I'm basing my answer on the article 江信江疑是什么意思 which gives a reasonable explanation.
It's a play on words.  It begins with

half believing, half doubting / skeptical
将信将疑
jiāngxìnjiāngyí

The line 将信将疑 comes from the poem 吊古战场文 by Tang-dynasty poet 李华.
However the meme replaces 将 (jiāng) with the surname 江 (Jiāng) which has the same pronunciation and is the family name of Jiang Zemin (江泽民).  Then it's added as a caption to memes where 江泽民 looks skeptical, such as:

I'm not really sure how the meme evolved beyond that to what you see on Twitter.


衝一波=rush forward
So 要衝一波囉 means "let's do this!"


百闻不如一见
好事多磨
利人利己
拳击
过目不忘
所以
辩论
义肢
鱼与熊掌
百足
欲哭无泪
龙行虎步
管仲
乐善好施
独一无二
许可
一语惊醒梦中人
阴差阳错
以德报怨
灯火通明
目录
雪中送炭
李后主
深仇大恨
艺高人胆大
奔波
门庭若市

A. 百辞莫辩
B. 不许百姓点灯
C. 园艺
D. 论功行赏
E. 火神
F. 一窍不通
G. 百步穿杨
H. 明目张胆
I. 有惊无险
J. 见利忘义
K. 管弦乐
L. 梦寐以求
M. 锋利
N. 大夫
O. 己所不欲，勿施于人
P. 报仇雪恨
Q. 暗送秋波
R. 鳄鱼泪
S. 差遣
T. 事实
U. 孤独
V. 熊孩子
W. 一错再错
X. 桃李满庭
Y. 磨拳擦掌
Z. 天无二日，民无二主


Can 太久 be used to refer to time past between two dates?

It's pretty good.

Besides, I want to explain the difference between "太久" and "太迟".

"太久" means you spend long time. "太迟" means you spend long time and don't know whether something will what happen.

for example:

Your friend live the same city with you. You are going to visit him after two weeks.

you can say "我两个星期后来看你，会不会太久？";

Your friend has a trip in your city. You plan to meet him after two weeks. But you don't know when he will return home, you are afraid that he will have gone back home by the time you visit him.

You can say "我两个星期后来看你，会不会太迟？";


How does inserting 起来 into 请客 as in 请起客来 changes the meaning?

This infix -起-来 is usually considered a variation of the suffix -起来, and analysed as having an inceptive aspect, also called the inchoative aspect. The sense that it produces is "starting to do", "to begin to" etc.

起来 often interacts with 了 to form a particular viewpoint of an "accomplishment" action as having starting in the past, with the focus on the start point rather than as a whole.

It should be contrasted with 着, which does not emphasise the start of the action, but presents the action as one continuous state. Additionally, 起来 is different again from 下去, the latter of which is often called a continuative.


Is there any printed or handwritten precursor to this 门 (door, gate) glyph?

There is such handwriting in calligraphy works of Tang Yin (唐寅, also well known as 唐伯虎, Tang Bohu, 1470-1524, Ming Dynasty).

I found some pictures of his writing, 《落花诗册》.  I marked the related characters with a mark to the right. The genuine writing is now in Suzhou Museum, Jiangsu Province.


羞 didn't originally mean shame/shy and 丑 didn't originally mean ugly.
丑 is originally a hand with curled fingers, later borrowed to become an earthly branch. Ugly, and all its associated meanings like disgrace, shame, and even clown were originally 醜, which became replaced with 丑 in 'simplified' Chinese. I believe 丑 was borrowed as part of 羞.
羞 is a hand 手 holding a lamb 羊, to offer it as a sacrifice or for food, originally meaning "offering". The hand got changed into 丑, which doubles up as phonetic component.
Offering is now written as 馐.
羞 earlier on had its meaning shifted to become shame or shy, possibly because lambs and sheep are shy and timid creatures, while ugly was still written as 醜.
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E9%A6%90
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E7%BE%9E


In Cantonese, which is correct: 淨係 or 剩係?

They are both correct but I would say 淨係 is better than 剩係.

淨 means "pure, clean", while 剩 means "leftover, remains".
The original pronunciation of 剩 is sing6, not jing6.


What is the difference between 真确 and 真实?

"真确" is usually not used in Mandarin now.

As a native, I only confirmed that it is in fact a word through a search on the Internet.


It's based on your intention. 来日方长 usually used for the two situations, if you want to tell sb that

There's still time to do sth
Need not to hurry in doing sth now

现代汉语词典（第五版）：未来的日还很长，表示事有可为，或劝人不必急于做某事。


Glyph origin of 「凉」 and its relation with 「涼」

李学勤《字源》 says:

谷衍奎《汉字源流字典》 says:

According to them, 涼 was the standard form and 凉 was the vernacular form with the same meanings. The People's Republic of China prescribed that 凉 should be the standard form and 涼 should be the obsolete variation form (异体字).
In Taiwan, 涼 is still the standard form and 凉 is 异体字. See 重編國語辭典修訂本: 凉 涼
According to the same sources, 凄 has a similar story but is a little more complicated, because PRC prescribed that 凄 should be the standard form for both 淒 and 悽. This also did not happen in Taiwan (you can't even find 凄 in 重編國語辭典修訂本).


What does 马大碗 (mǎdàwǎn) = "horse big bowl" mean in 马大碗拉面?

马 means 马氏, the family name.

大碗 - big bowl; large quantity.

(马氏)(大碗拉面)

The company was established in 1993.
It registered the name 马师傅马大碗.


Does anyone have a list of SCUBA diving related terms in Chinese?

潜水词汇中英对照大全--潜游世界无障碍—转自TOPPLAYER潜水

  潜水机构

  世界水中教育联盟 CMAS

  专业潜水教练协会 PADI

  国际潜水教练协会 NAUI

  国际潜水学校联盟 SSI

  中华民国潜水协会 CTDA

  世界水下科技协会 UTDA

  美国海洋大气总署 NOAA

  潜水员急救网路 DAN

  潜水科技协会 DSAT

  世界潜水器材展 DEMA

  潜水类型

  潜水 Diving

  浮潜 Skin Diving（Snorkeling)

  闭气潜水 Free Diving

  水面供气潜水 Air Supply Diving-Hose

  水肺潜水 Scuba Diving

  商业潜水 Commercial Diving

  工业潜水 Industtrialized Diving

  体验潜水 Discover Scuba Diving (DSD)

