yes, if it is the way you interpret the characters, you can translate that into a sentence. However, you probably should not say this to an average Chinese user, it would not make any sense to them. Actually, if you would like to interpreted 奥巴马 to any Chinese sentence that makes some sense, it is nearly impossible. I personally do not see an modern Chinese sentence or often-used classical expression.

Firstly, one Chinese character could have many meanings. Here, all three characters have more than the meanings you have mentioned above. Thus you have a much bigger chance to find a sentence.

Secondly, it is less common in modern Chinese language to use one character for every single component of the sentence. So I would say the better way is to view the sentence the classical way. This has lead to another interesting point. The sentence pattern of classical Chinese are so different from the Chinese we are using now. Thus the chance of you to find a  sentence is even bigger.

Now I actually see a lot ways to interpreted 奥巴马 into a sentence. For example:

奥 - the Southwest corner of a room

巴 - to stick (v.)

马 - horse

Thus the sentence could mean "A horse is sticked at the Southwest corner of a room."

Why is the "巴" means "to long for" or "to stick". Really didn't get you guys.


What is the difference between 必须, 得, 必需, and 需要? I know that all of them mean "to have to" in some form or another, but are they interchangeable?

First let's clarify the definitions of 須 and 需
須： Adverb/verb, meaning should, must; 《必須，必定，須要》

你（必須）參加這次會議
You must participate in this meeting.

需: Compound, meaning need, require; example compounds: 《需要(require)，需求(demand)，必需(need)，急需(urgent need)》

植物生長（必需）陽光和雨露
Plants require sunlight and raindrops to grow

It is very easy to mix up 必須 and 必需, even for native speakers, as they have the same pronunciation (cantonese and mandarin) and very similar meanings. In english, both can be represented by "need". "You need to participate in this meeting" and "Plants need sunlight and raindrops to grow".
The easiest way to distinguish the two is to see whether it is a noun or a verb that comes after it. If it is a noun, use 必需， 需要; if it is a verb, use 必須.
得 is quite interesting because it can be used to replace both 必須 or 必需

有錯誤就得批評;做得好就得表揚
Wrong doing needs to be critiqued, good work needs to be complimented
這公工程得三個月才能完成
It takes 3 months to finish this construction

Note that 需要 can be used as a noun as "need(s)"

I think the short answer is

must 必须
have to 得
need 需要

example

First Certificate Expert Coursebook By Jan Bell and Roger Gower said:

must is used to express strong, personal obligation or necessity:

I must post the letter straightaway. (I, personally, feel it is necessary)

我必须把信直接寄出去

have (got) to is used when the situation or someone else (not the speaker) makes it necessary:

I have to work late tonight. My boss says so.

我不得不工作到很晚。因为我老板让我这样做。

-need, you personally need something to do so

I need to invite some friends.(so this party will be awesome)

我需要邀请一些朋友（这样聚会将会很棒）


In these 2 sentences does 得 have the same function? Is this 得 doing the same job in both sentences? Maybe in 2. they should have used 地？ （I don't really think so, but maybe.)

把自己梳理得漂亮而迷人。
会不会忧郁得生病？

In 1. I have 得[漂亮]而[迷人] [形容词]
In 2. I have 得(生病) (动词）

忧郁： sullen, depressed

Is this 得 doing the same job in both sentences?

Yes. Both 得 are 'verb particle'

In both sentences, 得 are following a verb. It is a [verb particle] of the verb before it.

  '漂亮而迷人' is the 'result/ degree' of the action '把自己梳理'

  [把自己梳理] is the [verb phrase]; [得] is a [verb particle] (*used to express possibility or capability; to indicate the result or degree. Similar to English 'to' / 'to the point of' *)

  [漂亮而迷人] here is an [adjective phrase]. It is the[result/degree] of the verb phrase [把自己梳理].

~

  '生病' is the result/ degree of '忧郁'

  [忧郁] is the main verb; [得] is a [verb particle] (*used to express possibility or capability; to indicate the result or degree. Similar to English 'to' / 'to the point of' *)

  [生病] is the auxiliary verb. It is the [result/degree] caused by the main verb [忧郁].

i know this forum today,so i sign up a account and learn english instead,
fo me  , i thinks chinese grammar is stanger, because, for us, i need not any grammar, so i think every sentence, i noly use "的" is ok, because, i never use "得 地" for a long time


How can I say "I think the Eastern culture is much wiser than Western culture"? How can I say "I think the Eastern culture is much wiser than Western culture"?

I've tried "我想东文化比西文化很明智的", but Google is translating this as "I think the Eastern culture is very wise" (!!)

I'm in doubt if I should use a 是, or if I could drop the final 的. Like "我想东文化是比西文化很明智". If 的 is necessary, what's exactly its function in the sentence?

I think the Eastern culture is much wiser than Western culture

Translation：

"I think" can be translated as 我认为 我的想法是 我觉得 我的观点是 etc

“much wiser than” can be translated as 比XX更聪明 比XX更有智慧 比XX聪明的多 etc

In conclusion:

1、我认为东方文化比西方文化更高明。

2、我觉得东方文化比西方文化更有智慧。

3、我认为，相比西方文化，东方文化更有智慧。

I think this sentence ought to give people an accurate impression of the situation:

我认为中国人崇洋拜外比不上西方人搞东方主义。


What comes after 不愁 is it negative or positive? So, I know that 不愁 means to "not worry about" but I'm trying to figure out its exact usage. In particular, I'm trying to figure out if the phrase after  不愁  is always negative?

