Is there any evidence that 90% of characters are phono-semantic compounds?

It is actually not possible to provide an unambiguous statistic like this without either being ignorant of the complexity of character development, or pushing some kind of agenda. Victor Mair and John DeFrancis have been spouting this kind of idea for a long time, but I suspect that they've either (1) focused too much on lexicography and not nearly enough on paleography to make such a conclusion, or (2) wanting to blow up the significance of spoken language and diminish the role of written language in the history of a language's development.

In real life, characters are not cleanly divided into the liushu categories, and the classification is quite deficient to fully describe many characters. 90% seems like an overestimation, but one can actually arrive at this number by interpreting any character with any amount of history of involvement with phonetic components, no matter how slight, as a "phono-semantic compound". However, if someone follows this interpretation, it is misleading to use vocabulary from liushu (like phono-semantic compound) to describe these characters.

There are example of characters (e.g. 「源」, 「採」) being both compound ideograms and phono-semantic compounds, as categorised as a type of the latter, but there is rarely an obvious mention that it is a type of the former as well. There are also non-obvious cases; for example the characters「喪」and「鬱」, under an opaque interpretation, can both be described as "phono-semantic compounds" (and indeed have been in traditional sources):

「喪」had a history of development with phonetic components「桑」and「亡/亾」(see an answer I wrote at Japanese StackExchange, about halfway down), but note that「亡」also provides a semantic indicator;
「鬱」was originally a graphically simple compound ideogram, but became complexified over the years (see the Xiaoxuetang entry for a rough overview of the evolution).

Nobody recognises the phonetic components in these anymore, as they are either very rare components or have been graphically corrupted too much over the years, but they're categorised as "phono-semantic compounds" anyway. I personally find such a liberal interpretation as bordering on meaningless, as it is equally possible to provide a liberal interpretation of "pictogram", "ideogram", or "compound ideogram" to misleadingly inflate a statistic.


what do 形 and 便 mean and how can they combine to make the meaning "situation"?

If we look at MoE's definition of 形便, we get:

  形容地理形勢優良便利。

Google Translate tell us this means:

  Geographical situation is good and convenient

Basically you can think of 形便 as a mix of 形势 (situation) and 便利 (convenient).

Wiktionary also gives two English definitions:

  Noun
  advantages offered by terrain

  Adjective
  convenient (because of the location)

So is "situation" in there? Yeah, but it's buried in 形.


大小 means the seniority or generation.

沒大沒小/没大没小

謂不顧長幼之分。
Regardless of seniority or generation.

不顧長幼之分。形容欠缺禮數，不懂規矩。
Regardless of seniority or generation.
To describe a lack of propriety and ignorance of rules.

典故出處 Origin: 《Journey to the West》
明·吳承恩《西遊記》第23回：“好女婿呀！這等沒大沒小的，連丈母也都要了！”
Good son-in-law!
So impolite!
Even want your mother-in-law too.


What does 我知道 and 应该的 mean in this dialogue?

In this context:

我知道 means 我現在知道了 (now I know)
应该的 means 人與人之間互相幫忙是应该的 (people helping people is obligatory)

The one asked for information said "我(現在)知道(了)" to confirm he has received the information. If he just said "好，谢谢" (good, thank you), the one who gave him the information could not be sure that the information he gave was successfully passed along.
After someone thanking you, saying 不客气(you're welcome) is a polite respond. And that should be enough.
Adding "应该的" (it is a right thing to do) is to show humbleness.
Implying: My action is not a grace I grant you, but an moral obligation between common folks, no need to be too grateful


What was the writer going for with '酗逼'?

Literally, 酗 means drinking alcohol and getting drunk, 逼，force someone to do sth. I saw this word in some Classical Chinese text, but I don't think people use this word regularly. So, I suspect this could be typo.


What Hanzi-Latin hybrid characters exist?

If you consider only "official" characters encoded in the Unicode 12.1, as opposed to the Private Use Area (PUA) that you are referring to, or other unstandardized and humorous characters, then there doesn't seem to be any Latin-Hanzi hybrids. At all.

I carefully looked through Unicode 12.1 ranges for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese characters, specifically:

CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B – this document alone took me 3 days to process.
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension F
CJK Compatibility Ideographs
CJK Unified Ideographs

And noticed plenty of unusual and peculiar ideographs, like these:

But not a single character contains a Latin letter.

The closest to look like having a letter inside are these two. They have a stroke that looks precisely like a lowercase Greek alpha:


How did 黑鍋 "black wok" semantically shift to mean "blame for a crime"?

The Cantonese equivalent of 背黑鍋 is 替人孭鑊
鑊 is a slang for 'incident' e.g. 大鑊 (big wok = big incident). 孭鑊 (to carry the wok) means 'to take the responsibility/ blame (for an incident or mistake)' . "替人孭鑊" = "take blame for someone else" = "背黑鍋" in  Mandarin


Loan words borrowed from the middle/end of original word?

This article (p. 60-61) provided the reason 氡 (radon) is based on the latter syllable. In summary, this was the result of an argument between Chinese chemists appointed to element naming in the early 20th century. Those that argued radon should not be given a pronunciation similar to 鐳 (radium) so as to avoid confusion won. The lost faction argued  reflects the origin of radon from the alpha decay of radium better.

Wikipedia argues 砷 (arsenic) and 鋁 (aluminium) came from the second syllable of the English equivalent. 碘 (iodine) came from the third.

Another example I can think of is the Taiwanese translation of Al-Qaeda, 蓋達組織 (not a character per se). That is so because 'al-' is an Arabic definite article ('the') and Chinese does not have a grammatical equivalent, therefore omitted. However, the translation 阿爾蓋達組織 is still perfectly valid.


Hakka song "kam-thung sim": character approximation and translation required for a part

結時涯騙單儕 mean 都是我騙自己 in Chinese. It can be translated like "just deceiving myself". 結時 is just Hakka tone for speak out, not really a word in this song. You can translate the Chinese word that sentence in the YouTube video. That Chinese sentence can translate nearly
But 做麽死死等到老 is correct, not 卻還死心塌地. 做麽死死等到老 means 就這麼死死等到老. It can be translated like "waiting you persist until the end"

That last part that Hakka pinyin is..
"老豆七嘎mu'ooei勾敻里
試懂呀西雅翻來同起
萬其一單色在阿里
每日惦惦敻刀里"

That song is sung like 粵語 (Cantonese) a little bit. Maybe it's different how they speak Hakka in different countries.


How do you say "tape it" as in, "taping a package"?

To communicate the same generic sense as the English verb to tape, try 貼 (simplified: 贴), pinyin: tie1

Examples:

t: 可以幫我把它貼起來嗎?

s: 可以帮我把它贴起来吗?

e: Can you help me tape it up?

appropriate for situations such as sealing a package like a present for someone
"tape that shut"

t: 我貼好了

s: 我贴好了

e: I finished taping

for example after applying duct tape to repair a hole in an air duct, you can say this

Machine translation such as Google is still somewhat hit-and-miss, I'm sure you have come across translation fails that make you wonder Did they use Google Translate?. Better to use machine translation as a last resort when no native language speaker is available.


What is the difference between 这类 and 这种?

种类 (n): 'kind, sort, kind, species'

  种 as a noun means carries the meaning of 'seed'

种: things came from the same origin and divert slightly, but still belong to the same kind nonetheless.

For example, knife and sword are both a kind(种) of cold weapon because 'created to be a cold weapon' is their origin; Football and basketball are both a kind of a ball sport because 'created to be a ball sport' is their origin.

  类 as a verb carries the meaning of 'to classify'

类: things that's being classified into the same sort, type or kind based on similar origin, feature,  function or other qualities

For example, knife and sword are both a kind/ class/ type(类) of cold weapon ; Horse and cow are both a kind of cattle; Football and basketball are both a kind of ball sport. (we classify them based on their similarity)


There is an equivalent in another perspective, and that is

三分钟热度

which refers to a person who has a passion that quickly dies off, like

他对学二胡就是三分钟热度


天 in 那天 refers to day, so 高考那天 means the day of 高考.

天 could refer to sky too, such as 高考的天 (and 高考之天), which means the sky of 高考 and doesn't make sense. (It's same for 那高考的天, which could be literally translated as that sky of 高考.)


阿格瑞斯 is seemingly a transliteration of "Aceras"
'Aceras' is a genus of orchid
This 阿格瑞斯 company in Shenzhen specialized in air quality detection and solution since 2003


I think that a lot of these phenomenons that you are describing among the different questions you’ve asked recently and especially this one, have something to do with:

连读

This is similar to a liaison in linguistics. I’m not sure if this is, in actual fact, the correct term or not, but it is at least what a layman might call it.