  岸潜 Shore Dive

  船潜 Boat Dive

  深潜 Deep Dive

  夜潜 Night Dive

  冰潜 Ice Dive

  水下导航 Underwater Navigation

  放流潜水 Drift Dive

  垃圾潜水（漫潜）Muck Diving

  技术导向潜水 TEC Dive

  高海拔潜水 Altitude Dive

  洞穴潜水 Cave or Cavern Dive

  沉船潜水 Wreck Dive

  水中摄影 Underwater Photography

  巡弋漫游 Vehicle Cruise

  搜索寻回 Search And Recovery

  低能见度潜水 Limited Visibility Diving

  多重深度饱和潜水 Multi-Level Dive

  水面闭封潜水环境 Overhead Environments

  装备篇

  轻装 Snorkeling Equipment

  重装 Scuba Equipment

  面镜 Mask

  呼吸管 Snorkel

  呼吸管固定扣 Snorkel Attachement

  头套 Hoods

  溼式防寒衣 Wetsuit

  乾式防寒衣 Drysuit

  排气阀 Deflator Valve

  手套 Scuba Gloves

  活塞平横式 Balanced Piston Type

  低压出器孔 Low Pressure Contact Port

  高压出气孔 High Pressure Contact Port

  低压管 Low Pressure Hose

  高压管 High Pressure Hose

  二级头 Second Stage

  顺流式 Downstream Valves Type

  咬嘴 Mouthpiece

  备用气源 Alternate Air Source

  备用二级头 Safe Second Stage

  章鱼式 Octopus Alternate Air Source

  潜水仪表 Instrument Console

  残压表 Perssure Gauge/SPG

  深度表 Depth Gauge

  气瓶 Cylinderor Scuba Tank

  气瓶开关 Tank Valves

  螺旋式气瓶开关 DIN Valves

  臂抱式气瓶开关 Yoke Valves

  气密圈 O-Ring

  调节器 Regulator

  一级头 First Stage

  隔膜平横式 Balanced Diaphragm Type

  指北针 Compass

  水中通讯器 Underwater Radio

  求援浮力棒 Signal Tube or Surface marker buoy or Sausage

  浮力扬升袋 Liffing Bag

  潜水装备袋 Gear Bag

  蜂鸣器 Air Horn

  定位回声系统 Sonar

  水中推进器 Subscooteror Subtransporter

  水下遥控无人载具 ROV

  密闭式循环水肺系统 Semi-Closed

  防水盒 Waterproof Case

  浮球 Surface Floats

  渔枪 Spear Gun

  备用零件 Spare Parts

  漏气 Free Flow

  水压测试 Pressure Test

  潜水证照 Certification Card

  潜水日志 Diving Log

  潜航准线 Lubber Line

  磁针 Magnetic Needle

  定位转盘 Bezel

  潜水电脑 Diving Computer

  浮力调整背心 Buoyancy Control Device

  充排气阀开关 BCD Inflator Valve

  快速接头 Hose Rapid Adapter

  充气钮 Inflator Button

  排气钮 Deflator Button

  水下手电筒 Marine Light

  闪明器 Flash Light

  萤光棒 Light Stick

  水下记录板 Dive Slate

  渔网 Fishing Net

  缠绕 Entanglement

  救援 Rescue

  潜水靴 Diving Boots 蛙鞋 Fins

  配重带 Weight Belt

  快卸扣 Quick-Release Buckle

  铅块 Weights

  铅块止滑扣 Weight Retainer

  潜水刀 Diving Knife

  潜水员级别

  潜水员 Diver

  初级潜水员 Openwater Diver

  中级潜水员 Advanced Diver

  专项潜水员 Specialty Diver

  高级潜水员 Master Scuba Diver

  潜水长 Dive master

  教练 Instructor

  教练训练员 Instructor Trainer

  课程总监 Course Director

  潜水术语

  空气 Air

  废气 Exhaust

  氧气 Oxygen

  氮气 Nitorgen

  高氧气体 Nitrox

  氦氧氮混合气体 Trimix

  氦氧混合气体 Heliox

  气瓶充气站 Refil Station

  充气压缩机 Air Pump

  气瓶充气 Fill Tank

  充气-对气瓶 Refil Air

  充气-对背心 Inflate

  空气消耗量 Air Amount Used

  人体空腔 Body Air Space

  耳腔 Ear Air Space

  耳膜 Eardrum

  副鼻腔 Sinus Air Space

  气道 Airway

  胸腔 Chest

  肺泡 Pulmonary Alveolus

  潮气肺容积 Tidal Volumn

  最大肺活量 Vital Capacity

  无效能的肺馀容积 Residual Volumn

  气压 Air Pressure

  水压 Water Pressure

  绝对压力 Absolute Atmosphere

  压缩 Squeeze

  气体分压 Percentage of Air

  立方英迟 Cubic-Feet

  公斤平方公分 Bar

  英磅平方英吋 PSI

  体积 Volume

  水容积 Water Container Volume

  浮力 Buoyance

  正浮力 Positive

  中性浮力 Neutral

  负浮力 Negative

  沉 Sink

  浮 Float

  悬浮 Hovering

  光线折射 Refraction

  色温 Color Temperature

  潜伴 Diving Buddy

  潜伴制度 Buddy System

  潜导 Team Leader/Guide

  押队 Team Holder/Keeper

  水下通讯手势 Communication Signals

  潜水计划 Dive Planning

  潜水地点 Dive Site

  下潜简报 Dive Procedures/Briefing

  著装 Suiting Up

  下水前的装备检查 Final Check/Safety Check

  技能评估性质的下潜 Check Dive

  入水点 Entry Point

  入水 Entering The Water

  上岸 Exiting The Water

  风险 Potential Hazards

  跨步式入水 Giant Stride Entry

  背滚式入水 Backward Roll Entry

  镰刀式入水 Headfirst Long Entry

  面镜排水 Mask Clearing

  调节器复位 Regulator Recovery

  调节器排水 Regulator Clearing

  压力平衡 Equalize

  耳压平衡 Equalization/Ears Clearing

  呼吸 Breathing

  共气 Buddy Breathe

  呼气 Exhale

  吸气 Inhale

  憋气 Breath-Hold

  上浮 Ascents

  下沉 Descents

  踢动蛙鞋 Use Fins

  平静水域 Confined Water

  开放水域 Open Water

  海洋相关

  海岸 Shore

  海湾 Gulf

  潮汐 Tides

  涨潮 Incoming High Tide

  满潮 High Tide

  退潮 Outgoing Low Tide

  平潮 Low Tide

  波浪 Surf

  碎浪区 Surfzone

  涌浪 Waves

  海流 Ocean Currents

  潮流 Tides Currents

  洋流 Relatively Premanent Currents

  激流 Rushing Water

  激流区 Rip Dispersal Area

  沿岸流 Down Shore Current

  回流 Undertow

  涌昇流 Up Current

  下降流 Down Current

  漩涡 Eddy Current

  能见度 Visibility

  水底 Bottom

  水中 Underwater

  水面 Surface

  珊瑚礁 Reef

  堡礁 Barrier Reef

  裙礁 Fringing Reef

  环礁 Atoll Reef

  人工鱼礁 Artificial Reef

  沉船 Wreck

  泻湖 Lagoon

  温带 Temperate

  热带 Tropical

  寒带 Polar

  淡水 Freshwater

  海水 Saltwater

  圣婴现象 El Nino

  温室效应 Global Warming

  病症

  过度换气 Hyperventilation

  氮醉 Nitrogen Narcosis

  心肺复苏术 CPR

  失温 HeatLoss

  恐慌 Panic

  抽筋 Cramp

  脱水 Dehydration

  氧中毒 Oxygen Toxicity

  浅层水域昏迷 Ascent Unconsciousness

  减压症 Decompression Sickness

  气泡 Bubbles

  呛水 Inhaled Water

  溺水 Drowning

  窒息 Choking

  急救 First Aid

  抗组织氨 Anti-Histamine

  再压舱 Recompression Chamber

  潜水医学 Underwater Medicine

  潜船

  水平线 Horizen

  潜水船 Diving Boat

  上船登艇 Boarding

  船长 Captain

  甲板 Deck

  航行中 Underway

  船首 Bow

  走向船首 Forward Bow

  左舷 Portside

  走向左舷 On The Portside

  右舷 Starboard

  走向右舷 On The Starboard

  船尾 Stern

  走向船尾 Aft Stern

  下锚 Anchors

  锚绳 Anchor Line

  下风处 Leeward Side

  晕船 Seasickness

  水中生物

  一群鱼 A School of Fish

  鲨鱼 Shark

  梭鱼 Barracuda

  刺魟鱼 Sting Ray

  魔鬼魟鱼 Manta

  狮子鱼 Lionfish

  石头鱼 Rockfish

  粗皮鲷 Surgeon fish

  鲽鱼 Butterfly fish

  盒子鱼 Boxfish

  扳机鱼 Triggerfish

  海豚 Dolphin

  薯鳗 Moray Eel

  鲶鱼/沙毛 Catfish

  火鱼 Firefish

  水母 Jellyfish

  海星 Starfish

  海胆 Sea Urchin

  海蛇 Sea Snake

  章鱼 Octopus

  芋贝 Cone

  珊瑚 Coral

  行程/旅游

  渡假村 Resort

  免费迎宾饮料 Welcome Drink

  面海房 Ocean view

  菲律宾八爪船 Banca

  敞蓬快艇 Open Yacht

  盖舱快艇 Cabin Boat

  独木舟 Kayak

  沙滩排球 Beach Volleyball

  海滩饮料吧 Beach Bar

  大厅 Lobby

  柜檯 Front desk

  筷子 Chopstick


This is a rare example of Chinese translation for foreign cities or the similar, there's no rule to govern this type. In short it translates literally the meaning of Oxford:
Ox: 公牛， 牛
Ford: ferry, 津,水渡也。——《说文》
Hence, Oxford == 牛津

The meaning of ferry in 津 is not seen often in modern Chinese, here are a few examples:
天津， 天子之津渡。
城阙辅三秦 风烟望五津  ----送杜少府之任蜀川   王勃
无人问津 ---成语

Also two examples of naming:
Little Rock, 小石城
Springfield， 春田市， 斯普林菲尔德 also work.


How do we correctly translate the XKCD comic snippet "Good News: You recently had close contact with someone who has not tested positive for COVID"?

I would translate it as such:

好消息：你最近密切接触到测试新冠肺炎未测出阳性的人

Using 接触到 removes the need to introduce other complements with 与 / 和 / 跟， which reduce fluency of the joke. It also removes the negation from the main verb, just as in the English original.
未测出阳性 renders more literally "not tested positive" instead of 无确诊, which doesn't sound very grammatical to me (better with 未, by the way)
I wouldn't use 确诊 anyway, because it literally means "confirmed (case)", as in 确认诊断，and the joke is more about the test result, not the diagnosis.
新冠肺炎 in your attempt, is accurate, as it identifies the pulmonary inflammation, i.e. the disease, whereas other frequently encountered terms as 新冠病毒 refer to literally the "new coronavirus", i.e. the vector.
某个～人：this term 某 as in 某人 / 某个人 does translate to "someone" according to dictionaries. However in my experience, the usage of 某 is slightly different than that. I think the most accurate translation is "a certain person". So yes, it's an unnamed person, a "someone", but it implies that you choose to not disclose their identity. An example can be found in newspaper articles, when referring to someone involved in a crime. The perpetrator or the victim can be referred to as "Surname + 某", e.g. 张某, literally "a certain Zhang". I'm not fully sure the "someone" in the XKCD cartoon is actually this kind of "someone". If it is, then 某个人 might be appropriate. Otherwise just 人 also works.

With all that said, I'm afraid this won't sound equally humorous in Chinese... but that's my personal opinion.


天干、地支、八卦和六十四卦 Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, 8 Trigrams and 64 Hexagrams

Brief answer.

Yes. Some modern Chinese words are developed from these conceptions.

坤 in 八卦 represents the earth, female, Yin.

From these meanings, words like 乾坤 (the world. lit. Heaven and earth), 坤角 ( female characters in Beijing Opera, but not necessarily played by a woman) developed.

甲 is the first element in heavenly stems, and 子 is the first element in earthly branches. The heavenly stems and earthly branches were popular to record the year in ancient times.

we have a word 甲子 which means 60 years, because the cycling length of  combinations of heavenly stems and earthly branches is LCM(12, 10) =60.

Yes, all most Chinese know these characters, however, some (at least some people I know ) can not remember the order exactly. It would take them few seconds to think of, for example, what the next element after 未? Today, in Chinese calendar, we still use this system to record the year. For example, this year is the year of 丙申 ( 申 indicates it's the monkey year).

Yes. You can see them in some idioms (成语) .

寅吃卯粮 To consume resources prepared  for or available in the future. Not planned well. Not prepared well. Lit. In the year of tiger, consume food prepared for the year of rabbit.
you can also see them in list bullets in articles. In English, you use a, b, c, d …, while in Chinese, you use 甲乙丙丁
in organic chemistry, 甲乙丙丁 … are used to express the number of carbon atoms in the nomenclature of substance. We have 甲烷 CH4, 乙烷 C2H6, 丙烷 C3H8…


Difference between 我一句汉语也没听懂 and 我一句汉语也听不懂

我一句汉语也没听懂: I may know some Chinese, but I don't understand what's been said.
我一句汉语也听不懂: I know nothing about Chinese, so I can't understand anything that's been said.


Why "Lie to me" is translated as "别对我说谎"?

"Lie to Me" sounds like a challenge (feel free to lie to me and I will see through you).

"别对我说谎" sounds like a warning (Never lie to me or I will see through you).

They are not that contrary but actually quite close in this particular context,  since both convey the subtext "I will see through you".

In Chinese, "对我说谎" isn't as strong as "Lie to me" in English, unless you say "来，对我说谎" or "对我说谎试试" to stress that it's an imperative sentence. I guess this is why the translator chose 别对我说谎 rather than 对我说谎.


I have done HSK3 and am preparing for HSK4. I used some HSK3 practice tests to see whether I was ready for that test. When the practice tests are identified as past test papers, they should be a good rough guide to your readiness for the real test. I treat them only as a rough indicator because there are no exact descriptions of what you need to know for HSK tests (except for character lists, which are only marginally helpful).

You can also find HSK preparation books. The practice tests in those books are sometimes somewhat harder than the real HSK test.


What are the different kinds of poems in Chinese?

At the beginning, I recommend you read the articles on Wikipedia to get some background info, because my English level limits me to elaborate on these info.

诗 Shi;
词 Ci;
曲 Qu (here it refers to 歌 in the question);
赋 Fu;

I am quite not familiar with the poetry in English or some other languages. Here I would only like to explain how I think a Chinese poem is defined, and I can't tell the differences between chinese poems and poems in other languages.
As the language changed, the style or pattern of Chinese poetry also changed. Nowadays, most famous and popular classic Chinese poems are 唐诗, the poems written in the 唐 Dynasty. Here, I would like just to explain the style of 唐诗, because they are the most popular and the style definition is strict. Remember, there are other styles of poems, but I won't talk about them here (too complicated, sorry).
In most cases, 唐诗 is subject to rules called 格律 (gé lǜ). 格律 includes four aspects: 用韵, 对仗, 平仄 and 字数.

字数: number of characters
五言绝句: 4 sentences with 5 characters for each sentence.
七言绝句: 4 sentences with 7 characters for each sentence.
五言律诗: 8 sentences with 5 characters for each sentence.
七言律诗: 8 sentences with 7 characters for each sentence.

用韵: to rhyme
The last character of the sentences, if its tone is 平 (see below), it should rhyme. I will show it in examples below. Note: Because pronunciation in those times was different from that in modern mandarin, you would find some sentence don't rhyme in mandarin.

对仗: to match, to relate to, to pair
It's hard to explain, I will show it in the examples. This characteristic is optional for 绝句, but required for 律诗.

平仄 (píng  zè)
平仄 refers to the tone of the characters. In ancient times (before the 元 dynasty), Chinese had 4 basic tones: 平, 上(shăng, not shàng), 去, 入. However, 入 has disappeared in mandarin, while in some dialects, especially in southern dialects, it remains. 上, 去 and 入 are classified into 仄. For 唐诗, the tone of every character is asked to satisfy a defined pattern based on 平仄.

Ok, now it's time for the examples. Thereinafter, "-" means the tone should be  平，“|” means tone should be 仄, and "+" means the tone could be either 平 or 仄.

A 七言绝句 from 杜甫

+-+|--|，+|--||-。+|+--||，+-+||--。
两个黄鹂鸣翠柳，一行白鹭上青天(tiān)。
窗含西岭千秋雪，门泊东吴万里船(chuán)。

In this example, 天 and 船 have 平 tone, and they rhyme (containing the same consonant "an"). Furthermore, 对仗 happens between the 1st and the 2nd sentence, and also between the 3rd and the 4th sentence. Read the 1st and the 2nd sentences (I wish you could), you would find what 对仗 means.

两 means "two" while 一 means "one" (both of them are numbers). 黄 means "yellow" while 白 means "white" (both of them are colors). 翠 means green while 青 means blue(again, colors). 个 and 行(háng) are all measure words. 黄鹂 and 白鹭 are names of two kinds of birds. 鸣 means "[a bird] to cry" and 上 means "to soar, to fly high". Both of them are verbs. 柳 means willow, and 天 means sky. Both of them are nouns.

This rhetoric is called 对仗: words at the same position have similar or reverse or related meanings(depending on the context), and have the same part of speech.
词 somehow works like 诗. The difference is that 词 has many different styles, called 词牌. One example would help me explain it: It's a work by the famous female writer 李清照, with its 词牌 of 《如梦令》. Below, "韵" means this character should rhyme. "叠" means this sentence should repeat exactly its previous one.