For example, I know we can say 不愁 找不到工作

Could you also say 不愁找工作？Or does that not make sense ?

Is it 不愁没钱 or 不愁钱？

不愁 basically means "not worried", to answer your question, I think you are looking at it the wrong way.

First of all, I think the confusion is between the using of "不" and "没", you are thinking that by adding the word "不" or "没", the sentence becomes negative. But it all based on the context you are using it in. Lets compare the examples you provided:

不愁找不到工作 vs 不愁找工作

"不愁找不到工作(Not worried about not finding a job)"

"不愁找工作(Not worried about job searching/job hunthing)"

The two sentences may translate into different meanings, but it all comes down to the same general idea, that is "Not worried, I can find a job(or maybe I don't need a job)". And that is why the sentences basically means the same thing.

Similarly with

不愁没钱 vs 不愁钱

"不愁没钱(Not worried about not having money)"

"不愁钱(Not worried about money)"

The two sentences also have the same general idea "Not worried, I have money/I don't need money)", so they mean the same thing too.

So theres no negative or positive words that you need to follow with "不愁", but instead it all based on the context. For example, if you are paying for someone and they are reluctant for you to do so, you could say "啊呀，不愁钱(lets not worry about money)" instead of "啊呀，不愁没钱(lets not worry about not having money)" as it is abit more informal.

I know this all might seems confusing, but 加油，咱不愁，会越来越好.

Itis doesn't matter weather negative or positive.不愁 means you needn't warry.


Would you use 为 or 给 (or neither) as a dedication? I'm wondering how to write a dedication (in a book or on a memorial, for example). In English I would inscribe "For my friend." I like the somewhat ambiguous and all-encompassing meaning of this English phrase, as it can mean "I wrote this for my friend" or "I made this for my friend" or "This is to honor my friend" and so on.

Would "为我的朋友" fit this meaning? Would "给我的朋友" be better? Is there an idiomatic phrase or different translation that would be better? Or would I have to lose the ambiguity and translate it more specifically?

I understand that 为 is primarily used to mean "for the sake of," which is sort of the meaning, but "For my friend" also has the meaning of giving something or dedicating something to someone.

EDIT: Based on the comments/answer supplied and further research, my understanding is that there are two ways to write this (neither of which were included in my original question).

献给 seems to have more of a "dedicated to" connotation, while 致 is a more formal/poetic way of devoting or addressing something to someone. Can a native speaker confirm if I am understanding this correctly?

"致"is often used in the beginning of the letter.
"献给"is a more formal way of "给".

致友 致友人 致好友 致故友 致新友 致挚友 致益友 etc.


Table-tennis table: 乒乓球桌, 乒乓球台 or 乒乓球案子? I have found those translations of a "table-tennis table":

  乒乓球桌
  乒乓球台
  乒乓球案子

Searching for pictures of them, all 3 appear to be the same thing. On http://www.mdbg.net/ I only found 乒乓球台 .

Are those words interchangeable? Which is more commonly used?

All three terms refer to the same thing - table tennis table.

乒乓球桌 is a commonly used (1.58M results on Google, 2.60M results on Baidu) layman's term.

乒乓球台 is the technical term (both Baidu and Wikipedia use
 this term) and is commonly used (2.14M results on Google, 4.19M results on Baidu) as well.

乒乓球案子 is rarely used (0.21M results on Google, 0.13M results on Baidu) from my own personal experience.

When used by itself,

桌 refers to a table.

台 refers to a platform or a stage.

案子 refers to a long table or a plank used as a make-shift table.

If you are discussing about table tennis in general, you can also use 球桌 or 球台 to refer to the table.

乒乓球案子 is informal, kind of dialect in some areas.


What are the rules in Chinese for adjective order when multiple adjectives describe a noun See https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1155/what-is-the-rule-for-adjective-order for the equivalent question in English. I didn't find any discussion online of the order for multiple Chinese adjectives.

Searching for people asking the equivalent question for English in Chinese, there are some example sentences, for example at http://jingyan.baidu.com/article/fedf07371d781e35ac89773b.html we have:

two beautiful new green silk evening dress 两件又新又漂亮的丝绸女士晚礼服
that hungry, tired, sleepy little match girl 那个饥饿、疲劳、困倦的卖火柴的小女孩
an old large brick dining hall 一个旧的红砖砌的大餐厅

It can be seen that the order is slightly different - 新 comes before 漂亮, 小 after 卖火柴,  红砖砌 before 大 as opposed to beautiful before new, match after little, large before brick. Are there standard rules in Chinese?