This is a particularly northern way to speak. Some examples include:

意思 = yisss / here 思 has its /s/ sound merged right into the of “yi”
认识 = rensh / almost sounds like the English “wrench,” again the /i/ gets obliterated

I asked a similar question before here:
Where can I find a list of (acceptable) 连读 words?
You can have a look and see if it helps you any.


phrase for "It happened just as you finished talking about it"

In Cantonese, it is "話口未完" wa6 hau2 mei6 yun4.

In Mandarin, perhaps "話還沒說完”，hua4 hai2 mei2 shuo1 wan2, but then it is five syllable, not four.


Does 外地人 include those who were born outside but grew up inside?

Different people may take this differently. Based on my observation, from a traditional Shanghainese perspective, the criteria of 上海本地人 are:

户口 is registered in Shanghai.
Live in Shanghai starting from the very early ages.
Able to communicate in Shanghai dialect.
Understand the tradition of Shanghai.
Your parents are Shanghainese (this criteria may not be that strict. )

It sounds bias, but that's the reality I think.


挒 is defined in Grand Ricci as:

  liè
  3 (Arts mart.) Se fendre; utiliser les deux forces opposées pour bloquer ou déséquilibrer l’adversaire.

Which Google translates as:

  3 (Arts mart.) Split; use the two opposing forces to block or unbalance the opponent.

Arts mart. should probably just be switched to martial arts.

掤 is defined in Grand Ricci as:

  bīng
  2 (Arts mart.) Mouvement des bras pr repousser l’adversaire ds la direction d’où il vient.

Which Google translates as:

  2 (Arts mart.) Movement of the arms to repel the opponent in the direction from which he has come.


What's the difference between 不停 and 不斷？

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


What's the difference between 大哥 and 大哥哥?

Referring someone as 大哥哥 (big brother) to a kid is not unlike referring a "狗" (dog) as "狗狗" (doggy) to a child. It is a kind of 'baby/ kid talk'

大哥 is a proper term for "big brother". Just like in English, depend on context, 大哥 (big brother) can mean your own elder brother, your lover, a stranger who is older than you or about  the same age as you and so on


I prefer X to Y can be translated as:

我喜欢X甚于Y
比起Y来，我更加喜欢X
我喜欢X的程度要超过Y
我喜欢Y，更加喜欢X

So,

  I prefer eating fried rice over eating fried chicken. 我喜欢炒饭胜过炸鸡


How can I say basic phrases "Do you mind if I speak in Chinese?" "Feel free to correct me" "How do you say (X) in Chinese?"

Do you mind if I speak in Chinese?

Technically this could be translated to e.g.:

我说汉语，你不介意吗？
Wǒ shuō hànyǔ, nǐ bù jièyì ma?

This literally means "I speak Chinese, you not mind?"  However, a beginner will likely need a lot of study before being able to pull this off.  Far simpler is "Let's speak Chinese":

我们说汉语吧。  [Let's speak Chinese.]
Wǒmen shuō hànyǔ ba.

Next:

Feel free to correct me

I don't know how to say this off the top of my head, and I've been studying Chinese for years.  After a bit of Baidu-ing, this seems close:

随时地纠正我说的。 [Correct what I say at any time.]
Suíshí dì jiūzhèng wǒ shuō de.

I changed the meaning to "Feel free to correct what I say" (so it excludes e.g. "correct me" in the sense of e.g. correcting posture, mannerisms).  In any case, it's going to sound like English translated into Chinese, and not real Chinese, and will likely just result in blank stares.  More natural is:

请指出我的错误。 [Please point out my mistakes.]
Qǐng zhǐchū wǒ de cuòwù.

(If we Baidu search for 指出我的错误, we can see it's used.)  Or to be a bit more precise:

请指出我说的任何错误。 [Please point out any mistakes in what I say.]
Qǐng zhǐchū wǒ shuō de rènhé cuòwù.

Finally:

How do you say (X) in Chinese?

There are many possibilities, such as:

你怎么说"Australia"？  [How do you say "Australia"?]
Nǐ zěnme shuō “Australia”?
"Australia"汉语怎么说?  [How do you say "Australia" in Chinese?]
"Australia" hànyǔ zěnme shuō?
这个用汉语怎么说?  [How do you say this in Chinese?]
Zhège yòng hànyǔ zěnme shuō?


有时做我想做的事其实对自己的前途有利 would perhaps do. Although you could say "做的东西", it is probably far more common to say "做的事".


My dictionary shows 说 is both shuì and shuō

Yes, it's correct.
shui4 说客 说士 lobbyist 说服 persuade 说导 enlighten etc.
However considering that many people today mix them up In pronunciation, 说 is supposed to be pronouned as shuo1 In both meanings, according to the latest edition of 《现代汉语词典》, with many other pronunciation adjustments as well.
The whole thing is controversial. Highly educated people refuse to succumb to the mispronunciation, though so prevalent nowadays.


虚荣 is a noun as well, meaning vanity. Now it's easy to get what 爱慕虚荣 means -- pursuing superficial things. 爱慕虚荣 sounds more literary. When referring to the character of a person, it is fine to say both 她是一个爱慕虚荣的人 and 她是一个虚荣的人. Both are common. The choice of the word also depends on the actual construction of the sentence. If there are other two-character words used in parallel, such as "他虚荣,自负,贪婪", in which you wouldn't want to use 爱慕虚荣 because it'll break the (sort of) rhythm of the sentence.


背会 and 会背 are not the same.

背会 verb + result, memorize/recite it until you know it (by heart)

会背 auxiliary verb + verb, able to recite from memory

我还没背会这篇文章。

I still have not learned this essay by heart yet.

今天不背会这篇课文就不回家。

I won't go home until I've learned this text by heart today.


How is this effect achieved for Chinese characters?

This has nothing to do with Chinese and can be done with any characters. This is simply a Unicode "effect".

a⃣b⃣c⃣

Simply add Unicode character U+20E3 after the one you want to be enclosed.

https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/20e3/browsertest.htm


Function of「果」in (folk, written) Cantonese?

Here, 果 is just an alternative representation of go2 (meaning that, more commonly written as 嗰, functioning similarly to Mandarin 那), since some variations of Cantonese pronounce Jyutping kw- and gw- as k- and g- (notably under the influence of phonetic changes known as 懶音).


When using 尽管 (jǐnguǎn) as "feel free to" in e.g. 你想看电影就尽管看吧, do we need the 你, 就, and/or 吧?

Some examples can be found in Chinese Grammar Wiki：

  大家 有 话 尽管 说 。
  Feel free to talk if you have anything to say.
  有 什么 问题 尽管 问 。
  Feel free to ask if you have any questions.
  有 什么 事 尽管 找 我 。
  Feel free to ask me for help if you need anything.
  这些 饮料 是 免费 的 ， 尽管 喝 。
  Feel free to have these drinks. They are all free of charge.
  想 吃 什么 尽管 点 ， 我 请客 。
  Feel free to order anything you want. I'm buying.

And to answer your questions:

  do I always need to use it with 你

No. You can say: 让他有问题尽管问我. And from the example you can see that it can also used with some other pronouns, or with the subject omitted.

  can I omit 就

Not in your example sentence, but it can be used without 就. See the examples above.

  can I omit 吧

Yes. And "吧" can be omitted from your example sentence.


Does 周末那两天 means both Sunday and Saturday?

Looks like this:

周末 Weekend
那 that/those
两天 2 days
他看电视 he watches telly.


匙 http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/371/
[粵] ci4 | [國] chi2 : spoon
[粵] si4 | [國] shi5 : key

When '匙' means 'spoon', it is read as /chi2/ in Mandarin
When '匙' means 'key', it is read as /shi5/ in Mandarin
It doesn't matter it is by itself or in a compound word
There are other examples of single character that have more than one meaning and pronounced differently for each meaning.  樂 is one of them. When 樂 means 'joy' it is read as /le4/; When 樂 means 'music' it is read as /yue4/


What is the difference between 退欧 and 脱欧?

they are just translation of brexit.

"退歐" is 退出 + 歐盟 (eu)

"脫歐" is 脫離 + 歐盟 (eu).

"退歐" & "脫歐" like coke & pepsi, imo, they taste similar, it's hard to say which one is better :)


which sounds more natural? 我今天已经把猫食放了 or 我已经今天把猫食放了

The first one is definitely natural, and moreover, the second is not only unnatural, it is not grammatically correct.