+|+--|(韵),+|+--|(韵)。+||--，+||--|(韵)。-|(韵),-|(叠),+||--|(韵)。
昨夜雨疏风骤(zhòu)，浓睡不消残酒(jiŭ)。试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧(jiù)。知否(fǒu)，知否？应(yīng)是绿肥红瘦(shòu)。

Another 《如梦令》also by her

常记溪亭日暮(mù)，沉醉不知归路(lù)。兴(xìng)尽晚回舟，误入藕花深处(chù)。争渡(dù)，争渡。惊起一滩鸥鹭(lù)。

A work by the famous writer and general 辛弃疾, with 词牌 of 《南乡子》

+||--(韵)，+|--||-(韵)。+|+--||，--(韵)，+|--+|-(韵)。
+||--(韵)，+|--||-(韵)。+|+--||，--(韵)，+|--+|-(韵)。
何处望神州(zhōu)，满眼风光北固楼(lóu)。千古兴(xīng)亡多少事，悠悠(yōu)，不尽(jìn)长江滚滚流(liú)。
少年万兜(dōu)鍪(móu)，坐断东南战未休(xiū)。天下英雄谁敌手？曹刘(liú)，生子当如孙仲谋(móu)。

曲 is very similar with 词, having a lot of different styles, called 曲牌. It was originally composed for operas and was popular in 元 dynasty.
赋 is more like a prose, so it would be much longer, compared to 词 and 曲. It was popular in Han dynasty and before that time.
As I shown, when composing a classic 诗 or 词, the writer should pay attention to these rules, especially the tones of 平仄; however, it's hard for a man who could only speak in mandarin or some dialects to tell 平仄 of a character. Besides, limited by the character numbers, the writer has to express the meanings in a classic way, with few characters. This is hard too. Nowadays, it's very very rare to see a classic 诗.
Based on the descriptions above, you may understand why 《三字经》is not treated as 诗 by Chinese people, though the sentences rhyme.


(麻薯), what kind, if not then what is it?

麻薯 or 麻糬 is the transcription of Japanese desert "Mochi/もち".

The character 薯 means root vegetables.
Most of time it will be potato.

Some examples:

馬鈴薯 potato
蕃薯 sweet potato
木薯/樹薯 cassava


Usually Chinese people say 我觉得 or 我感觉, meaning "I feel":

我觉得你的英语比我的中文好。
我觉得今晚一定会很棒。
我感觉他们会否决我的提议。

Or you can use the structurally similar 我有一种感觉. It sounds more lyrical, and is less commonly seen:

我有一种感觉，那就是今晚一定会很棒。
我有一种感觉，如果我你逃课的话，老师发现会很生气的。

--

"I got a bad feeling about this" is a different thing. If the thing has not happened, then it's usually "我有一种不祥的预感" or "感觉不妙啊". Most Star Wars references could be translated this way.


How do 尤's 2021 meanings appertain to 尢?

尢 and 尤 are not related at all.
尢 is a crippled man with deformed legs as contrasted with the man in 大 having straight legs. Thus it means lame or crippled.
This character is no longer used in modern scripture and is written as 尪 with an additional 王 phonetic component.
尤 is possibly a variant form of hand 又 with an extra stroke probably representing a wound or wart which later became 疣.
Origins for 尤 is unclear to me though, but 又 is definitely a part of 尤.


How can I negate time and when to place 在 before time?

I am a bit confused by the 在 in your example sentence, since you don't need it there, 我不在8点起床，我(在?)9点起床。 Frankly, I wouldn't know what this sentence was supposed to mean, if you hadn't provided a translation. If you want to express that something occures at a certain time of the day, e.g. X o'clock, there is no need for 在, just use X点 or X点钟.
As for the proper way:
我不是8点起床，我9点起床。

不是 can be used for such cases, to negate a certain aspect and then to point out the correct aspect immediately afterwards. E.g.
我不是骑车上班，我坐出租车上班。 I do not ride the bicyle to work, I take a taxi.
EDIT:
I can still recall the first time I had learned this 不是 structure and I was confused by it since it sounded odd to me. To get an idea of the difference between 我8点不起床。 and 我不是8点起床。, you have to understand that the first sentence simplay negates the whole statment, while the latter sentence negates only the aspect that is immediately after 不是.
The given translation in this answer is an example of the "是...的" pattern for emphasizing a particular aspect of a phrase. It is not specific to time; for instance:

我不是跟朋友吃晚饭的，我是跟爸爸妈妈吃晚饭的.
I didn't eat with my friends, I ate with my parents.


What is the grammar behind "上去“ in 听上去不错?

上去 here functions as preposition (to),  in this case, the object 'words' is omitted

听 (listen) + 上去 (to)

(听上去)不错 = "It is not bad (listen to it)."

Example of other [verb +上去] phrases

看上去 (look at it)
摸上去 (touch on it)

You can use 起来 instead of 上去 in this sentence
- (听起来)不错 = "It is not bad (listening to) it. "


I'm assuming that this person's name is spelt according to standard Mandarin Pinyin.

[jie] is pronounced something like "jyeh".
[er], in the International Phonetic Alphabet, is /ˀɤɻ/, made up of the close-mid back unrounded vowel and the retroflex approximant. Speaking for an American English audience,

A fair approximation of the close-mid back unrounded vowel is IPA /o/, which is the vowel in the English word "go".
The retroflex approximant can be given as the consonant in the English word "red". See http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phonetics/Englishes/ByWord/Word_075_red.htm and listen to "Standard American".

Putting this together, and ignoring the tones, you should be pronouncing the name like the following:

[er] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8AOX0FssQk
[jie] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m6bQVJtPT8

(The sound plays at about 4 seconds in both videos.)


There is virtually no difference. Perhaps 嘆詞 is more concise than 感嘆詞.
However, 嘆/叹 itself is seldom used alone in modern Chinese. Modern Chinese tends to use bisyllabic words. So we say 感嘆 (to interject), 讚嘆 (to praise), 嘆息 (to sigh) to 'augment' or 'specify' the meaning of 嘆/叹.
嘆詞 is already bisyllabic; but it still doesn't hurt to say it as 感嘆詞.
感 bears the concept of 'to feel'. You interject after you experienced an emotion. It confers neutrality and generality to the word 感嘆 (compare with 讚嘆, which is fairly positive).


What is the difference between 全部作品 and 完本?

全部作品 means all works.
完本 means completed books.


Very interesting question.
Like what @AwQiruiGuo has said, 地 should be pronounced as [de] (in speech, that is). And indeed the mentioned singer does not speak perfect Mandarin.
However, this questions has more complicated background and should not be simply explained as the personal accent of the singer. Because in the case of songs, pronounciation variation kicks in.
Chinese Mandarin is a tonal language. But when the lyrics were sung, rhythm and beats can alter the tones. I'll take the lyric in the question as an example: Dictionary says 那 should be pronouced in 4th tone, but in this song, 那 is in 1st tone. Just listen to this song, and imagine what it would sound like if 那 is sung in 4th tone.
In lyric, when a charater is on the downbeat, it is accented (stressed). If we mark all the downbeats, the lyric in the question will look like this:

冷得[连]隐[藏]的[遗]憾都[那]么[地]明[显]
The characters in square brackets are on downbeats.

In Chinese phonology there is a concept called 平仄, which deals with the arrangement of characters in poems(诗) and lyrics(词) according to their tones. 词 is an art form with strict metrical foot which is comparable to English poetry. You have to write each line of lyrics with specific number of syllables in specific stressed/unstressed order. The guideline of how you arrange the stressed/unstressed syllables was of course the original rhythm and beats of ancient songs, which unfortunately were most - if not all - lost in the history.
Ancient Chinese pronounciation was different from modern Chinese but you can roughly interprete 平 as stressed (1st and 2nd tones in modern Mandarin) and 仄 as unstressed (3rd, 4th and 5th tones in modern Mandarin). Although pop music does not follow ancient meters any more, rhythms and beats still impact pronounciation because it's only nature that people pronounce stressed syllables on downbeats.
With this in mind, now take a look again at the downbeat characters in the mentioned line of lyrics:

冷得[连]隐[藏]的[遗]憾都[那]么[地]明[显]
连: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.
藏: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.
遗: 2nd tone, stressed. In this song, it sounds like 1st tone, still stressed.
那: 4th tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, stressed.
显: 3rd tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, stressed.
now back to 地 in question: shoule be 5th tone, unstressed. But in this song, it sounds like 1st tone, and is altered from [de] to [di].

Because [de] was 5th tone which is a very light one, if simply pronouced as [de] in 1st tone it just doesn't feel right. So traditionally when you want to stress [de5] you make it [di1]. And not only 地, but even 的 also follows this rule. I think this usage traces back to Chinese Opera. For example in The Legend of the Red Lantern (红灯记) there are some famous lines of lyrics：

穷人的孩子早当家
都有一颗红亮的心

where 的 is pronounced as [di], even if it's not on downbeat.


In 「推舉」,「推」means "to push ", and 「舉」 means "to raise "

「推舉」means to "single out and elevate someone" which means " to recommend"

In 「薦舉」,「薦」means " to recommend"

「薦舉」means " to elevate and recommend someone"

In「推選」, 「選」means " to choose"

「推選」means "to single out and choose someone" / " to nominate and elect someone"

Examples :

我推舉他為經理 ( I recommend him to be the manager)
我薦舉他為經理 ( I recommend him to be the manager)
眾人推舉之下，他成為了經理 ( After everybody recommended him, he became the manager)
眾人薦舉之下，他成為了經理 ( After everybody recommended him, he became the manager)
眾人推選他為經理 ( Everybody recommend and choose him to be the manager)

*「推舉」;「薦舉」;「推選」only apply to people
*「推薦」is the most common term for "to recommend", followed by「推舉」and then「薦舉」
*「推薦」apply to either people or object
Example:
向日本人推薦美國牛肉 ( recommend American beef to Japanese)
我推薦他為經理 ( I recommend him to be the manager)
*「薦舉」is more commonly written as 「舉薦」
*「選舉」(election)


How do I break apart 电子纸是利用电泳显示技术原理发明而成的?

电子纸 - Electronic paper
是 - is
利用 - using
电泳显示技术原理 - the principles of electrophoretic display technology
发明 - to invent
而成的(产品) - into (product)
Replace 发明 with 创造 would make it sound more natural

电子纸 | 是  | 利用  | 电泳显示技术原理  | 创造 |  而成的(产品)

Electronic paper is (a product) created by using the principles of electrophoretic display technology


Oxford uses the word inured, which should give you an idea of the negative connotations attached to it.

not be surprised by anything unusual
对腐败见怪不怪, 腐败就难以根除。
If we become inured to corruption, we won't be able to wipe it out.

Adsotrans defines it as

 to be totally jaded

Which is a good way of understanding the feelings behind 见怪不怪.
Here's an example sentence from a Chinese Chengyu dictionary

他的行为开始令人觉得怪异,但时间一长,人们也就见怪不怪了｡
His behavior made people feel most peculiar, but after a while, everyone stopped seeming to notice.


Technically, you would use 间 for all rooms: 一间卧室 (a bedroom), 一间书房 (a study).

间 can refer to larger spaces as well in Mandarin spoken in Taiwan and Cantonese: 一间学校 (a school), 一间饭店 (a restaurant), 一间房子 (a house/apartment). Note that mainland China accepts this usage now and you can hear 一间饭店/学校 in the news.

There is also the trend to simplify all classifiers to 个 where possible. 一个卧室, 两个客厅, 三个洗衣房, 四个房子 all sound right to me, and are perhaps more common than 间.

To avoid repeating "间", the classifier for 房间 (room) is often 个: 一个房间, 两个房间. (You hear 一间房间 as well.)

A house: 一间房子/一个房子; a building: 一个大楼 (Note that the Chinese live in apartments, so 房子 usually refers to apartments.)

Block is 街区. 时尚街区 and 高品质街区 are seen in the ads nowadays. But again, we don't live in houses, so 小区 (neighborhood/community) is more common.


What does 撒回 mean in 部分领导人撒回祝贺，一些领导人则保持沉默?

Yes, 撤退 = retreat; 撤回 = redraw / retract
撤回前言 (retract the previous words)
撤回祝贺 (retract the congratulations)
撤回 is a formal term for retracting a formal statement


in modern written vernacular chinese (白話文), several characters are used abusively.

"的", "麼", "了", "嗎", "性", "地", "們"

the more these characters are used, the worst the article are.

therefore the implications of pointedly avoiding 了, or any above mentioned characters is:

authors tried to write "elegantly, more beautiful" article, using less, or without these characters.

reading some good articles, you would feel the differences. the first recommendation is 董橋, learn from him, you won't be regret.

http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplement/columnist/董橋

http://www.hornbill.cdc.net.my/hornbill2/collection01/dongqiao/dqsw.html


What words exist that come from deconstructed characters?

look for "拆字" (roughly destruct character), particularly fortune telling story.