There are a few general points on the order:

words with two or more characters should be further away than single character words
phrases/words ending in 的 should be further from those without
the type/class/make/category of the described noun should be right next to it

For example:

漂亮的 (adjective pretty) 新 (adjective new) 丝绸 (dress' type silk) 晚 (dress' style evening) 礼服 (noun dress)
新的 (adjective new) 漂亮 (adjective pretty) 丝绸 (dress' type silk) 晚 (dress' style evening) 礼服 (noun dress)
丝绸的 (adjective silken) 漂亮 (adjective pretty) 新(see note) (adjective new) 礼服 (noun dress)
丝绸的 (adjective silken) 漂亮 (adjective pretty) 晚 (dress' style evening) 礼服 (noun dress)

Note: Avoid putting two single character words next to each other.

Note Two: Actually, avoid squeezing so many adjectives into a sentence in the first place.

The question's example of 又新又漂亮 is an entirely different situation. That's because it is using the syntax 又 X 又 Y.

The adjectives can go in any order as long as they are before the noun.


Do 朋 and 友 differ in meaning? I've learned 朋友 as a unit for the word 'friend'. After looking the two characters up, I see that they both mean... friend.
It seems 友 is often used as the latter part of words expressing something with "friend", like 好友 for good friend.
What is the difference between 朋 and 友?
Do they have slightly different meanings when used separately, or are they identical in meaning and just used in different situations?

As a noun, both 朋 and 友 mean friends. While 朋 is mostly a noun, 友 is often be used as an adjective for 'friendly, ' as in '友軍'(friendly force); '友方'(friendly side)
友 can also be a verb for 'befriend' in classical sentences.
To find the subtle difference between two characters with similar meaning in a compound word, like 朋友，you can observe the other compound words they associate with.
Examples:

朋比為奸  friends collude in criminal acts
朋黨 circle (of friends); alliance (of friends)

The phrases above show 朋 emphasis on the 'closeness' and  'alliance' between  friends

友善 (friendly), 友好 (friendly), 友愛 (friendship), 友誼 (friendship)

The phrases above, show 友 emphasis on the ' fondness' and 'emotional tie'  between friends'

朋means those who share the same teacher
「同師曰朋」《說文註》
友means those who share the same goal
「同志曰友」


Is the pronoun 大家 (everybody) a subject only? In a Cantonese forums, someone posted a question:  " how to say 'each other?' or 'one another' in Chinese"
One of the suggestion was:

I  thought the simplest way is just to say 大家？
They don't like each other - 佢哋唔中意大家

And my reply to this answer was:

No, 大家 means "everybody "
In "大家都唔鍾意佢哋" ( everybody dislike them)
大家 is the subject, and 佢哋 is the object
If the subject and object switch places in the above sentence, you have to replace 大家 with " 所有人" or " 全部人" and place the object before the subject.
"所有人佢哋都唔鍾意" / "全部人佢哋都唔鍾意"
*you cannot write 大家佢哋都唔鍾意
*佢哋唔鍾意所有人 or 佢哋唔鍾意全部人 sound awkward.
More examples:
大家一齊停手 ( everybody stop at once)
大家都有好處 ( everybody would benefit)

I don't think I have done a good job explaining why 大家 (everybody) cannot be the object for the subject 佢哋. It is a pronoun, and pronouns should be able to become subjects or objects. Would that be because 佢哋 is also a pronoun?
I also know 佢哋唔鍾意所有人 or 佢哋唔鍾意全部人 sound awkward, but can't explain why.

While 大家 means 'everyone', it refers to 'everyone' in a group of people that is implied in the sentence, or everyone in close proximity

佢哋唔鍾意大家

大家 in this case implies everyone within the group of '佢哋', which is essentially 'each other'. Also this sentence sounds perfectly natural, I hear this a lot when people are referring to couples who don't actually like each other

大家好

大家 here refers to everyone that you are speaking to, basically 'hey everyone'

大家都唔鍾意佢哋

There is an implicit subgroup '大家' where everyone in that group or everyone here dislikes 佢哋, 'everyone (here) dislikes them'

大家咁話啦

'You too', 'same'

大家 can definitely be used for 'each other', however it is not the only usage, and there is not a direct one to one translation for 大家 in english.

In other special cases, for 'each other' / 'one another' you could use:

'彼此'相愛

to love each other

'互相'鼓勵

to encourage each other

'自相'殘殺

to hurt and fight each other

Sorry,my mistake.When it is noun,it can be subjective.When it is adjective,it can be predicate.For example,他是大家


Do 之 and 的 come from the same word? In modern Chinese 之 is thought of as the literary genitive particle and 的 as the colloquial. In most reconstructions of Old Chinese 之 looks very similar to the way 的 is pronounced now. For example in Baxter-Sagart's OC reconstruction, 之, OC /*tə/ is similar to 的, Modern /tə/.

Is there any reason to believe that the commonly used genitive particle resisted sound change in colloquial usage which would mean that 之 and 的 come from the same word?

I've heard that 你 and 爾 form a pair like this. Are there any other examples where colloquial speech resisted sound change?

的 in its function as a particle is attested in the 四大名著 Four Great Classical Novels, which are written in a vernacular Mandarin-type language, dating from the Ming dynasty. The particle use of 的 is also attested from the Yuan dynasty, when it seems it was adopted for the grammatical particle of the emerging new literary language. Its earliest attestation is in a Song dynasty source (my reference says Coblin, personal communication); another one can be dated to an inscription of 1238 (ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, p.208). The consensus is that it is linked to the grammaticalisation of 底 dǐ (root, foundation, bottom), e.g. according to 汉字源 HanZiYuan's entry for 的 (see meaning three).