You would put 已经 in front of a time period when an action is happening, for example

  我已经三年没回家了

However, in your sentence, 今天 is the time point when you did something, therefore you would like to put 已经 after it.

For your subsidiary question, it is still the first one that is correct, which is

  我今天已经把猫食给放了


What is the difference between 课 and 班级?

班级 is a group of students who started school in the same year and participate in classes together, it's the students themselves.

课 is a unit of the curriculum, that is held by a teacher, professor and is attended by the students.


Thanks a lot for your help! I thought I should post the final version of the notice here. Cheers

聘用廣東話教師
本人正在學習廣東話並且需要一位教師。如果你對廣東話有一定的認識以及懂得教學的話，敬請聯絡本人。
本人願意付學費。要求教師有基本英文或羅馬尼亞語的知識。如果閣下希望在這兩種語言得到幫助，本人也可以提供幫助。
本人聯絡電話:xxx
本人聯絡電郵:xxx


Why are you digging up such old questions? That was nearly 4 years ago! What a pity my Chinese has not improved in all that time! Pleco is none too good. My advice: first, ask your Chinese friends. Also try Hanping Chinese Dictionary Pro.

这是 ....， 更是 .... this is ..... , but it is also .....

现在，
Nowadays
中国网民总数已经超过美国人口总数，
China's total number of Internet users is more than the population of America,
但美国网购人数占其全部人口的75%，
but America's online shopping users make up 75% of America's population,
中国则只有25%左右，
whereas China's online shopping users only make up about 25% (of China's population)
而且，
moreover,
中国网购消费者年均消费额仅为美国消费者的1/5。
China's online consumers' annual average spending only represents about one fifth of America's online consumer spending.
于刚认为，这是差距， 更是中国电子商务的潜力。
Yu Gang believes, this is a (big) disparity, but it is also China's e-commerce (development) potential.


Comparative Sentences (比较句：A没有B) - Is the grammar of the following combined sentence correct?

The comparison is between [the father's cell phone] and [the brother's cell phone]
爸爸的手机没有哥哥贵 would mean "my father's cell phone is not as expensive as my brother"
Either "爸爸的手机没有哥哥的手机贵" or "爸爸的手机没有哥哥的贵" would be correct


What is the difference between 讯息 and 消息 and 信息?

China
Taiwan

text message
短信
簡訊

multimedia message
彩信
多媒體訊息

WeChat, common in China
微信（消息 xiāoxi）
微信（消息 xùnxí）

Line, common in Taiwan
Line（消息 xiāoxi）
Line（訊息 xùnxí）

iMessage
e.g., 我收到一条 iMessage（消息）和一条 WhatsApp（消息）。
e.g., 我收到一條 iMessage （訊息）和一條 WhatsApp （訊息）。

The content in brackets can be omitted.


What does the Chinese text on this card say?

观音坐莲 (Goddess sitting on lotus leaves)

观音 (Guanyin) is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy

老汉推车 (old man pushing cart)

Just search Google image and you can find out what kind of sex positions 观音坐莲 and 老汉推车 are


What's the difference between 囚犯, 囚徒, 犯人 and 囚 and how does it affect a sentence?

囚犯, this word is the ancient Chinese language, and the usage scenario is usually in ancient China. This word is used to refer to those who have been caught and convicted

囚徒, the word is also an ancient Chinese language, used to refer to people who are caught and imprisoned. These people do not necessarily violate the law, but are imprisoned for certain reasons (for example, these people are suspected of committing crimes) If you are caught, you will become a 囚徒 if you are locked up

犯人, this word appears more in modern Chinese language. This term is used to refer to those who have violated the law and have been sentenced by the court to the penalty.

囚 can act as an action to express detention, detention, etc. For example, there is a word in Chinese that is "囚禁", which means that detention is held.
囚 can also be used as nouns to refer to places such as prisons with detention functions. For example, there is a word "囚牢" in Chinese, which means prison, which is a noun.
In addition, 囚 can also be used as adjectives to indicate a restricted state.


Which one to use: 搞笑 vs. 攪笑 and 搞亂 vs 攪亂?

The two words have different meanings

搞 is to do something in a very generic sense, with mostly no attached meaning. 攪 is also to do something, but it implies making a mess and sometimes with the intent to do so. 攪 have another meaning as mixing.

In particular cases, 搞笑 is used in mandarin but not 攪笑.

搞亂 and 攪亂 both means to mess up, but 攪亂 implies the entity who does so have the intent, whereas 搞亂 have no such implication.

攪局 means to make the make a mess out of the scenario, but 搞局 is "do the scenario" which doesn't make sense.

So no, they are not interchangeable.


In spoken language, northerners do say 一点点儿 or 一点儿点儿 sometimes, but not all the time, it depends on the situation. It is not wrong to say those words with erhua.

However, I don't encourage Chinese language learners to learn them because

it is not really that important
it doesn't really change the meaning
it is hard for learners to say them in a natural way
you don't have to sound like a northerner.

I believe correctness is more important and sounding natural.


It all depends on the context. The readers would know which meaning of 让 you are referring to, by having the information of the activity is wanted or unwanted, and decide 让 means "make" or "let"

In most case, eating apple is something you like to do, therefore, "让" in "我父母让我吃苹果" should be interpreted as  "let" unless you specify you hate apple

For example: "我父母让我吃苹果，我就假裝牙痛" - "Whenever my parent make me eat apple, I would pretend to have a toothache."

If you need to make excuse to avoid eating apple, the readers would know you don't like apple and decide "让" means "make" instead of "let"

Similarly:  "我父母(終於肯)让我吃苹果" - "My parent (finally agree to) let me eat apple"

From the words "finally agree to" we know you don't get to eat apple often or it has been a long time since you had one. We can confidently presume  "让" here means "let"


How do I translate a definition for inheritance (computer science)?

继承实现了代码的重用，即相关的类的相同行为被实现一次，不同的行为被单独实现。


Is there a way to translate terms related to the family?

you may want to look at the English translation of the greatest Chinese family novel of them all - Story of the Stone (aka 紅樓夢) - for a sense of what kind of compromises can be made in English without at all compromising fidelity to original, while avoiding the horrors that attend peppering novels with footnotes.

You would probably never want to use personal names instead of titles unless it was so in the original. However it probably is acceptable to go with "Aunt" instead of "paternal/maternal aunt", for example, in English unless it would somehow be impossible to figure out the more precise relationship from context in the novel. Meimei (non-literal variety) are harder- since theres more intimacy implied maybe it would be ok to switch to personal names.

As for interpreting - good luck. I have a hard time remembering one word for cousin in Chinese, let alone four or five.:P


What is the idea behind creation of a compound word - 处决?

'处' in '处决' means "to sentence/ to put to"

The basic meaning of the verb '处' is 'to place', and 'to sentence' is an extended meaning.

"处以極刑" = "to place someone in the situation of receive capital punishment"= "to sentence someone to capital punishment"

  '决' in '处决' means "to execute"

The basic meaning of the verb '决' is 'to determine' and 'to execute' is an extended meaning.

to determine-->  to put an end to--> to put to death

  处决 as a compound word is a verb means 1.to decide a matter 2. to execute/ to put to death

Examples:

公司上下事情由他全權處決-  He alone decides matters on all affairs of the company
處決某人 - Execute someone.


Character Gaps On Comic Conversation : 6

partial answer： pane ３：咔 [kā]，pane ４ 我頭（头）一次吃这種（种）東(东)西 pane ５： 谢谢你的招待


Asking "which language do you speak?" on the phone

According to Wikipedia:Chinese language

  Chinese Listeni/tʃaɪˈniːz/ (汉语 / 漢語; Hànyǔ or 中文; Zhōngwén) is a group of related but in many cases mutually unintelligible language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family

So technically, Chinese is not one language but a group of them and asking "which language, Cantonese or Mandarin?" is correct.

But when people say "I speak Chinese", it really means "I can speak one of the languages of China" -- it could be Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese or other dialects.

So maybe a better way to ask is: "Do you speak any Chinese language?" And after they confirms, you clarify by asking: 国语吗？ or 普通话吗？ ("Is it Mandarin?") Most would say yes even if they speak more dialects.

I do not think asking where they are from or what dialect they speak is a good idea. Because you would get so many different answers that add more confusion.


What is a good English translation of 土豪?

nouveau riche
The Free Dictionary:

One who has recently become rich, especially one who flaunts newly acquired wealth.