水巷 --> 港

卯金刀 --> 劉

several verses from a famous oracle poem in hong kong, 1933:

"人我太陽爭北土"

人我　--> 俄羅斯 (russia)

"十四一心人發奮．水去西方啟戰爭"

十四一心人 --> 德國 (third reich, at that era)

水去

"晉有出頭寧坐視．中央生草不堪耘"

晉有出頭

中央生草

guess these five characters?

edited.

another word to look for is "離合", there're many examples in literary of yore. e.g. the wiki had 古今譚槩, in volume 29, "談資部":

  「取上一字，下拆兩字，字義相協。」倡云：「山上有明光，不知是日光、月光。」文云：「堂上掛珠簾，不知是王家的、朱家的。」陳云：「有客到舘驛，不知是舍人、官人。」王云：「半夜生孩兒，不知是子時、亥時。」各賞大觥。

in which the condition is choose one character (取上一字), break it into two (下拆兩字), and then the character, its meaning is in accord (字義相協).

four persons done it :)

山上有明光，不知是日光、月光 (明 --> 日, 月)

堂上掛珠簾，不知是王家的、朱家的 (珠 --> 王, 朱)

有客到舘驛，不知是舍人、官人 (舘 --> 舍, 官)

半夜生孩兒，不知是子時、亥時 (孩 --> 子, 亥)

it might be too difficult for elementary learners, or simplified chinese users. but, it's the funny, witty aspect of the traditional culture.


How to say "here you go" when giving a gift?

When you are handing over a gift:

送给你。("A gift for you."), or
给你。 ("For you."), or
这是给你的。("This is for you.")

You can expand it, like:

这是给你的...。 ("This is a/some ... for you."), or
这本书是送给你的。("This book is a gift for you.")

Don't forget that in some cases, you have to use 您 instead of 你.

You can make it more polite by saying: 请收下 ("Please accept it.") or if you are accepting a gift and your partner makes some polite comment about the gift and/or the occasion you can say: "谢谢，我收下了。" ("Thank you, I accept it.")


It depends a little bit on the type of bread.

For a long bread 条 is used. For a slice of bread 片 is used. 块 can also be used for a slice, but is also used for buns, a piece of bread or a complete bread.


Besides 一不做，二不休, there is 好人做到底，送佛送到西. Or simply 既然已经做了，索性做到底.

In English you can say "in for a penny, in for a pound".


This is an issue about 书面语(words that are used for writing articles) and 口语 (words that are usually used in oral Chinese)

The two words have the same meaning. However, 消防车 is more formal, it's used in most of the written materials. 救火车, on the other hand, is usually used in spoken Chinese, it's rarely used in formal documents.

As an example, 妻子 and 老婆 are both Chinese words for "wife". 妻子 is 书面语 while 老婆 is 口语.


What semantic notions underlie 'wet, moist' and 'profit'?

We have to use some linear thinking to see the extended meanings of many Chinese words.

wet → moist → sleek (things that get wet become moist, a moist surface become sleek)

to make sleek → to polish → touch up (one way to make something sleek is to polish it. A polished item is touched up)

wet → profit (imagine a plant that's drying up. When you water it, it absorbs the water and it is enriched. Which means 'profited'.  And that is how 潤 acquired the meaning of 'profit'

Now to answer your question: "how can they possibly relate to each other semantically?"
They acquired the same meaning independently, like a convergent evolution of birds and bats developed wings independently.
I have explained how the character 潤 acquired the meaning of 'profit'.
The character 益 (overflowing) also acquired the meaning of 'profit' by extending its basic meaning. The character 益 depicts water overflow from a vessel. It means there is excess water. And 'excess' means 'more than required'.
Imagine you put a certain amount of money into a business, it requires an equal amount of money in return for the business to break even. To make a profit, the money in return must exceed the amount that is needed for it to break even. That is how 益 acquired the meaning of 'profit'.


What 莲 means? does it has a "social" meaning, if it's used in everyday life?

i'm afraid there's no such bad meaning with 莲 in chinese,actually it's not a common word in daily life as it is not commonly seen.
however i'd say there's indeed a bad meaning if you insisted,莲 as a component of 白莲花 has two completely different senses of bitch and pure girl.the former  implies someone pretending and trying to make others believe her a pure one.
in other way you can also take it as homonym in 不要逼脸 which transform to 不要碧莲 that actually means 不要脸 or merely a joking phrase。


Is there any compilation/resources/dictionaries on the transformations of how simplified characters came to be?

Traditional Chinese refers to Chinese characters that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. After new China was founded in 1949, entered a new phase in simplified Chinese characters, simplified characters adapted to early literacy movement. So, Chinese simplified largely promoted the rapid growth of the national. But the policy problem, Taiwan still use traditional Chinese. How to simplified characters came to be? I can recommend the book.

You also can check our Chinese character study card.

You can find more study cards in https://www.pinterest.com/studychinese/learn-chinese-characters-with-hanbridge-mandarin/


What's the difference between 招来 and 引起?

招来 = attract/ incur (cause something to come to the subject, or happen to the subject)
Example:
愚蠢政策招来批评 - Stupid policies attract criticism (the target of criticism is the stupid policies or the people who made the stupid policies)
醜態招来目光 - Foolishness attracts glances (the target of the glances is the foolishness or the one who displays foolishness)
美貌招来狂蜂浪蝶 - Beauty attracts suitors (the target of the suitors is the beauty or the one who possess beauty)

~

引起 = cause (cause something to happen)
Example:
流言引起恐慌 - Rumors cause panic  (panic happens because of rumors)
因利益分配問題引起爭執 - Dispute due to distribution of interests (Dispute happens because of problems with interests distribution)
亂扔煙頭引起大火 - Carelessly throwing cigarette butts cause fire (fire happens because of someone throwing cigarette butts)


People outside Chinese region may think any type of character form change in Mainland China are "simplifications", which is not true. The example in your question is actually glyph differences, which are called "New Character Forms" or "Xin Zixing". It regulates the orthodox form of parts of glyphs, while "simplification" deals with "which parts are used to form a character".


TL;DR

Subtitles are not necessary.

Large media

Large media and news programs often supply subtitles, because they have more resources. The TV companies in mainland China act like public services, so they have to think about people who are not good at Mandarin, or have trouble with listening.

Cooking programs, talk shows

Some do, some don't. Since these kinds of programs are more free-speaking, they don't have scripts, and it would take some extra work to add subs.

Behavior of native speakers

We like subs, it makes you easy to follow. Especially since we always watch foreign videos with subs, we are used to watching with subs, even when we watch Chinese videos.

Can we understand on the fly?

Yeah, we won't have any trouble with watching videos in Chinese without subs, but that doesn't mean we can recognize 100% of the words, because of accent, background music, rare words, speed, etc. I think that happens among English-speaking people also.


Actually, it can be a real sentence in oral Chinese.

向 can become a verb. It has 2 possible meanings based on the situation.

First one mean "face to ..". The sentence can become "are you all facing to me?".

The other meaning "are you on my side"/"don't you support me".

For your case, I think it probably be the second meaning.


Carl Jung was Swiss German. Jung is pronounced /jʊŋ/ (IPA), so I'd say 荣格 is pretty close, and a perfectly acceptable transliteration.


What is the oldest retracable meaning for the character/word 臾?

臾 is actually a verb meaning "to tie up and drag", hence what the character looked like. But it can be used together with 須 as a noun, i.e. as 須臾, to mean "a while". This practice emerged by the Warring States era and so is just about as ancient as the time the character took definitive shape..


How to determine if a word occurs more in written or spoken language?

Maybe this is an inappropriate answer.

Dictionary for I know, doesn't make such distinction extensively (I remember few words did have a mark indicating its formality).

The reason is simple. Unlike Japanese the language itself has a clear oral and written distinction, with quite different grammar, it's definitely fine to write something the same as you say it.

It doesn't mean there isn't any difference in wording. The words you put to use reflect your attitude, education and cultivation, etc.

The features of usual spoken sentences  are:

Not concise, run-on, using common plain words for verbs, adjectives and adverbs, with many 的/了/多/着/... grammar words, simple sentence syntax.

But the level of written language is of a wide range.

So called oral/spoken language in Chinese, I think, are unsophisticated and unprocessed expressions that first come into your mind when you are about to utter words. Many well educated people, they actually say written language (in others' eyes), and on the contrary, many poor writings are close to internet chatting. (The least requirement of a written form is that you do not use many filler words and 的/了/多/着...)

e.g. Translation of the above.

spoken:

这可能算不上是答案。

我是不知道哪本词典条条目目都给分书不书面的（但有的词还是有个正式程度的标）。

道理很简单呐。不像日语口语书面语分得很开，语法都不一样，中文你照说的写，完全没问题。

但这不是说用词一点区别都没有，你用什么词能看得出你这人的态度啊，学识啊，修养之类的。

口语一般有这些特点：

啰里吧嗦，一路逗号，大白话，的啊了啊多啊着啊一堆，句子成分也简单。

但书面语的程度分别就大了。

我觉得中文所谓的口语啊，就是要说话了第一个想到的话，用的都是没来得及加工的简单东西。很多有文化的人，出口就是一般人想半天写的东西，反过来说，有的人写的乱七八糟的网上聊天似的。

written:

这解答也许难称合适。

就我所知，还无词典对词条书面程度广加类分，衹偶见标注罢了。

但其缘故无繁。不若和语言文迥异，至于语法专用，汉语笔书白文，并无不妥。

此言并非教人无别而轻词用，遣词如何，恭倨、博浅、修鄙，皆在其中。

口语大抵特点如下：

壅冗接缀，实词浅近，行句直脱，的了多着一类，赘词太多。

而书面之层次则甚蕃。

所谓口语，依我孔见，不过口将言而句已生，直白粗砺，略无藻饰。富学之人，虽言而文于外人耳。反之，寡薄者为文之不堪，反倒若如今网聊。


Could someone please translate this small writting for me? (Characters identified: 林盾)

It says '林盾' - most likely a person's name where 林 (Lin, meaning 'forest') is the last name and 盾 (Dun, meaning 'shield') is the given name.


Position of direct object in a sentence with an adverb of degree

So, does the usage of an adverbial expression (the 得- construction) require the direct object to be placed elsewhere, before the subject? "他说法文说得那么好", but "法文他说得那么好"?

They are two different topics in a [(topic) + (comment)] sentence.
[他说法文 (topic)] + [说得那么好 (comment)]
说得那么好 is the comment on the topic 他说法文
On the topic of 'he speaks French', the comment is 'speaks very well'
~
[法文 (topic)] + 他说得那么好 (comment)]
他得说那么好 is the comment on the topic 法文
On the topic of 'French', the comment is 'he speaks very well'
~
[subject + V + 得 + adjective] doesn't always require an object
Example: 他跑得很快
When there is an object, the object can be placed before the subject as a topic.
Example: 中文 他學得很快
When an object is placed after the subject and verb, it becomes a [SVO] sentence (e.g. 他學中文) and the sentence can be the topic.
Example: 他學中文 學得很快


Yes, that is fine; it is quite common to use 叫醒 with alarms.

In fact you can use both 吵醒 and 叫醒 here, although there's a small difference in connotations. It isn't a very strong distinction though, so you needn't be overly concerned.

Anyway, 叫醒 normally means the action was intended to wake you. In contrast 吵醒 carries the sense that being woken up is unplanned or unwanted, i.e. some noise woke you (implying you aren't happy about it). For example, if your neighbours' alarm woke you, you'd normally use 吵醒. If the hotel's morning call woke you, that's normally 叫醒.


比 comparison structures: positive adjectives?

Personally, I've never heard about this as a strict grammar rule. You can say both versions of the same sentence as:

他比我高 vs
他比我矮
or
他比我富有 vs
他比我穷

and they would be equally correct, even though I can confirm the first ones FEEL better to me. I guess it has to do with the tendency of Chinese culture to point out positive qualities, or qualities perceived as such. As in the example, it's better to be tall than short. It's better to be rich than poor.

The negation is also performed on the positive quality.
The same behavior can be found in western languages. It's always nicer to speak in euphemisms even if you're not making comparisons. "He's not so handsome", as opposed to "he's ugly". It's a sign of politeness.

If you want a more philosophical-sounding analysis, you can think that it's easier to speak about the presence of a quality, instead of its absence. What you first notice about a tall person is that she's tall, and not that she's not short.