The use of 底 for the genitive particle / general nominaliser was a slow process which can be observed through diachronic studies of the extant literature. Note that 的 has functions which can be split into several aspects, and these also emerged gradually.

The lexeme 底 (and its cognates 氐、抵 etc., with Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese reconstruction *tˁijʔ and Baxter Middle Chinese reconstruction *tejX) was semantically extended, and then went through semantic bleaching and subsequent grammaticalisation. This actually covers the whole period from pre-Qin sensu stricto Classical Chinese through the Han to the Tang and Song dynasties. Its grammatical uses came to be very varied by the end of the Tang (including a status suffix for proper nouns, a demonstrative, an intensifier, and even a general interrogative).

In the southern Song, its use as a genitive became quite well-established [e.g. 療萬病底藥], and then took on functions as a relative clause marker, and then extended to headless clauses [e.g. 碾損老僧腳底], which approaches its role as a nominaliser. It is also during the Tang/Song period that the character 的 emerged in this role as well. The story is told in the 2010 paper "Delexicalizing di: How a Chinese noun has evolved into an attitudinal nominalizer".

Could 之 then be related to it? The same paper mentions how on phonological grounds that some have postulated that 底 is derived from 之, and others saying it came from 者. But note that there is a fundamental structural difference: Wang Li's work 漢語史稿 states in Chapter 45:

  由此看來，上古漢語這種結構中的動詞（或動詞仂語）近似一種行為名詞 (action noun)，中古以後，在口語中漸漸喪失了這種結構，只有古文作家模仿這種結構寫成書面語言。大約口語重的“的”（“底”）字產生後，這種結構就在口語絕迹了，因為“的”是尾詞（語尾），不是介詞，所以沒有把介詞“之”字這種功能繼承下來。

which, roughly paraphrased, says:

  The verb / verbal phrase in a 之 structure of the Classical age virtually acts as an action noun, but this structure was gradually lost in the oral vernacular of the post-Classical age and was only imitated by scribes in their literary language. After the appearance of 的/底, the structure was lost from the oral language, because 的 is a final particle rather than a preposition, and so could not preserve its structure.

On the other hand, Pulleyblank pulls 者、之 and 底/的 together with the Tibetan demonstrative de, and surmises that the original particle was merely *tV, i.e. the consonant */t/ with any syllabic vowel (Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar, pp.166-7). 之 being *tə, with 者／諸 as *ta, indicates a form of ablaut. It also means that the actual modern pronunciation of 的 is meant to be a relic of the original pronunciation of 之, and that the modern pronunciation of 之 is an evolution of the "reading pronunciation". Hence the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese states that 的 is:

  thought to be a col. archaism of the classical 'genitive particle' → zhī1 之

So the consensus seems to agree that it has resisted the sound changes of the ages. Whether there are many other such "colloquial archaisms", that remains to be seen. We'd also have to cover lexemes in other Sinitic varieties too (there's the "obvious" archaism of 筷 vs 箸, found in the Min topolects).

I learned Ancient Chinese Literature back in high school and usually the passages use 之 in place of 的. Seems like 的 is more of a modern Chinese Language thing.


Chinese words for "accent" The English word accent, as in the flavor of one's speech, is typically translated as 口音 or 腔调. What is the difference between these two Chinese expressions?

If you have London accent, it means, you have London 口音. it is nature.-----
If you talk like a manager, it means, you have manager 腔调, i.e. you want to command others, you have no accent, but you have 腔调.

I think 口音 refers more to your natural accent. 腔调 is more like RP， more of a concious effort.


Is there any specifically masculine character for 他 The pronoun 他 (ta1) for he/she/it has been used since at least the Ming dynasty and has had a number of variants, such as 牠 for animals and 祂 for deities. In the 20th century the feminine version 她 was introduced to imitate western languages, and is now used to refer to female persons in almost all Chinese publications.

Since 他 was originally gender-neutral and uses the generic "human" radical 人, while 她 is explicitly gendered, this seems somewhat asymmetrical. I'd like to know if there has ever been a character proposed that would represent the pronoun "ta1" only when talking about male persons.

I know that the Chinese language has other 3rd person pronouns, some of which are gendered, but I'm interested in ta1 specifically.

I would suggest that there is no sense of gender in the Chinese languages since the very beginning; nor even today. We all know that the Chinese languages are very isolated and very analytic. The idea of gender, number, and case, in Romance languages may not be brought to the learning and using of the Chinese languages. Though I'm not perfectly confident, in the context of learning and using the Chinese languages, it might be a good practice to abandon the subconscious paradigm of fusing additional information into a word. If necessary, specify specifically.

As another user already mentioned, the invention of "她" was only a very recent activity (around 1900) by intelligentsia from English or Deutsch, and observable objections against it have arose recently (5-10 years) when the proposal of the abolition of gendered pronouns in the anglophone communities became popular.