(often plural) a person who has acquired wealth recently and is regarded as vulgarly ostentatious or lacking in social graces

adj

of or characteristic of the nouveaux riches

I believe 土豪 originates from 土豪金, but I could be wrong. I'll update later.


The image is quite blurry but I think it says 铁铸, which are simplified Chinese characters meaning cast iron.


the title is “君子之風” (roughly, the demeanor of gentleman)

the next column is “于右任題” (written by mr 于), an important figure in last century)

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

the seal below this column is “右任”

右 is in the form of 又-手

<
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=右>

the bottom left characters are “縱材”, with the seal “縱材書畫”

have fun :)


Are there distinctions between the various terms for "Confucius" (孔子, 孔丘, 仲尼)?

First you need to know about how people were named at that time. Back then one's name had three parts:

姓 (family name), 名 (given name), 字(also given name, but doesn't exist today)

孔 was his 姓, 丘 was his 名, and 仲尼 was his 字.

I don't need to explain the family name much. As for 名 and 字, the difference is that 字 is more formal than 名. And one often calls himself by 名 to show modesty and calls the one he is talking to or mentioning by 字 to show respect.

Finally, "子" is a suffix after the family name to mention someone who is well-respected (for example, a teacher, a well-educated person, etc., and Confucius was both and more).


Baidu says:

海报这一名称，最早起源于上海。旧时，海报是用于戏剧、电影等演出或球赛等活动的招帖。上海的人通常把职业性的戏剧演出称为“海”，而把从事职业性戏剧的表演称为“下海”。作为剧目演出信息的具有宣传性的招徕顾客性的张贴物，也许是因为这个，人们便把它叫做“海报”。

Which means, if I summarise:
The word originated in Shanghai, where people referred to professional theatrical productions as "海". Hence "海报"


From  a previously asked question What does the second "幅” mean in the following sentence?

  一幅幅 is short for 一幅又一幅 or 一幅接一幅 (one after another)

  "一幅幅美丽的山水画" means "one beautiful landscape painting after another'

  'One after another' can describe 'a group of things or people at one time' or 'one individual after another individual across time or distance'

"指着识字课本的(一幅)(图画)问丈夫" =  "points at (a) (picture) in the literacy book and asks her husband.
"指着识字课本的(一幅幅 图画)问丈夫" =  "points at (one picture after another) in the literacy book, and asks her husband."

Update:

There are additional rules about reduplicated classifiers I want to make clear.

一幅幅图画 does mean 'one picture after another' but that's when the object is not confined by boundaries; When the object is confined by boundaries, the reduplicated classifiers indicates 'each and everyone'

Example:

'一位位英雄' = 'one hero after another'

'在这个大厅里的一位位英雄' = 'each and every hero in this hall' (the objects are confined by boundaries within this hall'

'一滴滴雨点' = 'one raindrop after another'

'在那片叶子上的一滴滴雨点' = 'each and every raindrop on that leaf' (the objects are confined by boundaries within that leaf'

In '指着识字课本的一幅幅图画' , '课本的一幅幅图画' should indicate 'each and every picture', but the verb '指着' (pointing at) indicates an action that can only be done one at a time, therefore, it is clear that the sentence means pointing at one picture after another.

For the same reason, '指着大厅里的一位位英雄' would mean 'pointing at one hero after another in the hall'

  is this rule applicable to all 量词?

The answer is no. We use classifiers because most of them roughly describe the shape, size and form of the object. 一片雲, 一團雲 give us the idea of what form of cloud we are talking about; 一個橙, 一籃橙 give us the idea of what form of orange we are talking about.

However, some classifiers do not describe the shape, size and form of the object. One good example is '名' . We do not say '一名名好漢' because 一名(a name of) doesn't describe the shape, size and form of a human, it is too abstract to be associated with a vivid image of a man.


事 can also be a verb  for 'to serve; to work for' e.g. 忠臣不事二主 (a loyal vassal does not serve/ work for two masters)
Since 从 itself has many different meanings, just say 从 is not specific enough. Adding a similar verb 事 and form the compound word 从事 make it a specific term for 'to engage in' (a field/ industry)
从政 = to undertake a political career
从商 = to engage in the business world
从影 = to work in the films industry (refers to the on-screen personnel only )
从軍 = to join/ to serve the military

从 - engage; join

事 - serve; work for

从事 = to engage in (a field/ industry)

Example:
从事环保工作 - Engage in environmental protection work
从事出入口行业 - Engage in the import and export industry


Etymology of phrases 靜雞雞 and 靜靜雞. Are both correct, and is there any difference in meaning?

Both 靜雞雞 and 靜靜雞 means 'quietly' and/or 'stealthily'
The minor difference are on the emphasis

靜雞雞 emphasize on the 'stealthily' part
靜雞雞喺外面收埋個二奶 = "quietly and stealthily hiding a mistress outside" (Since the main point is the secrecy, the 'stealthily' aspect is more prominent than the 'quietly' aspect)

~

靜靜雞 emphasize on the 'quietly' part
e.g. 靜靜雞企埋一邊 = "quietly and stealthily step aside" (Since everyone can see you step aside, it is not very stealthily, therefore, the 'quietly' aspect is more prominent than the 'stealthily' aspect

~

靜靜雞喺外面收埋個二奶 would emphasize on the 'keep quite' aspect
靜雞雞企埋一邊 would emphasize on the 'inconspicuous manner' aspect

靜雞雞 is listed in the Cantonese dictionary CantoDict

靜靜雞 is not listed. It seems to be a variant of 靜雞雞 by popularity (enough people say 靜靜雞  instead of 靜雞雞 made it a legit phrase)

Edit:
Base on some Cantonese coined unique reduplicated adjective, I think 靜雞雞 is the standard one
儍更更 (adj)
烏啄啄 (adj)
懵盛盛 (adj)
黑麻麻 (adj)
白雪雪 (adj)
The common form of reduplication that both Cantonese and Mandarin use:
靜 (adj) --> 靜靜 (adj); 靜靜噉/ 靜靜地 (adv)
好 (adj) --> 好好 (adj); 好好噉/ 好好地 (adv)

I believe 靜靜雞 came from mixing of 靜靜噉 and 靜雞雞


Nouns where the negative demands a different verb

我對明星一點興趣都不感

Your problem is not that verb itself, but the word order.
The correct order is: 我對明星一點 都不感興趣.

Hope this could help you.


The reason that you can't find is simple:  Wubi is not popular anymore.  It was created specially for a group of elders, your grandparents generation whereas they are good in writing but very bad in standard pronunciation be it Pinyin or 注音 (Zhuyin) and too old to memorize Cangjie (仓颉).  It totally disappeared when hand writing using touch screen came out.  I am 71 now.  I never used it.  With 双拼 and 模糊拼音 functions created, it is even less efficient in input.


Learning Chinese using traditional characters

Learning the characters is mostly a matter of memorization. You will need to learn a lot of characters in the most efficient way possible. Textbooks are not good for this. Using a spaced repetition system is normally the best method. A free spaced repetition program is Anki (http://ankisrs.net). You can find "decks" of traditional characters within Anki to start learning.

A pay version of Anki that lets you write the characters stroke by stroke is Skritter. I personally like Skritter and have been using it for several years. I find writing out the character helps me to remember it.

To supplement the learning of characters you are going to want to get some form of grammar textbook. I like Ross's "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar."


For which senses of simplified 制 would I use the traditional form 製?

Historically they were the same character. Later the meanings split, 製 is usually the verb meaning to make, and 制 the noun meaning the system, or more abstract things.

Uniform should be 制服, because it means the clothing following certain rules/system. 製服 could be literally interpreted as clothing-making. Regarding the meaning of overpower, it must be 制服.


What is this written on several buildings in red paint?

外檐空裂

请勿停靠

注意安全

“ the outer eaves are missing and broken

please not park alongside

watch out for safety”


How to translate a non-recreational but activism/protest "campout"?

激進分子怕警詧在蔡英文五月二十日的總統就職一周年之前搗毀他們的露營抗議活動。


What is the difference between 鸡蛋 and 鸟蛋?

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

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

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


What is the difference between zhèng and zhēng in 挣?

I think you already got the point.

  挣 zhēng: see 掙扎｜挣扎
  挣 zhèng: to struggle to get free / to strive to acquire / to make (money)

挣 will only be pronounced as 'zhēng' in 挣扎 and 'zhèng' for the rest.


What is the line between 新派 and X普 in topolects?

The line varies. But it is generally generational, where it intersects with culture.

Even in the West, generational divisions (Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials) are fairly ingrained. These come from common temporo-cultural reference points, where they have intersected with the influence of these factors into daily life.