As for your question, what are these "positive" qualities?
Well, it all comes down to what defines a socially successful person: tall, rich, nice, handsome, smart are all good examples.
You can apply the same intuitive principle to things and concepts, even though the boundary is more blurred here: is expensive better than cheap?
It depends. By looking at what kind of comparisons people make, you can also get a few hints about their personality and social status.


For the character"冒"，is the top part "日" or "曰"？

Neither.

冒 is comprised of simultaneously semantic and phonetic 冃 (mào, hat) and phonetic 目 (mù). The word that both 冃 and 冒 originally represented is now written as 帽.

Components are usually added on when the original character is too simple (and so can get confused with something else), or when the original character is overloaded with too many other uses (in this case, 冒 is used for things like 冒汗, 冒險, 冒認).

  In general, are both "日" and "曰" used as a radical at the top of some characters? How to distinguish them?

When you are asking about just a part of a character, not talking about dictionary header entries, then they are just charcter components (部件), not radicals (部首).

Anyway, have a look at

https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/3635/whats-the-deal-with-origin-of-the-character-曰/61301#61301

towards the bottom, where it is explained that you can’t tell 日 and 曰 apart in another character, unless you have an understanding of the character’s history, or at least the function of its components.


Do the four Chinese symbols in the bottom-left corner of a Samsung battery mean manufacturing date? (Characters identified: 生产日期)

Yes, it writes 「生产日期」 which means manufacture date.


Translation: Human Penis (Traditional Chinese Medicine)

人势
From an online excerpt:

（《纲目》）
【释名】阴茎。时珍曰︰人阴茎，非药物也。陶九成《辍耕录》载︰杭州沈生犯奸事露，引刀自割其势，流血经月不合。或令寻所割势，捣粉酒服，不数日而愈。观此则下蚕室者，不可不知此法也。故附于此云。
【主治】下蚕室，创口不合（时珍）。


Is 搏杀 used in jest in 今年剩下一个星期了，继续努力搏杀?

It should be figurative, means "working hard".


What does the Kanji on this t-shirt say?

it's the manga "one-piece", with illustration of "luffy".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece

the three characters is "霸王色" ( はおうしょくのはき ), the highest form of ability (or awareness)?

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ONE_PIECEの用語一覧


In short, the topic-comment structure puts the topic you want to focus on in the beginning of a sentence, optionally followed by a comma, and the comment you want to make about the topic right after.
As Dejavision has mentioned, in all of your examples, the topic can be the object. (see note below) Thus, moving the object to the beginning would change the structure to topic-comment.

昨天的语法，你复习了吗？
飞机票，你买了吗？
中国茶，你们都喜欢喝吗？
日本，瑞典人都喜欢去吗？
这儿的天气，你不习惯吗？

Note

This trick does not always apply. The topic can surely be a subject as well.

Consider the following example:

這隻筆，顏色很好看。
As for this pen, the color is good-looking.

這隻筆 is both the subject and the topic.

Depending on the context, the same sentence may have more than one potential topic.

Consider the following example with possible context in parentheses:

（我知道美国大家都喜欢去。至于）日本，瑞典人都喜欢去吗？
(I know that everyone likes going to the States.) As for Japan, do all Swedish like going there?

and

（我知道很多亚洲人喜欢去日本。至于）瑞典人，都喜欢去日本吗？
(I know that many Asians like going to Japan.) As for Swedish, do all of them like going to Japan?

The two questions have different topics, thus different context, but are asking the same thing.


Is there an authoritative list of most frequent to most infrequent pronunciations for individual Chinese characters?

Hope these would help.

《现代汉语常用字表》常用字(2500字)
《现代汉语常用字表》次常用字(1000字)
《现代汉语通用字表》(7000字) - including the above two (link available on those pages)


What's the difference between 许多 and 很多？

it's almost the same. both means a lot, very much..


别人 means others, 人家 can mean others or "I/me".

别人 always means other people, that is to be used to refer to people that's not part of the current context.

人家 could mean the same thing. The difference is that 人家 could be used to denote a specific group of other people, i.e. "THE others" or simply "They/He/She", or even "it", which 别人 is mostly used to denote unspecific general others.

And, in some settings 人家 could be used to denote "I/me". This is more commonly used by females or children, often to increase the level of feminine or cuteness when trying to make a requests or complaints. And in some regions the latter usage could be quite common.

人家 could also be used sarcastically to refer to people who you think are pretentious by implying they think they are so cute and nice that they would call themselves 人家 but they are not actually that nice or cute.

In the two sample sentences, "人家" and "别人" could be used interchangeably.

人家都同意，就你一人反对
It could mean "They all agrees, you are the only one doesn't" in the context that a group of people negotiating something and "you" are the only one that has a problem.

It could also mean "Everyone WOULD agree, you are the only one doesn't" in this context 人家 means people other than you, but not necessarily real people who are involved.

And you can use 别人 to archive same effect.


Learn Chinese

I could just assume you mean that you want to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese, but I'd like you to take a moment to share what you mean by "learn chinese."  Since it will likely be the hardest thing you've ever tried to do, I'd recommend you consider the following:

Mandarin is the most popular dialect and the official language spoken
throughout China (but many variants exist)
Do you want to learn to read and write as well? (this can help
comprehension)
Do you have anyone you can practice with or would you need to partner
with someone who speaks the dialect you want to speak? (See italki.com)
Assuming you are not in China, you should Google your local Chinese
community to learn a bit about a "china town" near you (visiting a
local sit down Chinese restaurant and speaking with Chinese staff may
be a good way to get some interactive Chinese - let them know you want to learn, most Chinese people are pretty good about helping language learners practice)

Overview

You will likely want to review music, texts, and conversations. A common method of getting started is use of tourist books/apps/websites that focus on the most important phrases one needs. You can try to immerse yourself or take things very slowly. Eventually you will want to understand spoken Chinese in order to engage in a conversation. Without knowing your budget it would be hard to provide a precise plan. Generally, if you are looking for free help/products then you will be able to find these online by searching (just keep in mind that some of the resources may be hard to navigate). If your budget allows, you can look at buying a book or getting an introductory personal lesson (if you are near a big city or one with a large Chinatown).

Getting Started

Many of the questions/answers on this site actually end up providing good references to online resources. I suggest you start by reviewing this site for references to other online sites that have audio, visual, spoken, and written materials. Here's one such question. I recommend you review each answer and bookmark the websites. Many of the resources are free. You can also do a Google search. A used book on Reading & Writing Chinese can help, see my answer here for a good cheap source. You might also:

Review Tutorials on Youtube
Check out Chinese Music Videos on Youtube (Here's a mix of some
modern Chinese music or some amazing singers from a popular show)
Review iTunes University for Chinese Material (if you have iTunes or
an iProduct, will also work just fine from browser as this example)
Check free mobile apps for your phone
Bookmark many external sites mentioned in answers on this website (Here is a link that holds Mandarin Sounds and Phonetics)
Start collecting language notes (you might try using Google Docs for this)

Books

I believe in getting the right book and would encourage you to look for a book that is well organised. As an example, the book I mentioned earlier for Reading & Writing Chinese, introduces characters in a very logical order (with each character building on the next one). The result of this is that you will learn multiple characters that look similar at points where it is easy to see the relationships between them.

A quick example:

McNaughton & Li (1999), p. 35, presents these characters in sequence:

冂，囗，十， 田，厶 followed on p. 36 by

幺，八，小， 糹，累

The right book can ease the learning experience if well-ordered.

Common Grammar Points

Chinese and English are both basically Subject Verb Object (SVO) languages so you will find many consistencies between the languages. This means one can take a basic sentence and simply replace with a Chinese synonym to have the same meaning. This is of course not always the case (meaning there are many variations) but I want to assure you that learning Mandarin is not only possible but can be easier if you think in grammatical terms.

A quick example:

  I am American (person)
  wǒ shì měi guó rén
  我是美国人
  (more on Mandarin Grammar Word Order and English Sentence Structure)

Free Mac OSX Chinese English Language Guide

I have a Mac OSX Guide which details how to setup a Mac OSX system to enable Mandarin, Cantonese, and English speech, Pinyin Conversion, Chinese Writing, and Chinese-English Dictionaries (please check my profile for the links). Sorry that I don't have this for Windows but I've made everything one needs to get started for free. If I get a lot of requests for Windows setup then I'll pull together the material.

Video Demo of MCE Tools

Final Thoughts

If you need more help, please edit your question further and I can refine this answer. I encourage you to jump right in and enjoy the journey.


Is the pinyin of 「操」in「情操」and「步操」the same in Mandarin？

Modern Mandarin Chinese has been very different from Medieval Chinese, while Cantonese has preserved much legacy from the latter.
Although I don't speak Cantonese, I think it's plausible that 操 in Medieval Chinese and in Cantonese has more than one pronunciation.
However, even in Modern Chinese, pronunciations do change over time, especially when a commonly-used word sounds like... fuck. (You can also see many people online using 操 instead of the original fuck character to express that meaning, but they do this just because they don't know which is the original character, or they need to avoid censorship...).
OK. Time for a sip of knowledge. I said pronunciations change over time in Modern Chinese. It happens mostly in characters that are commonly used, but have different pronunciations only when used as a surname:

盖(formerly ge3 like 舸, now mostly gai4)
纪(formerly ji3 like 己, now commonly ji4)

But this doesn't happen to all such characters:

解(always xie4 like 谢 if used as surname, rather than jie3)
仇(always qiu2 like 球 if used as surname, rather than chou2)

As far as I know, the only character other than surnames that has a changed pronunciation is:

帧("frame", formerly zheng4 like 正, now zhen1 like 真)


It'a punctuation, which does not exist in English, and I don't know its English name.

In Chinese it's called 顿号 (dun4 hao4). It is usually used between listing of things (or verb, or adjectives ... I don't know the grammar term, who can help me please edit the post):

屋子里有桌子、椅子、凳子。

Usually in English, comma would be used.

In your example, it is just used a symbol separating the listing number and the title, which is not related to the use I mentioned above. This is common when Chinese numbers are used. The punctuation itself does not carry actual meaning.


Some unknown marks: are they in Chinese? If not, what language is it? What do they mean?

in top picture set of characters looks like 1st column  鹏雅, 2nd column 精瓷, always top to bottom, anyhow googling  鹏雅精瓷 yields as 1st result zhidao.baidu.com with 鹏雅精瓷酒杯

picture below more clearly looks like 鹏祥


“敷衍了事” is a right Chinese saying to describe your situation.

Besides,you can also say something like “搪塞”，“蒙混过关”…… related to this meaning.


Pewter tea container seal character translation (Characters identified: 榮製)

Should be "榮製", reading from right.
Meaning might be "Produced honorably" or "Qualified produced"(a bit extended meaning)


What's the difference between 部件, 零件, and 配件？

零件 (parts) and 配件 (accessory) would suffice, in Traditional Chinese.


Can someone tell me what this means, please?

“歓” (http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6B53.htm)

An ancient form of "歡", meaning happy and joy.

(never tattoo something you don't know .....)


What is the literal translation of the first line of the Tao Te Ching?

The Dao that can be told is not the eternal and unchanging Dao is already a literal translation.

道可道非常道

[The] Dao (道) [that] can (可) [be] told (道) [is] not (非) [the] eternal/unchanging (常) Dao (道)

A text that is written almost deliberately to be interpreted in multiple ways does not have a "the literal translation".


What does 出马 mean in the below sentence?

正确答案应该是:

  你还别不相信，他出马准知道什么毛病。

or

  你还别不相信，他一出马准知道什么毛病。

出马: take up the matter

你还别不相信: you should believe.

"别不"是双重否定，表示肯定。


it is hard to tell what they exactly mean without contexts, but i can give you a very general idea of these characters:

征 (zheng1) means 'wage war by travelling a long distance'. it is usually associated with a war with a very large scale in both space and time.

伐 (fa2) is just 'to wage war against', nothing more. in fact, among all five characters, only the original meaning of 伐 is directly related with war.

讨 (tao3), literally "to demand", means "to wage war demanding justice/punish the wrongdoers"

侵 (qin1) means “to invade" or "to encroach"

袭 (xi2) is usually associated with “sudden attack”.


Identifying a type of topping used for congee

...pronounced something like "ma yip", the "ma" sounds like the "ma yao" in sesame oil and the "yip" sounds like leaf.

The word is「麻葉」(maa4 jip6), and is indeed a Chaoshan dish.