You are right that in old times 他 was gender neutral. But when you are reading something written later than 2000 (in this century) and see 他, you can be sure that it is referring to only a male person. However, when you see 他们, you can never tell if any female person is included but you can learn that there are at least one male person in that group. In earlier written Chinese, say, 1950-2000, most 他s are referring to only male persons, but some old people still tended to use 他 as a gender-neutral pronoun in that period.


How to distinguish PICTURE OF ME and PICTURE OF MINE in Chinese? This is a PICTURE OF ME.
This is a PICTURE OF MINE.

Both can be translated to

这是我的图片

这是我的照片 can be interpreted as "It is a photo of me" or "It is a photo that belong to me"

To avoid confusion, you can write:

这照片是我的 = "this photo is mine"
这照片中的人是我  = "the person in this photo is me"
这照片上的人是我  = "the person on this photo is me"

照片 = photo; picture

图片= graphic; picture

search web 英文语法，物主代词 one result http://www.yygrammar.com/Article/201309/3413.html

answering comment:more specific: submit "of mine", "of me" to online dictionaries, e.g. iciba: of mine 我的一个朋友是个非常容易焦虑不安的人 (hence 这是我的一张照片）of me 要看一下我穿过终点线时的照片 吗 ? to emphasize picture shows person, may add person's activity, or location as in quoted example, 这是我穿着囚服的图片（me wearing prison clothes), 这是在监狱里拍摄我的一张相片（picture of me taken in prison)，or submit "picture shows" to iciba: 这张照片照的是女孩的侧面。hence 这张照片照的是我（自己、本人）to specify possession: 这是属于我的一张图片


Chengyu with two numbers There are chengyu with two numbers in them, for example:

一穷二白 (一, 二)
万众一心 (万, 一)
七上八下 (七, 八)
九五至尊 (九, 五)

But it seems that the selection of numbers is not completely random, and that certain numbers tend to have certain connotations.
My questions are:

What are the number-pairs, and what meanings are they usually used for?
Are there deeper cultural or historical reasons for these number-meanings?

I may answer to the first part of the question. I did a script to search all 4 characters ChengYu with your requirements. Here a resume about their number and the exaustive result from my db (ccdict).

一一(26)
一二(13)
一三(5)
一四(1)
一万(2)
一九(1)
一十(5)
二一(2)
二三(1)
二五(1)
二八(1)
二六(1)
二四(2)
三一(2)
三七(1)
三九(3)
三二(1)
三五(6)
三六(5)
三四(21)
四五(2)
四八(4)
五一(1)
五七(2)
五八(2)
五六(4)
五十(3)
五四(1)
六三(1)
六八(1)
六四(2)
七八(14)
七四(1)
八八(1)
九一(3)
九六(1)
十万(1)
十九(2)
十八(2)
十十(1)
万一(2)
万八(1)

Seems like 一一(26) , 三四(21) , 七八(14) , 一二(13) are the most common. Follows the complete (possibly not exhaustive) list.

一一(26)
    一东一西
    一丝一毫
    一中一台
    一举一动
    一五一十
    一分一毫
    一唱一和
    一夫一妻
    一字一泪
    一心一德
    一心一意
    一惊一乍
    一房一厅
    一朝一夕
    一板一眼
    一模一样
    一步一趋
    一点一滴
    一点一点
    一琴一鹤
    一生一世
    一瘸一拐
    一言一动
    一言一行
    一递一个
    一递一声
一万(2)
    一本万利
    以一驭万
一三(5)
    一日三秋
    一日三餐
    一板三眼
    一波三折
    举一反三
一九(1)
    一言九鼎
一二(13)
    一干二净
    一式二份
    一心二用
    一来二去
    一清二楚
    一清二白
    一石二鸟
    一穷二白
    划一不二
    数一数二
    独一无二
    臣一主二
    说一不二
一十(5)
    一暴十寒
    一曝十寒
    一目十行
    假一赔十
    闻一知十
一四(1)
    一年四季
七八(14)
    七七八八
    七上八下
    七嘴八张
    七嘴八舌
    七扭八歪
    七拼八凑
    七爷八爷
    七老八十
    七荤八素
    七零八碎
    七零八落
    夹七夹八
    杂七杂八
    横七竖八
七四(1)
    七政四余
万一(2)
    万众一心
    万无一失
万八(1)
    万儿八千
三一(2)
    三位一体
    周三径一
三七(1)
    三魂七魄
三九(3)
    三教九流
    三旬九食
    三跪九叩
三二(1)
    三心二意
三五(6)
    三令五申
    三侠五义
    三番五次
    三皇五帝
    三纲五常
    隔三差五
三六(5)
    三亲六故
    三十六计
    三头六臂
    三姑六婆
    三茶六饭
三四(21)
    三从四德
    三催四请
    三朋四友
    不三不四
    丢三落四
    传三过四
    低三下四
    再三再四
    勾三搭四
    巴三览四
    张三李四
    挑三拣四
    挑三窝四
    推三阻四
    朝三暮四
    横三竖四
    狂三诈四
    说三道四
    调三窝四
    连三并四
    颠三倒四
九一(3)
    九九归一
    九死一生
    九牛一毛
九六(1)
    九声六调
二一(2)
    二十一条
    二十一点
二三(1)
    接二连三
二五(1)
    二十五史
二八(1)
    二十八宿
二六(1)
    二十六岁
二四(2)
    二十四史
    二十四孝
五一(1)
    五七一代
五七(2)
    五劳七伤
    五痨七伤
五八(2)
    五花八门
    五行八作
五六(4)
    五脏六腑
    五颜六色
    人五人六
    吆五喝六
五十(3)
    一五一十
    五代十国
    五光十色
五四(1)
    五湖四海
八八(1)
    八荣八耻
六三(1)
    六韬三略
六八(1)
    六合八法
六四(2)
    六十四万
    六十四卦
十万(1)
    六十四万
十九(2)
    十成九稳
    十拿九稳
十八(2)
    十之八九
    十有八九
十十(1)
    十全十美
四五(2)
    四分五裂
    四舍五入
四八(4)
    四平八稳
    四通八达
    四邻八舍
    四面八方