Think of the introduction of the motor car, domestic electricity, television and mass media, and the Internet - all life-changing technologies that caused huge divergence in lifestyle. Differences in morality, in politics; these also influence the way people speak.

In the linguistic ecology of Chinese topolect-speaking people, similarly large changes have occurred. But they can vary, and I would say there is much less sociological study asking how and why the variation happens.

A specific example: the 《福清方言研究》 published in 1993 explicitly states:

  老派人数少，一般是七十岁以上的老人。新派人数多，一般是六十岁以下的人。六十至七十之间的人有的是老派口音，有的是新派口音，有的兼而有之，很难用具体的岁数作为分界。

As defined by this study of the topolect of Fuqing, in Fujian, these 老派ers would have been born in the 1920s or before, whereas the 新派ers in the 1930s or after. What that local change corresponds to, I am not entirely sure (I'd imagine it was to do with early 20th century urbanisation, mass migration, or possibly the introduction of Mandarin-based education, but I don't know the history well enough).


Most common/well known translation (transliteration) of “pizza” in Chinese?

批萨 and 匹萨 are the most common ones.

比萨 only used to reference the tower - Leaning Tower of Pisa.


计算机 is often used for computer in written language in mainland China. And 电脑 usually means Desktop computer in oral language.
Calculator is 计算器 not 计算机 just as @StarCub said.
And for laptop, it's 手提电脑, 笔记本电脑, or just called 笔记本(not the notebook here).
Usually, 超级计算机 is used for supercomputer. But generally speaking, supercomputer often has its own name, just like 天河一号(Thiahe-1A).


泛 means "extensive"
犯 means "commit (crime/ mistake)"
The correct term is 犯賤

犯賤
masochistic; sucker; asking for pain and suffering

Here is a discussion on the topic


What's the difference between 拍照 (pāizhào) and 照相 (zhàoxiàng) which both mean "to take a photo"?

The two terms have the same meaning of "take photograph" in modern Chinese, they just describe the same action differently.

'照' in '照相' refers to 'reflect with mirror' and 相 is short for 相片 (portrait/ photograph). Taking photograph with early cameras required the subject to stand still for few minutes, facing the lens like facing a mirror; even with modern cameras, the subject still need to stand still in front of the camera lens to have his or her picture taken.
'拍' in '拍照' refers to the 'clicking' sound of the camera. and '照' is short for '照片' (photograph). when you push the camera button, the shutter would open and shut and make a 'clicking' sound.

(it might also refers to the loud flashing sound the early camera flashlight made)

照相 probably was coined before 拍照. In early days of cameras, the only way to take a photograph of yourself is  go to 照相館-- We never heard of '拍照館' And taking picture of a person or a family was the sole function of 照相館.

Also, we have 禁止拍照 signs but not 禁止照相 signs. 禁止拍照 mainly targeted handheld cameras. With handheld cameras, we can take picture other than people, therefore, 拍照 can mean taking picture of people, scenery or object; While 照相 mainly means taking portrait of people.


Do more people use simplified or traditional Chinese worldwide?

China Mainland has 1.4 Billion population(and increasing), and the official language is Simplified Chinese.

According to the Washington Post, there are about 1.5 Billion Chinese native speakers, 50 Million non-native speakers. You can do the math.

Obviously, you can't find another 1.4 billion group of people use Tradition Chinese on the earth.


What semantic notions underlie "to think; to contemplate", with "but; however; nevertheless" with "only"?

Their lexical categories all differ!

That is common in Chinese, especially in Classical Chinese.

How did 3 semantically shift to 1, 2?

Sometimes the different meanings of a character are not evolved from the same origin. In ancient times, people often designated a character with a certain meaning merely for the reason that it shares the sound of the oral language of that meaning, and so is the case.
By the way, meaning 1 & 2 were fixed over 2200 years ago (before Qin Dynasty), and there are some other characters that is interchageable with 惟 under certain meanings (listed in bold font).
Let me list a relatively comprehensive entry of 惟（meanings still common in modern Chinese will be intalicized）：
Original meaning:
v.
维：凡思（to think），即浮泛之思，寻常之思。
e.g. 惟念圣意，谛听民声。
为：是（be）
e.g. 不变惟何？《天演论》
唯：顺遂，听从（to obey, to submit）
e.g. 惟惟诺诺=唯唯诺诺
希望，愿请（hope sb. to do sth.）
e.g. 万惟留心！《英烈传》
在于（lie in）
刑惟善察，谋惟善断。
adv.
唯，维：只有，单（only）
e.g. 惟吾德馨《陋室铭》
唯，维：发语词，希望（wish）
e.g. 先王无流连之乐，荒亡之行，惟君所行也。《孟子》
conj.
即使，虽然（even if，though）
e.g. 惟信亦为大王不如也。《史记》


but it appears to mean the sound a cow makes.

It seems wrong. See here:

  牛觸人，角箸橫木，所以告人也。
  如許說則告卽楅衡也。

[ The cow butts people, with ledger on the cow horn, so means 告人 (report to people).
As 许 said it is 楅衡 (the ledger tied on the cow horn to avoid the cow butting people. ]

Anyway, it seems to have nothing to do with "the sound a cow makes". So (also based on the sense of a native Chinese)

  Now I wonder does 告 still posess some of it's etymologycal
  connotation?

If you mean "the sound a cow makes", no.

  Does 告(to tell) sound vulgar to native speaker?

No, basically it's neutral.

  Are there words to insult someone using "Cow talking" analogy?

No.

  Does it have the connotation of "to fink" (to be an informator)?

Yes. Such as 告发, 密告, 告状.

  Or maybe it has something to do with LOUD talking just like cows
  always moo'ing loud?

No.


A better translation of 假作真时真亦假，无为有处有还无。

One of the quotes you give is from David Hawkes, published, translation. It goes as follows:

  Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true;
  Real becomes not-real where the unreal’s real.

You can also consider H. Bencraft Joly's, older, published, translation of the sentence looks like this:

  When falsehood stands for truth, truth likewise becomes false,
  Where naught be made to aught, aught changes into naught.

Gladys Yang and Yang Xianyi's translation:

  When false is taken for true, true becomes false;
  If non-being turn into being, being becomes non-being.


"I" (我) is the subject. It always go first
[I am playing tennis] is the main clause. You translated it as [我打网球], but it should be [我正在打网球] (you wrote "playing", not "play")
[in a red jacket] is the relative phrase. (giving additional information on how you are playing tennis) You translated it as [用红色的外套] is incorrect.

[用红色的外套] should be [穿着一件红色外套]

的 in 红色的 can be omitted

"a red jacket" is "一件红色的外套"

Put it together we get:

[我正在打网球]  [穿着一件红色外套]
[main clause] [relative phrase]

Unlike in English, relative phrase usually precede main clause in Chinese grammar.
The correct translation of "I am playing tennis in a red jacket." should be:

" 我正(穿着一件红色外套)打网球"
在 in 正在 can be omitted

It would be simpler if you wrote in present tense
"I play tennis in a red jacket" -->" 我 (穿着一件红色外套)打网球"
Edit:
Vegar Reitan wrote:

How do I know where to put the relative sentence?

You have to decide which verb phrase in a sentence is the main phrase- If you wrote:" I eat apple at home", You can see [eat apple] is the main action, [at home] is added info
The English sentence [ I eat apple (at home) ] would become [ I (at home) eat apple] [我(在家)吃苹果] in Chinese grammar
Vegar Reitan also wrote:

And how do you know that "的 in 红色的 can be omitted"?

One of the functions of '的' is being an adjectival particle that mark a phrase or clause before as an adjectival phrase or clause

The adjectival particle '的' in '红色的' can be omitted when it is followed by an object, because 红 or 红色 itself is an adjective, it doesn't require the adjectival particle '的' to function as an adjective.

Example: (红色的)外套 can be omitted to (红色)外套 or (红)外套

The adjectival particle '的' in '红色的' cannot be omitted when it is preceded by an object

Example: 这外套是(红色的) cannot be reducted to 这外套是(红色) or  这外套是(红)--  That would mean "This Jacket is red(n)"


这里 开了 家 医院。
Here opened a hospital.

They opened up a hospital here.

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


Do I necessarily have to use 第 when talking about a page number?

First, '书' in '打开书100页'(open book 100 pages) can be omitted

Yes, if you omitted '第' in '打开第100页'(open page 100) and wrote "打开100页", the sentence could be interpreted as " open one hundred pages". For this very reason, 第 cannot be omitted.


Simply try "中文字体 虚线体" in Google, you will find many results.