See 潮汕麻葉配番薯粥 for a Chinese description.

NOTE: If you want to Google「麻葉」, you should either (1) set your language to Chinese only, or add a character like「粥」(congee) after it.

Unfortunately,「麻葉」is also the name of a popular Sushi store in Japan.


How to say "a blue-ruled Olympic Exercise notebook" in Chinese?

A blue-rules notebook 蓝横格本

rule, 横格
grid, 方格


"我很喜欢你" has the almost same usage with "I like you" in English, depending on the scenario, could be treated as "I love you" but again, it's rare.

In daily case, we(native Chinese) rarely use(or used?) this sentence because comparing to the western people, Chinese usually are regarded as a group people who are shy, barely express emotion orally.

But in this case, the author seems like depicture a little girl who has a crush on her brother. It's unethical but also natural considering their age. And it's far from incest since it's just an emotional activity.


What's the difference in use of 女, 女人 and 女子?

There are detailed answer from the following thread at CantoDict forums on the difference between 女人 and 女子

女子 Female - Used in the most formal situations, such as news reporting, e.g., 一名女子 (a female), or 女子組 (the female group as in Olympic sports events), or 小女子 (how a woman addresses herself in historical drama)
女人 Woman - Used in casual situations, such as daily conversation, e.g., 一個女人 (a woman) or 三個女人一個墟 (three women [make as much noise as] a farmer's market)

As for the character 女, it can be a noun or an adjective for "female".
The only example of 女 as a noun, is with a pronoun, for example 此 (this) as in 此女 (this woman) - a simplified form of 此女子 (this woman).
It is only used in classical writing style.


What did the original Tao Te Ching use for punctuation?

So far, the earliest version of Tao Te Ching found is on the Guodian Chu Bamboo Slips, written in the Warring States era State of Chu.

From 楚簡書法网 (http://www.cjsfw.net/Html/?287.html, http://www.cjsfw.net/Html/?283.html):

The text is given in verses, beginning with an 8-character rhythm, and the punctuation marks are found on the bottom right of the terminal character for the verse, as a verse breaker. The punctuation does not strictly correspond to a full stop or comma of today.


What are some common Chinese terms used when playing soccer

Red Card: 红牌 hóngpái

Yellow card: 黄牌 huángpái

Shoot: 射 (射门) shè (shèmén)

Pass: 传 (传球) chuán (chuán qiú)

Goal: 门 （球门) mén (qiú mén)

Referee: 裁判 cáipàn

Half time: 半场 bàn chǎng

Full time: 全场 quán chǎng or 结束了 or 踢好了

Team: 队 （蓝队， 白队 etc.) duì

The ball has gone out: 出界

Did the ball go in?: 球进了没有?

Are you injured?: （受）伤了没有？

Kick off: 开球

Pitch: 球场

Substitution: 换人

Score: 比分

1:0 (one to zero) :  一比零

Offside: 越位

Penalty area: 禁区

Overtime: 加时

Golden goal: 金球

Silver goal: 银球

Front-field: 前场

Midfield: 中场

Backfield: 后场

Handball: 手球

Header: 头球

Foul: 犯规

Preliminary match: 预赛

Eighth-final: 八分之一决赛

Quarter-final: 四分之一决赛

Semi-final: 半决赛

Final: 决赛


What is the difference between 把 吧 and 巴?

把 is a structural particle.  There are many articles on here and the internet to further understand..it covers too broad a scope for me to answer here.

吧 is usually a modal particle, and comes at the end of a sentence, usually indicating a polite suggestion.  It also is a loan word, which means a word borrowed from English to phonetically represent it's English equivalent.  It is the Chinese loan word for bar.  Another example of this is 沙发 which means sofa, and also can be used to describe the first person who responds to an online post.

巴? According to mdbg.net,
to long for / to wish / to cling to / to stick to / sth that sticks / close to / next to / spread open / informal abbr. for bus 巴士 / bar (unit of pressure) / nominalizing suffix on certain nouns, such as 尾巴, tail

Ba state during Zhou dynasty (in east of modern Sichuan) / abbr. for east Sichuan or Chongqing / surname Ba / abbr. for Palestine or Palestinian / abbr. for Pakistan


Chinese word for X chair in a musical group when it isn't 1st or 2nd chair

You can just use 第X席. E.g.2nd violin 5th chair 第二小提琴手第5席.

You rarely saw it probably because if the x>2, they probably do not feel that proud. And no matter 第3席 or 第9席, even the 副首席 does not mean too much to the non-expert audiences (in China)--the spotlight is only on the 首席第一小提琴手.


How do you say "there aren't people I can talk to"? 没有对他们可以说话的人？

"There aren't people I can talk to"

The translation varies, depending on what word is used to translate "talk to".

"说话", to get into a conversation

  找不到说得上话的人。

"倾诉", to pour out one's feelings

  找不到可以倾诉的人／对象。

or simply

  找不到倾诉（的）对象。

With "倾诉对象", the sentence is starting to become idiomatic. Other variants are also possible. For example, you can replace "找不到" with "没有". If the context permits, you can also say "没有人可以／愿意倾听／聆听我的倾诉". This last sentence is closer to "Nobody could/would become my listener".

The key here is that you need to find a word that conveys the meaning of "talk to" instead of just "talk". In other words, it should emphasize the action on the subject's part. Otherwise the sentence will just become awkward because you need to make up for the missed meaning. This is why dictionary translations of "talk" like "交谈" and "谈话" will get you nowhere---these words can only mean "talk with", which give equal weights to both parties involved in talking. Structurally this is similar to the deletion of preposition mentioned by Joe. But I think that this is more absorbing the meaning of the preposition into the verb than implying that meaning through the verb.

"The person with whom I had a fight last week is now a friend"

I find this translation better than any attempt to simplistically duplicate the sentence structure:

  上星期和我打（了一）架的那个人现在成了我的朋友。

The key here is that unlike in the original sentence, "the person" is now the implicit subject of the relative clause. This technique works trivially when the clause describes a reciprocal action with "with". Sometimes, even if the action is not reciprocal, you can also get it to work by replacing the verb of the clause with its antonym. For example, for

  The person I sold my bike to also lives in China.

you can say

  买了我的自行车（的）那个人也住在中国。

Comparing with a sentence using the "dummy variable" approach mentioned by Joe,

  我卖了自行车给他的那个人也住在中国。

the former just sounds much more natural and less twisted.

How about "all those sentences that require with/to/etc."?

The two examples above show that you need to adapt the expression to the meaning of the preposition of the clause. But the way of adapting is different in the two examples. I doubt that general rules exist for all such sentences even though I am no linguist. But perhaps there exists this one technique that in many, even if not all, cases can at least make you sound less awkward and more comprehensible with little effort---use more than one sentence. For example, again consider the "sold my bike" example above. You can use these two sentences:

  我把自行车卖给了一个人。那个人也住在中国。

which are totally fine and even easier to understand than "我卖了自行车给他的那个人……". This sacrifices on structural "信" in order to gain on semantic "达" and "雅" of Yan Fu's principles of translation. Sometimes, especially for complex sentences, this is probably the only sensible solution.


The following may be folk etymology. More research is needed - specifically, textual evidence of when「正斗」started being in use among the general public.

「正斗」originated as a term in initiation rituals of Chinese secret societies or criminal underworld groups. The details of the ritual vary from source to source, but the ritual is said to involve a wooden ladle (斗).

The term「正」in「正斗」refers to the meaning orthodoxy, that is, orthodoxy of the rites or the members/leader involved in the rites of the secret society.「正斗」then refers to those who have successfully entered the society through the orthodox initiation ritual, also indicating the meaning proper, dignified. This stands in contrast to non-members or pretenders who did not know the rites (非正斗 or 假斗).

Later on, the term「正斗」permeated general society, and「正斗」gained the meaning of high quality, awesome, etc.

References:

廣東話中 -- 好正-- 一詞 - hk.answers.yahoo.com
香港黑社會用語舉隅 - mypaper.pchome.com.tw


From the accepted answer at Baidu:

  Both are words of greeting. Nowadays people generally use “早上好”. “早安”
  will give a feeling of before 民国 (the Republic of China (1912-1949)),
  or a literary feeling (it's common in literature).

Other people think 早安 has a warmer feeling.

Of course this is the perspective of mainland people.

In Taiwan 早安 is used much more than 早上好. （Ratio: 28, Google advanced search: exact phrase, country TW, language zh-TW)

"早安" 5,340,000
"早上好" 192,000

In the mainland, incidentally, 早安 is also used much more than 早上好, although the degree of usage seems much closer. （Ratio: 2.3, Google advanced search: exact phrase, country CN, language zh-CN)

"早安" 24,500,000
"早上好" 10,400,000


Dealing with expressions in classical Chinese letters: 月日 and 惶恐百拜

However, different meanings in different contexts.

According to Baidu Baike，there are four meanings about "月日". But in my opinion, it would be explained in five ways.

1)moon and son
It is understood easily and Literally.

2)the day you choose

  辑五瑞，择吉月日，见四岳诸牧，还瑞。

Translate into English:
Shun collected the Wurui. Then he chose a good day to meet the offcials and return the Wurui.

"五瑞(Wurui)" is a thing that offcials would like to wear in ancient.

3)a couple of days

  伏念臣自蒙恩，改授京官，到今七年，除持服月日外，亦以四年馀两个月。——《求追赠考妣状》

Translate into English：
Under grace, I have appointed as government official for seven years now. Apart from the time of observe mourning, there are four years and two months。

4)one month

  自史太公死后，又早过了三四个月日。——《水浒传》

Translate into English：
It has been three or four months, when Shi was dead.

Old man is referred to "太公" in ancient.

5)describe time is short

  羣小无知，，故求全月日之命耳。——《魏书·王建传》

Translate into English:
We are weak, and afraid that we will be killed like the people of Canhepo. So we just want to save our short lifes.

Speaking of "惶恐百拜", the phrase was usually divided into two phrases "惶恐" and "百拜", and was used to show your respect for recipient in letter. You can check this article 《上海图书馆藏明代尺牍》书信用语研究, and also could find "顿首百拜" in many questions.

"惶恐" shows you feel anxious because you afraid of disturbing the recipient.

"百拜" doesn't mean "bow a hundred times" anyway. It looks like "Yours sincerely" and "Best regards" in letter in English. It shows your respect for recipient in the end of the letter.


Preferred translation for "log out" or "sign out" (such as a web site): 注销, 登出, 退出?

The term 注销 appeared before the existence of computers, which is the antonym of 注册 (register). As a result, 注销 means "unregister", i.e. cancel the account. This term is usually used in banks, such as 注销银行账号 (unregister the bank account).

However, after computers became popular, Microsoft uses 注销 as the official translation of "log off" in its Windows operating system. This usage is absolutely wrong, but this usage is well-known because of the popularity of Microsoft Windows, and becomes gradually accepted by native Chinese speakers, and therefore many people use this "wrong" term.

The term 退出 also appeared before the existence of computers, which means "exit" or "quit".

The term 登出 appeared after the popularity of computers, which is an modern made-up  term intentionally for the Chinese translation of "log out", because etymologically, 登出 is the antonym of 登入 (log in), although the "more correct" Chinese term for "log in" should be 登录.

In a word, the correct term of "log out" should be 退出 or 登出, which is often used in Google and Baidu. 退出 is used more often.


There is a Baidu Baike article about it:

  常作褒义词应用，与“蜻蜓点水”一词互为反义。一般是用以形容人的工作扎实，不管干什么工作都能留下自己业绩。应用中常与“踏石留印”连用，如：要让“踏石留印，抓铁有痕”成为我们推进各项工作的“规定动作”，而且要成为一种“工作常态”，使实效见诸“终端”。形容做事情不达目标不罢休,有坚持到底,做就要做好的精神。

It is a figurative way of saying a person would leave solid results in his work.

"He can even leave footmarks when he is walking on a stone"


What's the difference between 因为什么 and 为什么?

I would say you could opt to translate them these two different ways:

为什么 = why?
因为什么 = how come?

Which matches to English fairly well.

因为什么, though, is usually part of a larger sentence structure like [...]是因为什么原因[...].


What does the Mars symbol (♂) mean in Chinese (subtitles)?