It might be worth mentioning that early in the Three Character Classic it says the Five Elements 五行 come from numbers.


夫唯弗居，是以不去 What"s the meaning of the first 4 characters? it's the end of the second chapter of Dao De Jing. I try to make sense:
是以不去 therefore it's not lost, doesn't go away.
夫唯弗居? Can anybody help me?

Nannuo gave a nice explanation. But there are some of the details I don't agree with.

It seems 夫 is 发语词 to me. Normally one doesn't relate it to anything.

夫唯弗居 => 唯弗居 =>  Only contributing without taking credit.

以 means "because of". 是以 = 以是 = because of it/this/the reason/something.

去 = leave （vanish is also good.)

是以不去 => 以是不去 => Because of the reason above, it (the credit of your contribution) never go away.

Apologies for my late reply.

I have no formal training in classical Chinese, modern-day Chinese or something akin thereunto; however, in a Japanese sense, the answer should be more or less clear.

My answer is thus shown as follows (in a tentatively explanatory note):

Someone in question is/was merely not at home; therefore, he is/was not gone ([or] he has/had not left for anywhere else [for good]).

The [...] thread has not provided the entire excerpt or, better still, the entire article/account; therefore, I have no choice but to deem that, from these given words, the author of the original phrase ([or] the first-person character or any of the likes) seems to have responded to his or her listener(s)/reader(s), or seems to have provided an explanatory note in re the perceived departure, i.e., as to whether or not someone in question be/have gone. The author has apparently made it clear that the person in question merely was not at home, as opposed to having gone somewhere else (for good [or not]).

Note: In my opinion, whether or not one choose (chooses) to treat the first character (meaning in general: man, husband, this, etc.) as insignificant when being translated into English, it does not matter. The meaning in its essence remains clear that someone is/was merely not at home for the time being; thus, having gone nowhere (as possibly expected/assumed thus or so).


交流，交际，沟通: whats the difference? I can't quite distinguish them, because "communication" is always social?
I guess 交际 is like my social skills and 沟通 is used with "dispute" but is that it and what about 交流？

I am sure all three terms can be found in dictionaries, but some of the definitions might overlap and cause new learners confusion, I think it is better to just list their main difference in my answer:

交流 = interact / exchange

交際 = socialize

溝通 = communicate

Examples:

文化交流 (cultural exchange) ; 互相交流 ( interact with each other)
交際應酬 ( socialize and partying) ；與上流社會交際 (socialize with the upper class )
無法溝通 (unable to communicate); 以眼神溝通 ( communicate with looks in the eyes)

交流= vt.communicate,
          n. Communication
交际= n. Social networks
沟通= vt. Deeply communicate


What's the etymology of 巴士海峽? The wikipedia article on the strait in English (the Bashi Strait) doesn't say.

The name "Bashi Channel" comes from a kind of sweetcane wine only produced in Batanes. The wine local name in Itbayaten is "Bashi". European sailors had drunk with Bashi during staying in Batanes, and when they passed the channel, wind and current were so strong, just like drinking bashi. So they called the channel Bashi Channel.
Otto's interview with an Ivatan on 2014.05.09
Zhihu


The meaning of "宝藏"? I know that "宝藏" can mean "underground mineral deposits", but it can also mean "treasures".

My question is this: In addition to the two definitions above, can "宝藏" also mean a location that stores treasures, such as a "treasure trove"? Or is that definition only restricted for something like "宝库"?

The reason being is that since "宝" is treasure, and "藏" is hide, I get the feeling that it is "hiding the treasure", aka. a place to hide treasure, meaning a treasure trove. Or perhaps it just means "the treasure that should be hid"? Quite unsure on this.

藏 has two meanings:

as a verb (cáng), it can mean to hide, to conceal, etc.
as a noun (zàng), it can mean depository, such as 宝藏 (bǎozàng).

Of course the two meanings are related.

To get an impression what this word means, search for 宝藏 on Google Image search or Baidu Image search.

How about this from iciba?

温莎城堡确实是名副其实的古物宝藏。They translate:

Windsor Castle is quite literally an antique treasure trove.

There you go, 'treasure trove'! God shave the Queen!