OK, here are some resources:
华康标楷虚线体
金梅美工虚线体

I tried a few, they are all traditional Chinese font type, can't find simplified Chinese version.


because in Traditional Chinese (the basis for cangjie) the 天 part is actually written like

|______
   |  /
___|___
  / \
 /   \

where the

|______
      /

parts give it the V (女) code


What examples highlight the distinction between 产生 and 生产, both meaning "to produce"?

生产 refers to human kind activities; i.e. to produce / manufacture / make / create (as the effect of human subject will).

产生 refers to natural activities; i.e. generate / come into being (as the effect of some kind process).

As a side note 生产 could mean parturition too.

As the examples you've showed,

  病毒是怎样产生的?
  导体中就会产生电流

Both 产生 are used for the context not containing subjective initiative, especially the intent of to make / create.

  操作人员对自己生产的产品要做到自检

生产 is used for the intent of human kind activities, i.e. manufactured by the operator.

  巧克力可用于生产时增加体力，红糖是产后补血之用

生产 means parturition here.


How can I get a list of all the characters containing the "flowing water" component that is in 益?

The top part of 「益」 is just a 「氺」 (水) rotated 90 degrees.
秦簡12.47睡虎地秦簡篆皿部說文解字東漢隸華山廟碑　楷
秦簡25.46睡虎地秦簡篆水部說文解字東漢隸郙閣頌　楷
This makes the top part of 「益」 just a variant of 「水」. Predictably, the character 「㳑」 is the variant with more standard components, although this character itself is not standard.

Normally, a search for a list like the one in the question would also incorporate everything containing 「水」, just like a search for everything containing 「水」 would normally include everything containing 「氵」.
If you only want characters containing an arbitrary component 「Ｘ」, in general, I would advise against going through an ideographic description sequence decomposition database like CHISE or Pleco's component search containing 「Ｘ」, at least not without some due diligence checking later. The results which turn up are very misleading if you're not careful. For example, the search for 「⿱䒑八」 in CHISE literally turns up everything which

contains regular script strokes which look like 「䒑」, an abbreviation for many things including 「艹」, on top of
a bunch of regular script strokes which look like 「八」

「水」, written sideways or not, does not contain 「䒑」 and/or 「八」. There are other  characters which contain the stroke sequence 「⿱䒑八」 like 「」, which is an abbreviation/corruption of 「檐」.

A cursory glance at some of the CHISE results shows that the number of encoded characters containing sideways 「水」 is quite limited. Apart from everything containing 「益」, that database lists

「」 (variant of 「滅」 where the 「水」 is shifted to the bottom and rotated sideways)

A few characters containing 「」 (variant of 「涉」 where the 「水」 is shifted below 「止」 and rotated sideways)

「」 (variant of 「瀕」)

「」


Google translation of English subtitles gives other Chinese words - what exactly was said, what dialect?

“获得感、幸福感、安全感” were the exact Mandarin words spoken by Xi Jinping. Google doesn’t necessarily translate based on context, and often translates word-for-word, garbling up the meaning of the entire sentence.


What's the Chinese equivalent of 将就? (成语)

You can use 不得已而求其次 or 将陋就简.

Both have the same meaning with 将就 or 勉强凑合.


In most Cantonese speakers I know, 廿 is still a colloquial item of vocabulary, replaced with 二十 in usual formal writing; but 廿 remains a very common alternative, for counting as well as enumerating. According to CantoDict, the pronunciation "a" is the most common. This is verified in my experience; the variant with "e" I've not heard this before myself, but I suppose it is possible. (What is written as -ia becoming -ie is something I've heard before).

It has always been perceived as a one-syllable word, with one tone (the 陽去 tone, realised as low and level in standard Cantonese, and noted as 6th tone in Yale and Jyutping). True "polysyllabic" characters do exist in Chinese, but 廿 is not traditionally one of them. The most well known is 囍, but there are more.

In Standard Cantonese, 卅 is saa1, whilst 卌 is sei3 (note 卌 is pronounced the same as 四 when alone). These are somewhat more common in Cantonese than in Mandarin; 卅 is used in colloquial speech referring to the 30th of the lunar month in the traditional calendar, especially in reference to the last day of the year, [Lunar] New Year's Eve, 年卅晚.

The pronunciations 卅呀 saa1-aa6 and 卌呀 sei3-aa6 have been written with 呀 on the end in CantoDict to represent that second lower syllable.

In Mandarin, there are 廿 niàn, 卅 sà and 卌 xì as very literary characters with restricted usage. 廿 is commonly seen in Chinese calendars, but not necessarily commonly pronounced as 廿 niàn, so in Mandarin it could be considered a polysyllabic character. This however is not the traditional method of pronouncing it. MDBG.net gives a few more set expressions with 廿. 卌 is even rarer. But both these characters, along with 廿, have a long pedigree: 卌 is present in the Guangyun.

Among the topolects that use 卅 regularly apart from Cantonese, we also have the Min Nan group and the Wu group (including Shanghainese). 卌 is even rarer, and I don't know if it's used in Wu; but Cantonese and Min Nan attest to its existence.

Note there's also 皕.


Does 好 + adjective with negative connotation reinforce the negative connotation or mitigate it?

For your question, 好无聊 is almost the same intention as 很无聊。

However, they are sightly different in expressing emotions.

好无聊 is a slight complaint with a potential effort of trying to make the situation less boring.

很无聊 is just a plain statement.


Is there a significant difference in meaning between "欢迎你到中国来" and "欢迎你来到中国"?

I am a native speaker but not language specialist, thanks for @Earth Engine awared that.

In my opinion (not from authoritative textbook), strictly speaking, B. "欢迎你到..." means you are not in the place... we welcome you to there; "欢迎你来到" means you are already there, we welcome you.

However, except very formal situation or someone who is extremely sensitive with language, most people in China will not care about the difference. In fact, I thought these two expressions are essentially the same in the beginning. It took me one minute to figure out there is a sutble difference.


How do I ecourage my spouse, in Mandarin, to fly free in her job, and assure here we are supporting her and welcoming her home

Update:
恭喜你找到梦寐以求的工作。我真为你感到高兴/自豪。努力去做吧。我永远支持你。
Congratulations on getting your dream job. I feel happy/proud for you. Go for it. I will always support you.

I guess your spouse may have obtained a position (职位) / job (工作) as a crew member (机组成员), such as

pilot 机长)
co-pilot (副驾驶)
cabin manager / flight purser 客舱经理 / 乘务长
flight attendant 空中乘务员 (空乘 / 乘务员)

加油！自由飞翔！我们在这里为您服务，始终支持您并欢迎您回家！

It's grammatically correct, but people don't normally say that.
我们在这里为您服务 is equivalent to "we're here to help" which is used in customer service rather than family.
始终支持您 also sounds like an expression in customers service.
您 is used in clerk to supervisor, store to customer, student to teacher. No need to 您 between spouse. For other situations in the family, it depends on their family consensus/tacit understanding.
You can say:

恭喜你被录用！太好了，你的梦想成真了（your dream comes true）。我期待看到你在蓝天翱翔（áoxiáng）的样子。


It is “澗声”, which means the sound of the mountain stream.


一会 vs 一下 vs 一时 vs 一时半会 vs 片刻

You would say

我要去小睡片刻 or 我要去小睡一会儿

Other expressions you have are not normally used.
You could also say

我要稍微睡一会儿

All the phrases you have can refer to a short interval of time in certain context, but they can have different meanings, 一下

一下，a short interval of time, for example, 灯一下又亮了
一下，once, for example, 你过去打他一下
一下，sudden, for example, 天一下就黑了

一时 has the following meanings

一时，a short interval of time, for example, 你别一时想不开
一时，a period of time, for example, 此一时彼一时
一时，at the same time, for example, 一时间，箭、弩都发射出去

And the others

一会，a short interval of time, for example, 我要出去一会
一时半会（儿），a short interval of time, for example, 他们一时半会儿还回不来
片刻，a short interval of time, for example, 请稍等片刻

I am only listing the common meanings and although they could have same meaning, the way you use them could be different and that is why I included the examples.

Adding 儿 after 一会 would not change its meaning, it just sounds more natural and is highly recommended. However, there is no such use of adding 儿 after 一下。


Can I use a rare character like 飂 in a name?

Q1: Could I use a character like 飂 for my name?