It's a long story but TLDR is it indicates that the content being shown has male homosexual connotation (in a humorous way)

The story probably starts with GV actor Billy Herrington's video being uploaded onto a video sharing websites in China (probably B站 or A站). In the video there are a lot of wrestling scenes for some reason and the 弹幕 will say “摔♂跤” with a mars(male) symbol in it to indicate the homosexual element in a funny way, because people generally don't really understand why wrestling scenes would be present in such videos and people start to wonder "what exactly are they doing." They go ahead and push that thought to a philosophical level and start considering that as funny, not comprehensible and humorous.

And then it kinda goes beyond that scope, and anything that can be remotely related to that sense, you can insert ♂ in it to indicate that humorous effect.


Having trouble translating this: 多是不跑步的替跑步的操心

Not quite; I break this fragment like this:

多是
不跑步的
替...操心
跑步的

The word "多是" is a bit tricky too, as in this case it's an abbreviation of "大多是", or "mostly is".

So altogether, it should be:

  , mostly is those who don't run worrying on behalf of those who run.

Of course, this direct translation is awkward, so it might be better to rephrase it according to the preceding fragments. Here's my crude attempt:

  What's most laughable about all this hullabaloo, is that it is mostly coming from non-runners worrying about runners on their behalf.


In my opinion, 三点水 and shui3 are all correct names for 氵, so for 饣.

Actually, 氵is also 水, just in another face.
You can know this by comparing Chinese Seal Character(小篆)
河:http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6CB3.htm
水:http://www.zdic.net/z/1c/zy/6C34.htm

三点水 is more formal, shui3 is most used in computer world.

Hope my explanation can help you understand this further.


氫's pronunciation qīng comes from 輕.

According to this article, chemical elements were translated in more descriptive way in the 19th century, and hydrogen was named 轻气 (輕氣) "light gas". Later, the names were crippled to one character for each, so hydrogen became 轻 (輕). Finally, in 1919, every element was decided to be named systematically, where gases were unexceptionally covered by radical 气. Hence, hydrogen got its character 氫, and inherited 輕's pronunciation.

P.S.
Your quotation from 《太平御覽》 seems to be an digitalization bug. The original text reads: 屈巻成性終無自伸 "curled up by its nature, and never grows straightly". I doubt there's any occurrence of 氫 outside chemical literature.


Translate "Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question."

I'm going to drop the "you", as it seems used in a generic sense in your source text.
My take on this is (also keeps the assonance between 疑 and 题):
无疑之答不如无答之题


Same thing.
There are some regional usage distinctions and that's about it. 脖子 seems to be used more in Northern China and in Taiwan. 颈项 and 颈子 seems to be more prevalent in use in Southern China. Each region may consider the other term overly formal.
They both can refer to the neck of things, i.e.: the neck of a bottle - 酒瓶脖子 | 瓶颈


"Eh?!" in Chinese and How Native Speakers React to It

The role of 'eh?' at the end of a statement is similar to the rhetorical 'isn't it?' or the confirmatory 'right?'

In Cantonese, final particles '呵？'/ho2/  functions the same.

Example :

'呵？'/ho2/  Cantonese only

'he really is a good man.' -- '佢真係個好人.'

'he really is a good man, eh?' -- '佢真係個好人,呵？'(呵?= isn't he? / right?)

'嗯?'/ng2/ for Mandarin and Cantonese also functions the same.

Example :

'he really is a good man.' -- '他真的是個好人'

'he really is a good man, eh? '--  '他真的是個好人, 嗯?'(嗯?= isn't he? / right?)

  How do native speakers perceive that Chinese equivalent?

eh? 嗯? and 呵？ are just part of a sentence, it is there for good reason.

  How do native speakers perceive the English "eh?!" ?

We just interpret 'eh?' as 'isn't it?' or 'right?' which mean the speaker is seeking approval or confirmation about his statement from the listener. That would make the statement sound more asserted


Does a similar system to a pangram exist for handwriting practice

I think you've pretty much answered your question. No there is no exact equivalent - an easily-memorised group of phrases that you can write repeatedly, to practice handwriting. There are two options:

For basic practice of writing strokes, Eight Principles of Yong is fine; you may even practice one stroke repeatedly, for example if you were doing brush calligraphy
To practice getting the shape and positioning of strokes/characters right, it is necessary to practice with a large corpus. Thousand Character Classic is a good option but you can substitute with your favourite poem or article. The point is to practice writing strokes and radicals that are different shapes and sizes, and getting their proportions right.


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.


How do I write in Chinese, you look well today, as in good colour in face?

你今天气色很好！
(Nǐ jīntiān qìsè hěn hǎo!)
You looked well today.

加油，早日康复！
(Jiāyóu, zǎorì kāngfù!)
Keep it up, get well soon!


try this pdf file:

http://www.bnasie.eu/Asset/Source/bnBook_ID-1505_No-01.pdf

it's reprinted in traditional chinese, vertical layout.

have fun :)


How to address a teacher one knows well (in conversation and emails). Is 亲爱 "dear" ever appropriate?

I think 敬爱的X老师 is good. 亲爱的 is mostly used to family member in China. 敬爱的 means 受人尊敬和喜爱的 and it is good for teacher and professor.


Why is 两 used for quantities of two rather than 二?

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

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

That is why we have:

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

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

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

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


I'm afraid there is no "common usage" of these two characters in contemporary Chinese. They are used only in colloquial dialect.

For exapmle:
我嬲都不嬲你 I don't fuck with you

You may hear this sentence, but you can hardly see it in the written Chinese.

To find out their difference, just consider them as pictographic characters, then what is the difference between teasing scenarios "Man-Woman-Man" and "Woman-Man-Woman"? You can imagine it, right?

Edit: Perhaps 嫐 is more sexy(coquettish) than 嬲, according to 《康熙字典》: “娆，嫐也。”


Equivalent expression to: "I don't give a f***"

No, but in the dialect spoken where I lived people say 没得屌事.


Written electronic communication speed in Simplified Chinese vs English

Disclaimer: This answer is largely based on personal experience and anecdotes and written from the perspective of a Simplified Chinese user.
For English: wpm/cpm, including punctuation.  Conversion: 1 wpm = 5 cpm.
For Chinese: cpm, including punctuation.

It all depends on the text you're typing, the device you're using and the particular method of input you're using.  To understand typing speeds on mobile, you first have to understand...
Casual/Professional typing with physical US keyboard
English
Apart from the amount of training, the speed difference among various English typists come from the keyboard layout.  There's no "IME" so to speak, because whatever character you type will end up on your text-based editor.  Two common layouts are QWERTY and Dvorak simplified.
Chinese
Usually with QWERTY keyboard but with specialized input methods (IME), including but not limited to 拼音、双拼、郑码、二笔、五笔 that turn a sequence of keyboard inputs into one or more Chinese characters or symbols.  To make typing faster, modern IME often have native, on-the-fly or "cloud" dictionaries where common phrases are given an input sequence.
As I'm only familiar with 拼音 and 五笔, I'll use them in the following comparisons:

For text that are archaic or severely lacking in multiple-character phrases, 拼音 usually is the slowest due to the sheer amount of characters you have to choose for each pinyin—a phenomenon called 重码.  When using 五笔 to input characters one by one, the frequency of 重码, a.k.a. 重码率 is fairly low.  The effort to learn 拼音 without memorizing the selection in 重码 is way lower than learning 五笔 without memorizing the selection in 重码, but 拼音 users typically max out at 60 cpm, while 五笔 users average at 60 cpm.

For text that are rich in words and phrases, modern IME can make 拼音 users type at least faster than inputting single characters.  On the other hand, 五笔 users relying only on non-updating built-in dictionaries also get a speed boost. Both types of users can reach 120 cpm1.

Casual typing with touch-screen keyboard
This section could partly explain mobile phones with a physical keyboard.
This is where the world slows down.  To fully utilize the screen, one would think about using the 26-key layout on smart phones, but because the smart phones are small and one is only tempted to use a maximum of 2 fingers (as opposed to a large keyboard and a maximum of 10 fingers in use) mis-clicks occur more frequently.  To cope with this, layouts that lump multiple characters into one key are designed.  As long as you know one of the keyboard IMEs, one would type faster than writing using character recognition IME.  Modern mobile IME use dictionary and prediction technology as well, but well-trained physical keyboard users who haven't trained in touch-screen keyboards will experience a significant speed drop.
Professional typing with specialized keyboard
A.k.a. steno-typing.  These are not used in everyday scenarios so I'll make it short.
English
World record for Steno keyboard stands at 375 wpm.  Steno-typing typically works by parsing a sequence of simultaneous multi-key inputs into one or more words.
Chinese
Similarly, stenotyping systems such as 亚伟速录 exists, and a user using its specialized keyboard maxes out at 500 cpm.

1 Anecdotally, I know a 五笔 user who averages at 180 cpm on text that contain 1/6 archaic Chinese.


一番心血 is a painstaking/ strenuous effort
Examples:
這裡一草一木，一磚一瓦都是我的心血 - Every plant and tree here, every brick and tile here is (the result of) my painstaking effort
嫦娥探月計劃是無數中國人的心血成果 - The Chang'e lunar exploration project is the result of the painstaking effort of countless Chinese people (心血 here is an adjectival noun)
千方百計讓兒子上了醫大，他卻中途退學，枉費了我一番心血- I did everything possible to get my son to go to the University of Medicine, but he dropped out of school halfway through, and it wasted my painstaking effort

endeavor 4. (noun): a strenuous effort; attempt.

You can translate 心血 as painstaking effort, strenuous effort, or endeavor


How are consecutive neutral tones pronounced? What are the pitch levels?

Zhang and Yang (2007:97) has an interesting remark on consecutive neutral tones within certain three-character words (三字組詞):

輕聲若同時出現在三字組詞的後兩個音節上，第二個音節的輕聲調型要根據第一音節的聲調變化，如同二字組的輕聲音節；但第三個輕聲音節一律都讀得短低，調型向下，類似模糊的去聲。如：
(Translation) Should both of the latter two syllables within a three-character word possess the neutral tone, then the pitch of the neutral tone in the second syllable should change according to the first syllable, much like the case of two-character words; but the pitch of the neutral tone in the third syllable should be read shortly and lowly without exception, with a trend going downwards, like a blurred fourth tone. E.g.:
拉下來 lā˥˥ xia꜋ lai꜌    了不得 liǎo˨˩ bu꜉ de꜊
剩下的 shèng˥˩ xia꜌ de꜌    爐子裏 lú˧˥ zi꜊ li꜌
坐下了 zuò˥˩ xia꜌ le꜌    跑過來 pǎo˨˩ guo꜉ lai꜊

'The downward trend' to me refers to the pitch change over the consecutive neutral tones (as a whole). In particular, the difference in pitch between the two neutral tones is most obvious when the first non-neutral syllable is in the first, second, or third tone.

Does the downward trend apply to two-character word groups suffixed with a particle too? There is no mentioning in the textbook, but I think mostly yes, albeit with the following observations:

As an assertive statement, there is only the inherent downward trend: 忙着呢 máng˧˥ zhe꜊ ne꜌, 算了吧 suàn˥˩ le꜌ ba꜌.

Some of the particles mark questions (e.g. 嗎, 呢), so it is important to take into account the effect of final rising on the pitch of neutral tones. Interestingly, for normal characters, there is also a difference in pitch between an assertive statement and a question:

Statement
Question

坐下了。 zuò˥˩ xia꜌ le꜌
坐下了？ zuò˥˧ xia꜊ le꜊

我的呢。 wǒ˨˩ de꜉ ne꜊
我的呢？ wǒ˨˩ de꜉ ne꜈

The final rising is best observed when the first syllable is in the 'low' half-third tone (i.e. it exceeds the effect of the downward trend): 怎麼了 zěn˨˩ me꜉ le꜈, 好了嗎 hǎo˨˩ le꜉ ma꜈.

The final rising may be attenuated when the first syllable is in the first, second, or fourth tone - they have a comparatively higher pitch than the half-third tone and stress is very easily placed on them, out of both semantical and phonological need (他 and 看 in the following examples). The net effect is that the pitch of the neutral tones now becomes roughly the same:

Statement
Question

他的呢。 tā˥˥ de꜋ ne꜌
他的呢？ tā˥˥ de꜊ ne꜊

看了嘛。 kàn˥˩ le꜌ ma꜌
看了嗎？ kàn˥˧ le꜊ ma꜊

Reference: Zhang Bennan & Yang Ruowei (2007). [普通話連讀音變]. Hong Kong: Commercial Press.