家: why is a home a place for pigs? The character 家 is a bit of a joke: it describes a dwelling (宀) for pigs (豕). Why is this strange construction used? Were pigs somehow important for homes in the past?

说文解字 describes 家 as 从宀，豭省聲 - that is, it uses 豭 (jiā) as phonetic. But then this raises the question: why use 豭 instead of the much simpler 叚 (jiǎ)?

  何以不云叚聲。而紆回至此耶。

Therefore the author suspects that the character did indeed originally mean "a dwelling for pigs":

  竊謂此篆本義乃豕之凥也。

But this raises another question: why did a dwelling for pigs come to mean home? By contrast, 牢 (a dwelling for oxen) has come to mean "jail". Was the choice of animal therefore arbitrary, or were pigs somehow more important in the past - did people keep pigs in the house? - or did having pigs in the house signify something home-like?

Speculations as to why pigs rather than cows form part of the character meaning home comes from some misunderstandings about the characters. Specifically,

「家」 contains 「豕」 as a corrupted phonetic component rather than a semantic component;
「牢」 did not originally contain 「宀」, which is a corruption of a drawing of an animal pen.

Shuōwén's explanation of 「家」 is very close, and it traced the source of the phonetic hint of the character correctly.

商甲甲207合集20268

「家」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*kˤra/, home/dwelling) was originally comprised of semantic 「宀」 (building) and phonetic 「」 (also /*kˤra/). In the character 「家」, 「」 was very early on corrupted into 「豕」, leading on to the modern form.

商甲乙1047合集13584西周金毛公鼎集成2841秦簡法106睡虎地秦簡今楷

「」 (male pig) was originally a picture of a pig 「豕」 with an emphasised reproductive organ, and this word is now written as 「豭」. The glyph evolution compared with 「豕」 is as follows:

商甲京津1048合集15346西周金頌鼎集成2829篆彑部說文解字隸定

商甲佚43合集20723西周金圅皇父簋集成4141篆豕部說文解字今楷

Yes, Shuōwén is a source of some egregious graphical corruptions, and it simultaneously remains as one of the most important sources of modern character standardisation. It is a good starting point for character analysis that shouldn't at all be relied on.

Shuōwén's explanation,

  “家，居也。从宀，豭省聲。”

  「家」 means dwelling, and is comprised from semantic 「宀」 and abbreviated phonetic 「豭」.

correctly determined the vocabulary source of the phonetic hint, but did not correctly determine the actual character representing the vocabulary source.

The other explanations which interpret 「豕」 as a semantic hint are (in my opinion) rather far-fetched, although these explanations will pop up everywhere in more conservative accounts of the character. At the very least, the non-association of characters for non-pig animals with the character for the meaning home/dwelling strongly suggests the importance of the phonetic role of 「」.

Finally, 「牢」 did not originally contain 「宀」.

商甲摭續90合集33631

The original character was a picture of an animal pen, and sometimes, 「羊」 (sheep), 「馬」 (horse), or 「牛」 (cow) was added to the character:

商甲乙1983合集903商甲1.522寧滬新獲甲商甲甲392合集33314

The form with cow is the shape which has survived ...

西周金貉子卣集成5409

... and the animal pen component was later corrupted into 「宀」 (building).

戰國・楚簡2.77包山楚簡秦簡日甲65背睡虎地秦簡今楷

References:

黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》
季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》

中國哲學書電子化計劃

宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》

As I have just consulted a dictionary, the earliest house in ancient China was just for fete or family meetings, and "豕" stands for wild boar, which was very rare sacrifice that time,,so it's ceremonious. And then the houses were used for living, the word "家" changed its meaning.
Hope this answer can help you.


How to translate "doesn't lift a finger" and "without lifting a finger"? I recently same across this stumbling block in conversation; in one case I wanted to say "doesn't lift a finger" and in another "without lifting a finger". These phrases mean that someone is extremely lazy or selfish and refuses to help with a task or to do something.

In English these have a certain emphasis and connotation and I want to find something similar in Chinese so I don't want to use "他什么都不做" or "你什么都不用做". I am guessing there would be an idiom that I could use here?

EDIT
OK,you mean somebody is lazy,there are many idioms to describe such people,such as

游手好闲：指人游荡懒散，不愿参加劳动。
好逸恶劳：逸：安逸；恶：讨厌、憎恨。贪图安逸，厌恶劳动。
坐享其成：享：享受；成：成果。自己不出力而享受别人取得的成果。
坐吃山空：只坐着吃，山也要空。指光是消费而不从事生产，即使有堆积如山的财富，也要耗尽。
不劳而获：获：获取，得到。自己不劳动却占有别人的劳动成果。
饱食终日：终日：整天。整天吃饱饭，不动脑筋，不干什么正经事。

In fact,it's too gentle to use these idioms to describe the lazy ones,using Xiehouyu(歇后语) is a good idea.for example:

懒驴子驾辕 - 不打不走
懒大嫂赶场 - 中间不急两头忙
懒婆娘坐轿 - 愿上不愿下
懒婆娘的针线筐 - 乱七八糟
懒鸡婆抱窝 - 守着摊几过
懒木匠的锯子 - 不错(链)
懒人的铺盖 - 不理
懒驴上磨 - 屎尿多(比喻懒惰的人一到干正事，便寻找借口逃避)
懒婆娘的裹脚 - 又长又臭(比喻文章篇幅长，内容空洞)
懒厨子做席 - 不想给你吵(炒)
倒了油瓶都不扶 - 懒到家了
吃死老公睡崩床 - 懒婆娘
鹰饱不抓兔，兔饱不出窝 - 懒对懒

As for me and my friends,we often use 倒了油瓶都不扶，in the past time,the oil is very precious for every Chinese family to use when they are cooking ,so how lazy someone is if he can allow the oil drain away.