Yes. In fact, you can freely choose any character for your name. However, for whether it is a good Chinese name, there may be many criteria. The most important criteria are supposed to be:

Elegant meaning. 飂 is a good one, meaning gone with the wind and implying a noble, unsullied, lofty, and proud character of a person. One derivation of this character is in 道德經

  澹兮其若海， 飂兮若無止， 衆人皆有以， 而我獨頑似鄙。

Well, I'm not good at writing English poem ... the translation below is just a simple explanation line by line for the piece of 道德經 above:

  Being indifferent to fame and wealth, as floating on the sea;Being gone with the wind, as never heading for an end that can be seen.Everyone is too busy, for their own living;But just stubborn as me, keeping such an attitude like this!

I guess you can feel the feeling of 飂 now :)
Good and easy pronunciation. It depends on character combinations so I can't tell whether a name containing 飂 (liù or liáo) sounds good or not. But it's really a rare character so that most people would have to look up a dictionary before calling your name; and being even worse, 飂 has two kinds of pronunciation -- people would be confused for which one is your preference. This is unlike a Japanese name. As a character would have many sounds in Japanese, they often write down the phonetic symbol, i.e. Hiragana or Katakana, for each name that is intended to be read out in documents. Thus, in conclusion, although polyphonic characters are even sometimes (in fact not often) used by native Chinese speakers for their names, I don't recommend to use them.

Other criteria, like some superstitious rules (e.g. 姓名學), won't be introduced here. If you are interested in them, you can see the link for more information.

  Q2: Would a native speaker use a rare character like 飂 as name?

Yes. But it will be probably considered as you are showing off.

  Q3: What does a native speaker think seeing a name containing such a character? Is it simply rare? Or really strange?

Whether it is strange depends on character combinations. That is to say, only when seeing a full name, one can answer such a question :)


Adverbs of degree with reduplicated adjective phrases?

很 as an adverb (very) only applies to adjective, never noun

A reduplicated adjective emphasizes itself similar to adding "quite" (颇/相当)

A reduplicated adjective cannot also use "very" because a reduplicated adjective emphasizes itself, similar to adding the adverb "quite".
Example:

他很强壮 = He is (very strong)
强强壮壮的他 = He who is (quite strong)

We can describe a man "very strong" or "quite strong" but not at same time, because they are different degree of superlative. 很 (very) is stronger than 颇 (quite). Is he very strong or quite strong?
"他(很)(强强壮壮的)" translated into English would be "He is very quite strong", which is not grammatical.


Anyone know why cellphones are called 大哥大 in Taiwan?

According to one of the rumors, the first cellphone was used and introduced by Sammo Hung, which is the elder kung-fu brother of Jackie Chan. Since at that time Hong Kong entertainment was fairly respected in nearly the whole East and Southeast Asia, most people showed their respect to call Jackie Chan as 大哥 and his elder kung-fu brother Sammo Hung as 大哥大.

Then, clearly the cellphone being used by 大哥大 is 大哥大電話. However, after a while, most people simplified the usage and just used 大哥大 only.


They're the same organization in fact.

  中央军事委员会与中国共产党中央军事委员会事实上是同一机构两块牌子，不是合署办公。对武装力量发布的命令一般仅使用中国共产党中央军事委员会名义、或以中央军委的作为统称。与中华人民共和国国务院联合发布命令是使用中华人民共和国中央军事委员会的名义。

(中央军事委员会 and 中国共产党中央军事委员会 is the same organization with two plates in fact, but not merging work in one official. Orders to armed forces are usually issued under the name of 中国共产党中央军事委员会, or 中央军委 as the general name. When orders are jointly issued with 中华人民共和国国务院 (the State Council) the name of 中华人民共和国中央军事委员会 is used.)

See 中共中央军事委员会和中华人民共和国军事委员会有何区别


How do you say or write love yourself in Chinese?

you can just use the common phrase '自爱' (love oneself)

"做人要自爱" means "be a person, you have to love yourself" (imply cherish, respect and not dishonor yourself)


Describe or explaining the Engineering occupation

In general, people know what "工程师" means.
If you say "computer engineer", people will assume you are doing some programming work. If you can be more specific about what kind of engineering? It will explain everything.

For instance, computer hardware engineer, software engineer,network engineer and so on...


Writing Down Chinese Names In Correct Order

Chinese names are written (in Chinese) in the following order:
surname given name
In non-Chinese contexts, such as a database of mixed-nationality names, all names (Chinese or not) should follow the order given by the target language.
Taking one of the examples, Lu Xiaojun vs. Xiaojun Lu, the Chinese name order is Lu Xiaojun (surname, then given name), while an English name order would be Xiaojun Lu.

Note that, for three-syllable names like Lu Xiaojun, it is often easier to determine the words corresponding to the given name and surname. Two-syllable names (e.g. Li Ping vs Ping Li) are more difficult; we can make educated guesses (the surname in this case is probably more likely to be Li), but Chinese characters are necessary to confirm this.
If you expect that at least +90% of the names are in the correct order, you can make an inference for classifying the surname and given name words for the two-syllable names, based on the existing three-syllable names, but this is really just guesswork.


Are both 回了 and 回来了 correct responses to 你回天津了吗 (have you returned to Tianjin)?

回 = back; 来 = come; 去 = go
回来 = come back; 回去 = go back
回天津去了 = "have gone back to Tianjin"
回天津来了 = "have came back to Tianjin"

  你回天津了吗？

If the question is asked in 天津, that would mean it is actually asking "你回天津(来)了吗？ (have you came back to Tianjin?), then you can answer "回来了" (yes, I have came back) or simply "回了" [yes, I have (came back)]

If the question is asked anywhere else, that would mean it is actually asking "你回天津(去)了吗？ (have you gone back to Tianjin?) then you can answer "回去了" (yes, I have gone back) or simply "回了" [yes, I have (gone  back)]

In conclusion:

Depend on either you are in Tianjin or not,  "回了" could means "I had came back"(if you are in Tianjin)  or "I had gone back".(if you are not in Tianjin)


The 吗 is a modal to make the question more polite. Its also grammatically correct to say just 你要买什么? which directly translates as What do you want to buy? But it is a bit brusque.


What is the translation for terms associated with "predatory lending"?

see online dictionaries, iciba:predatory lending 掠夺性贷款 http://www.iciba.com/predatory%20lending find 2 examples sentences, predatory lender 掠夺性贷款人 victim of pred. lending 掠夺性贷款(的)受害人/者，for confirmation submit 掠夺性 to bkrs: 掠夺性贷款；高利贷 predatory credit practice

additional relevant vocabulary at https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8E%A0%E5%A4%BA%E6%80%A7%E8%B4%B7%E6%AC%BE https://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E6%8E%A0%E5%A4%BA%E6%80%A7%E8%B4%B7%E6%AC%BE


What is the formal/polite way to begin and end an email in Chinese?

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

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

For email,people tend to write simply and practicably。

Habitual formation。

example:

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

                                                       学生 Jacob  敬上
                                                       2015.04.10

example 2:

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

    敬请
 教安
                                                        授业  张三顿首
                                                        乙未 二月廿二


I quote from @dan from the comments: "Forward these two pieces of messages, you would get long-waited surprise". This may have nothing to do with the main story.

And I will also add some background which I guess would be relevant here:

Now, in China, in some (many) social media, like WeChat, Weibo, etc., there are always posts/articles that encourage a reader to re-post it. (I would treat most of such posts as spam though.) So you will often see a message like "you will get a reward if you re-post it twice" or something like that, which is unrelated to the content of the post. Most of the time the said reward/surprise in the message is not real (you will not get such reward/surprise even if you re-post). (And you may even see messages like "you will get cursed if you read but do not re-post".)

I do not know if this phenomenon also exists in other parts of the world.


低喝 here may be a shout but not aloud. 喝 is not only drink, but also shout. 低 here is about the voice


What does mean zhōngxing from ZTE in Chinese?

中兴通讯的前身是1985年由航天系统的691厂以及运兴香港电子等共同投资创办的“中兴半导体”。而“中兴”名字由来有二：一是因为691厂是中方企业，港资企业为运兴，各取一字，成为“中兴”；第二个更为重要的原因是“中兴”暗含中国兴旺的意思。这也正表达了当时创业者侯为贵寄望中兴通讯振兴民族通信产业的理想。后来，中兴通讯称谓先后经历了中兴维先通、中兴新的变化，但始终坚持“中兴”二字。如今，“中兴通讯，中国兴旺”已写入中兴通讯企业文化的第一条。

Source: ZTE official site

If you cannot read Chinese, you may refer to the following translations in my poor English:

There are two reasons why this company is called [中兴]:

ZTE is combined by two corporations: 中国航天691厂(CASC 691 Factory, a Chinese company) and 兴运 (Xing1 Yun4, a Hong Kong company). take one word from each company, we get[中] and [兴].
Like other users said, 中兴=中国兴盛=China's soaring.