Is the ''a'' in ''ta'' pronounced as the ''a'' in ''tan'' or the ''a'' in ''tang''?

Depending on the speaker, these spellings represent either two or three sounds. The short answer is that for standard pronunciation, you can treat the vowel sound in ta and tan the same way, but the a in tang is further back.
The a in tang is a back open vowel, written [ɑ] in IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet). That means that it's the same as the normal a in ta, except further back. The difference is not very big, but shouldn't be hard to hear. This sound is close to the a in Received Pronunciation, as in words like bath. This means that the word bang in English [bæŋ] is not very close to bang in Chinese [pɑŋ].
The -a in tan is trickier. There is some variation in how this is pronounced, varying from a normal [a] (i.e. the same as in ta) to [æ], which is less open, similar to the vowel sound in English bad [bæd]. The [a] pronunciation is more standard, but it's common to hear sounds approaching [æ] as well. You can find both transcriptions depending on where you look, so either [tʰan] or [tʰæn].
If you listen to the top row (-a, -an and -ang) on the Chinese Pronunciation Wiki, you can clearly hear the three different pronunciations (including something between [æ] and [a] for -an).
So, to answer your question, you can pronounce the -a in ta and tan more or less the same, but you should make sure that the -a in tang is further back.
The same is true for the other initials, of course, not just for t-. It's true that the initial (or any sound) influences the final (or any other sound), but I've never seen anyone claiming there's a significant difference between similar initials that learners need to worry about. These influences are often the result of transitioning from one sound to another and will happen naturally. You can certainly treat the -a in ta, da, ba, pa, ma, na, etc. the same.


What do the /pf/ & /pfʰ/ initials sound like in Central Plains Mandarin?

I live near Xi'an and I can confirm /pf/ & /pfʰ/ are accurate. It's literally p + f. It's like pronouncing /p/ while having your teeth on the lips for /f/, so when your mouth opens, it's a natural /f/.
edit: I think it should be mentioned this is Xi'an-only. Xi'an dialect belongs to 中原官话关中片 (Central Plains Mandarin in the region of Guanzhong), but other dialects in the same subcategory doesn't have /pf/, let alone the broader category Central Plains Mandarin.


Did 李白 and 杜甫 popularize/standardize any 方言?

李白and杜甫 make the language of Shaanxi(陕西）popular.
They were the people of tang dynasty ,and capital of the tang dynasty is Chang'an where is in Xi'an of Shaanxi province now.So the language of Shaanxi is standard for everyone like the dialect of Beijing has effect on Chinese now.


Does “Lock shat hoo-la ma sho gong um hom tak ti-wak yet gee sam see baa gow!!” mean anything?

My mother-tongue is Cantonese. As far as I understand, this is not anything in Cantonese (at least modern Cantonese). Although some of the words sound like Cantonese, for example “Lock shat” sounds like 落實 (lok6 sat9), I can’t think of any meaningful content when they are put together with the words after that.


What is the difference between 井底之蛙 and 坐井观天?

What you got from Baidu is correct.

井底之蛙: the key word is 蛙. Metaphorically, you can reference a person to a frog, being in the bottom of a well. For example, you can say to someone: 你就是井底之蛙！

坐井观天 describes one's behavior/vision. You can say 不要坐井观天 to exhort someone not to be narrow for his thoughts or vision.


What's the Chinese word for "bare-metal" (computer programming)?

Bare Metal could be tanslated as 裸金属 literally, but it doesn't make sense for Computer Science. I prefer to translate is as 裸机 (Bare machine).

Bare machine

  Bare machine (or bare metal), in computer parlance, means a computer
  without its operating system.

Example from youdao:

  A new remote boot technology based on IP storage area network was
  designed, and the core technology of it is the firmware protocol stack
  running under bare machine platform.

  设计了一种基于IP存储区域网络的远程引导技术，该技术的核心是运行在裸机下的固件协议栈。

From baidu:

  For example, you might choose to allow the results from the virtual
  machines to vary within 10 percent of the results from the bare metal
  control machine.

  例如，您可以选择允许来自虚拟机的结果与来自裸机控制机器的结果存在10%的偏差。


When your computer freezes/hangs/stalls, stays on same screen, input devices don't work - how do you say that?

The most common one should be 死机了, you can also say:

死了
不动了
没反应了
黑屏了 (got a black screen)
蓝屏了 (got a MS Windows blue error screen)


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?

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 :)


Where should 了 go: 你去了商店买什么衣服？ or 你去商店买什么衣服了？

了 following a 'verb' is a 'verb particle' that indicates the 'verb' as 'completed'

In "你去了商店买什么衣服？" (You went to the store to buy what kind of clothes)  '了' following the verb '去'(go), therefore, indicated '去' as a completed action (went/ have gone to)

In "你去商店买什么衣服了？" 了 is mostly treated as a final particle, therefore may not clearly indicate what action is completed

  "What clothes did you buy at the store?"

If you want to mark the verb '买' (buy) as a completed action, you need to put the verb particle 了 after it.

  "你去商店[买了]什么衣服？" = You went to the store and [bought] what?

You can even add a final particle 了 at the end to emphasize the sentence --  "你去商店[买了]什么衣服了？"


Chinese equivalent of "I'm stealing that joke"

Right, the word "stealing" doesn't fit into Chinese culture that much. We would use "borrow" instead, although we are not give it back anyway. The words in Chinese are "借用一下"，literally means borrow and use for a little bit. (We use a little bit at the end to soften the sentence and be more polite)


The correct way to parse "就打赢了" in 是个很普通就打赢了的对手哦?

"是个很普通就打赢了的" is an adjectival phrase for "对手"

是 - is (verb)
个 - a (classifier for the noun 对手)
很普通就 (just easily) 打赢了(defeated)
的 (adjectival phrase marker)
对手- opponent [noun]

就 here means "just"
"打赢了的对手" = "defeated opponent"
"是个很普通(就)打赢了的对手" = "is (just) an easily defeated opponent"

'普通就' is short for '普通地打就' (just fight normally)
Other example of '就' functions as 'just':
一美元(就)卖了 = sold (just) for one dollar


First, as fefe said, this idiom should be “民以食为(wéi)天" and it comes from 《汉书·郦食其传》“王者以民为天，而民以食为天。” (biography of 郦食其 in the historical record of 汉 dynasty). That sentence means "People are the most important to an emperor, while foods are the most important to the people". Note that the correct pronunciation of the name is: lì yī jī
Why? Remember in ancient times, foods were not as sufficient as they are now (remember, even now some people in poverty are hungry all days), and foods are indispensable to the life.
Edit: More details
After reading that biography, I could explain more about the source. The context when 郦 spoke this was during the war time of 楚汉争霸, when he persuaded 刘邦 to occupy a city in which a lot of foods were stored. He spoke that to emphasize the importance of the foods (especially in the war time, if you don't have enough food supply, the soldiers won't fight for you, or even they would fight against you!)
Today, we usually use this proverb as an introduction sentence, when talking on the topic of foods. You would probably hear a sentence like this one from the host on the TV:

俗话说，“民以食为天”。今天，就让我给观众朋友们介绍几家以其特色菜闻名的餐馆吧。
It is popularly said that "foods are the most important to people". Now, please let me introduce you some restaurants famous for their featured dishes.


The expression can be a verb, meaning using a principle to handle all kinds of affairs.


吃啥啥不剩; 干啥啥不行.

Whatever (he) eats, (he) leaves over nothing; whatever (he) builds, (he) bungles everything. Used mostly on bureaucrats. When a hierarchical organization grows tall enough, it selects almost exclusively characters like this.


looks through Google Books and what not comes up with a few instances of danweis:

From Family to Market: Labor Allocation in Contemporary China

  This danwei-based income discrepancy worsened drastically during the reform years as the danweis acquired more autonomous authority in allocating financial

Globalisation and the Chinese City

  Similarly, 'commercial land' refers to the lots occupied by the danweis under the administration of the financial or commercial system (Huang 1997).

上海新城: 追寻蔓延都市里的社区和身份

  Danweis ('danwei' literally means 'work unit') were cooperative or state-run companies whose members lived and worked communally, and often practiced one ...

The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction

  15 The new Constitution banned all land transactions and land was allocated to danweis* free of charge.

I would totally go with a pluralized danweis for multiple danweis.


Chinese idiom for "tilt at windmills" or "fighting against windmills"

The closest I can find is 水中捞月 (shuǐ zhōng lāo yuè). From 汉典:

  到水中去捞月亮。比喻去做根本做不到的事情，只能白费力气。

Trying to scoop up the imaginary moon from its reflection in the water. That is, trying to do something in vain or making a futile effort.

If you want to emphasize on the physical effort, 以卵击石 (yǐ luǎn jī shí) might be better:

  拿蛋去碰石头。比喻不估计自己的力量，自取灭亡。

Using an egg to hit the stone. Overestimating one's ability and courting certain "death". The death here usually refers to failure.

I am not sure if you will be able to find an idiom that matches all the characteristics in the English idiom.


yes, it is 或者是.
From the meaning, 或 alone is alright here. 或者 and 或 means the same in Chinese.
Sometimes the choice between 或者 and 或 is related to the rhythm of sentence.

然後讓更多的德國人[pause here]或者是歐洲人[pause here]認識這個琵琶。

Both 更多的德國人 and 或者是歐洲人 are with six characters/syllables.
Another reason is a historical one. 或者 is commonly used in Classical Chinese as the start of a short sentence (complete or incomplete in English sense). 「或者是歐洲人」is treated as a short sentence.
If you want to dig a little bit deeper about 者, here is my explanation.
者 can accept anything before it, any word, any phrase. It is a marker referring to anything prepended to it.  You might perceive it as "one that". 或者 is "one that is alternative" or "alternative one" and it simply means "or".


Who said "he who is in a rush shall walk slowly"?

"he who is in a rush shall walk slowly” was translation of a Japanese proberbs,  and many of them came from Chinese literatures

The idiom 欲速則不達 (If you rush you are more likely not getting there)  came from 論語 and the writer was 子路.


What is this seal script character? (Character identified: 矦)

it should be treated as “侯” (u+4faf):
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=侯
a severely distorted version to fit a circle
actually, it’s “矦” (u+77e6), the right component of the “侯”


回
[6] (measure) time (as used to indicate number of occurrence)
[7] (measure) piece (as used for happenings or events)

回 is a measure word for event or occurrence ; 这回事 means "this (piece of) event" or "this (time of) occurrence"
Different between 回 and 件 as measure word is:

回 measure specific course of events (how many times it happens)

件 measure event as an unit (how many of it exists)

就是这一回事 = it is this occurrence
當沒有这回事 = pretend there is no such occurrence

~

就是这一件事 = It is this event
當沒有这件事 = pretend this event doesn't exist

We also say 这回战斗(This battle) or 这回会谈(this discussion) ; but not 这件战斗 or 这件会谈.


Is there a Chinese phrase equivalent to "difficult to eat"?

You could try: 吃起来很麻烦
I can't agree with the list of hard to eat foods!


We don't say 学生没来了. I think it's because 没 itself has already addressed the tense. 学生没(有)来 is The fact of students coming is non-existent, namely Students didn't come or Students haven't come. So, we don't need 了 and 学生没来 just does the trick.

However, when you use 不 for negation, either 学生不来 or 学生不来了 is correct but with different meanings. 学生不来 implies that students refused to come, 学生不来了 students won't come(the reason is unaddressed, it's factual rather than subjective/emotional).

Note: To translate "The student did not come", we should consider the context you put the sentence into. It could be simply 学生没来. But it's worth noting that Chinese isn't necessary to embrace the tense in a sentence and sometimes the tense is implied. We usually deduce the tense according to contexts.


Help me understand why 我艹你 means i f*** you?

艹 -> 草 -> 操 -> 肏 all with pinyin "cao"

They're all Internet variants on the same word that proliferated through use of computer IMEs. 肏 (the proper character) didn't show up on some earlier IMEs, so 操 was chosen as an alternative for it. From there, 草 became used because it is often the first option that shows up on an IME when people are typing quickly (as is often the case especially in online gaming). From there, 艹 was chosen as a form of self-censorship that is somewhat common on Chinese Internet media.

There are other variants such as 卧槽.


How do you translate "misalignment spacers"?

"High misalignment aluminum spacer" is named 高偏差铝垫片.

So, "misalignment spacer" is 偏差垫片.