"doesn't lift a finger" --> "他什么都不做" --> See user911865's response.

"without lifting a finger" --> "你什么都不用做"：

不费吹灰之力
轻而易举
举手之劳
易如反掌
信手拈来


What is the meaning of 相声? Today I read a blog post talking about a Canadian guy called Mark Rowswell (aka 大山) that appears on Chinese TV shows and who is able to do 相声. This 相声 is referred to as "the art of language".

What does 相声 exactly mean?

相声 is a form of Chinese traditional stand-up comedy where two two performers talk back and forth to each other, telling a funny story or just chatting about a humorous topic. Because it's a traditional Chinese art form and originates in northern China, it has a higher political status than other Chinese art forms. This means that it gets broadcasted across the country on CCTV a lot, and sinophiles like Mark Roswell get introduced to it when they are studying Chinese.

相声 performers who become make a name for themselves can establish their own styles and take on students to pass on their skills. Mr Roswell/Dashan's mentor was a performer named  姜昆. Dashan is not the only foreigner to have studied under a famous artist -- another name that I remember off the top of my head is Julien Gaudfroy (朱力安), a French student of Chinese who also studied 相声.

Probably the best way to get a better feel for 相声 would be to search for the term on Youtube, or if you're in China then search on Youku. Combine it with 大山 or 朱力安 to find videos of these talented performers.

相声 or the cross talk is like a talk show, usually performed by 2 people.


Help with translating old signs I recently bought an old wooden item that shows 5 traditional (?) Chinese characters. I tried my very best to translate them by researching all kind of pages, but cannot find some parts I need. Can someone help me translate? And now that I learned a little bit about how signs work I would also be very curious about the meaning of the single parts of them.

Here are the pictures (I believe the signs are mirrored, as with stamps for cookies.)

The left two should be 壽富, from top to down. The right ones, from top to down again, are likely to be 富貴X. I am sure about the last character, 屋?

from upper left to bottom right. first one is富, second one is 贵, 3-己丑, not sure? 4-寿, 5-福


Translation of literary "non-sequitur" Is there an equivalent of the literary device known as a "non-sequitur" in English, or at least some kind of translation of it? This is not to be confused with the non-sequitur logical fallacy (where one logical argument does not follow another).

  From Wiktionary:

  non sequitur

  A kind of pun that uses a change of word, subject, or meaning to make a joke of the listener’s expectation.

    “A fool and his money are soon partying.” (Steven Wright)

    (Expected word: parting)

不当的推论

超现实幽默

  条目“不当的推论”尚未创建，可参考英语维基百科的对应页面：Non sequitur (literary device)。


Difference between 等待 and 等到 I'm struggling to differentiate between the two. Can someone explain this? Perhaps include some example sentences too.

等待 simply means "to wait"
Example: 等待黎明 (Wait for dawn)
you wait for something to happn

等到 means "wait until" or "waited till" depend on the context.

等到: "wait until"

Example: "等到太阳落山" (Wait until the sun goes down)
You keep waiting until something happen

~

等到 "waited till"

Example: 等了三天，终于等到你回来了 (waited for three days, finally waited till you came back)
You have successfully waited till something to happen

user17686 wrote:

Are there instances that 等待 & 等到 can be used interchangeably?

No, 等待 and 等到 have different meanings.

等待黎明 (wait for dawn)

等到黎明 (wait until dawn)/ 等到黎明(waited till dawn)

However, 等, 等待 and 等候 can be used interchangeably sometimes.

等黎明, 等候黎明 and 等待黎明 all mean 'wait for dawn'

等候 means that you are greeting somebody or something, 等待 means you can do nothing except waiting，等到  means wait for person


再次 and 再: are they different? Here is the context: 我于是去了这家餐厅，点了一盘蘑菇菜心，果然好吃。我对服务员说: 我再次要一盘。

The sentence "我再次要一盘" is wrong. But "我再要一盘" is correct. Can anyone explain why?

The answer by  Camila Ting Chen is close. We don't use 再次 in an present active sentence. We use 再次 with some perfectness or passiveness. Such passiveness is not necessarily related to the conjunctive 被 however. A simple rule is when we can say 再 alone, say it alone.

我再次来到这家餐厅。

我时隔数年再次遇到一位朋友。

这盘菜再次被我吃掉了。 while this sentence is not logical at a first glace, it sound good in this specific situation.

我再次要一盘 should exist in 陈述句

我再要一盘 should exit in 祈使句

As you are asking the waiter, it's 祈使句.