Why does Chinese lack some level of abstraction in some idioms? (e.g. 兄弟姐妹)

Your question is a bit hard to answer because you can't say a word doesn't exist just because it's a combination of several related characters. This is how most words are made in Chinese. It would be like saying that you can't speak of psychology in a general term in English because you have to describe what it is every time (psychology = psyche + logia (study)).

Basically, 兄弟姐妹 is not really an enumeration, it's a word, just like 同学 is not a description but also a word. How these words are composed is mostly incidental (although it's often relatively logical and consistent).

To go back to your question, other examples of "enumeration-based" words I can think of are 夫妇 (couple), 父母 (parents)


Does 的话 in 这句常挂在嘴边上的话，便点点头答应了 create "If~" subclause?

No, it's not a if...then... structure here.

话 here is used as its literal meaning， words or sentence.

The main clause is actually 他想起了话. And the 话 he recalled was “在社会上混，什么都得尝试尝试”, which always hangs  on his mouth(implying he often says that sentence.)

  他想起了，<“在社会上混，什么都得尝试尝试”> {这句常挂在嘴边上的}话

So when that sentence came into his mind, 便点点头答应了 he nodded and agree to do it.


have a look of this topic: Word count in Classical Chinese vs English

now, be calm; please. the quoted wikipedia entry is, imo, unacceptable, in classical / literary chinese. so, your translation and comparison is, invalid. remember:

"garbage in, garbage out"

i assumed your understand the difference between classical chinese and literary chinese. the internet archive have books printed in chinese and english; that you might do a empirical research.

華英對照四書

註釋校正華英四書

james legge's english translation is quite good, you can depend on it. e.g.:

孟子　盡心上 chapter 6

  孟子曰．人不可以無恥．無恥之恥．無恥矣

mencius said, "a man may not be without shame. when one is ashamed of having been without shame, he will afterwards not have occasion for shame."

16 chinese words vs 26 english words.

孟子　盡心上 chapter 7

  孟子曰．恥之於人大矣．為機變之巧者．無所用恥焉．不恥不若人．何若人有

mencius said, "the sense of shame is to a man of great importance."

"those who form contrivances and versatile schemes distinguished for their artfulness, do not allow their sense of shame to come into action."

"when one differs from other men in not having this sense of shame, what will he have in common with them?"

30 chinese words vs 56 english words.

last,

  Is there a rule of thumb?

no. i don't think so.

ps, just curious, where and why students need to learn classical chinese in english?


List your good points.

Meaning instead of outright rejecting this person's offer, you say, "I already have such and such already," you get the picture. Emphasize that you are very well off, no need for gifts and such. So if someone offered a gift to you, you could say, "Thank you, but I have a lot of such and such." And the good ol' "I'm on a diet" works well on Chinese too :)


What is the best way to say "fresh baked cookie"?

The following information is provided for reference.

We use 剛出爐的 or 現烤的 for "fresh baked" in Taiwan.

Therefore, "fresh baked cookie" may be called as follows in Taiwan.
剛出爐的餅乾 ／ 現烤的餅乾
剛出爐的麵包 ／ 現烤的麵包
剛出爐的甜點 ／ 現做的甜點

It's very common to see these signs in Taiwan.
剛出爐的麵包
剛出爐的饅頭
剛出爐的包子
剛出爐的披薩


靈犀?

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

心有靈犀一點通

or, in the past, 紅線 + 月下老人

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

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

info added.

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

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

the fourth explanation:

人與人或事物之間遇合的機會

"有緣" is the simplest usage


就像在放下也在擔起一片空虛

就像 (it is like) 在放下 (putting down,)  也在擔起 (also like picking up) 一片空虛 (an emptiness)

"Trying to let go of an emptiness, but this empty feeling always come back ."

每一個夢也伴隨

每一個夢(in every dream) 也伴隨 (it always follows me )

"This emptiness follows me, in all of my dreams."


Best translation for “confused”: 迷惑，困惑，弄混，搞亂，搞混？

迷惑 and 困惑 can both be verb or adjective

迷 (deceive)
惑 (confuse)
迷惑 = to confuse (deceive someone and make him confused)

~

困 (trap)
惑(confuse)
困惑 = to confuse (trap someone in a confusion)

We use 迷惑 for "to confuse" to emphasize the deception part
Example: 用妖言迷惑群眾 (妖言惑眾) - use lies and rumors to deceive and confuse the public
We use 困惑 for "to confuse"  to emphasize the trapping part
Example: 各人不同的口供困惑了調查人員 - Everyone’s different stories confused investigators (trapped them into a confusion with different stories- but there may or may not be deceptions)

弄混，搞亂，搞混 are just different versions of shortened form of "弄/搞 (make-v) 混亂  (confusing-adj)"
e.g. 搞亂局面 = 使局面混亂 (make situation confusing)

~

1) English: "What you just said confused me."

她剛才說的話(搞得)我(混亂了)
~

2) English: "I was confused by what she did."

我被她剛才說的話(搞得混亂了)
~

4) For the preceding answers, are there any differences between Mandarin and Cantonese?

The grammar are the same, the terms may be different.
"你剛才說的話搞得我混亂了" (M)
"你頭先講嘅嘢搞到我好混亂" (C)
"我被你剛才說的話搞得混亂了" (M)
"我被你頭先講嘅嘢搞到好混亂" (C)


Basic SVO form: "我开车" (I drive) = [我(s)+ 开(v) + 车(o)] or [我(s)+开车(v)]
Add description of the duration : [我开(半天)车] = [I drive (half a day)]
Add verb particle '了' to indicate the verb is completed : [我开(了)半天车] = [I (have driven) half a day]
repeat the verb 'drive'  to emphasize it : [(我)(开车)(开)(半天)] = [(I) (drive), (drive) (half a day)]
Add verb particle '了' to indicate the verb is completed: [我开车开(了)半天] = [I drive, (have driven) half a day]
Add particle '了'  at the end to indicate the duration has been completed : [我开车开了半天(了)] = [I drive, have driven half a day (already)]

  Is there a kind of construction verb+object+verb+了 and if so, what are the other use cases?

Yes:

The following Examples' structure are the same as above

游泳--> 游一小時泳--> 游了一小時泳--> 游泳游了一小時--> 游泳游了一小時了

打工--> 打一天工--> 打了一天工--> 打工打了一天--> 打工打了一天了

吃飯--> 吃飯十分鐘--> 吃了十分鐘飯--> 吃飯吃了十分鐘--> 吃飯吃了十分鐘了


Any idea why this is?

This is called Mojibake, or in Chinese, Luan Ma (乱码). This is most likely due to language code mismatch -- Each character in the computer is represented by a number, and your computer doesn't agree which number represent which Chinese character with the program.

Specifically, the Chinese program is probably in GB, while it is being opened as Unicode.

  What (if anything) can I do to fix this?

While it is an open question to identify language codes reliably in general, since we know it is GB, there are several options:

To do it for all programs, search "region" in control panel. Go to "Administrative - Language for non-Unicode programs" and change it to the Chinese region you're in.
If the problem persists (which means Windows failed to detect the program is not in Unicode), or you prefer to set language program-by-program (because this happens to many Japanese programs as well, hence the name Mojibake), you can use Locale Emulator.


Asian ornate bakelite? bowl that is prob 20th century

it is 清乾隆制,means it is made in the Chinese Qing dynasty over the Qianlong Emperor time.And in my opinion,it is fake


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

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

Source：
為何叫冰雪聰明


Still confused about putting 了 at the end of a sentence or right after the verb

The order where 了 appears in the sentence is important: when placed at the end of a sentence, it represents a change of state (it has nothing to do with tenses); when placed at the end of a verb, it represents a completed action. Using the examples in your question:

他们给我写信了 They wrote me a letter. (This is the first time I receive
a letter from them.)
他们给我写了信 They have written me a letter. (This is the fifth letter
from them.)
她给我们买巧克力了 She bought us chocolate. (It has been a long while since she last treated us.)
她给我们买了巧克力 She just bought us chocolate. (Oh, she bought some yesterday too.)


How to say "newbie" or "noob" in Chinese?

Well, while I was researching the question I may have found the answer.

Pleco says its 菜鸟, as well as the Chinese version of Newbie on Wikipedia.

One of the other interpretations in Pleco is idiot which may be too harsh，and another is beginner which is neutral and descriptive. But one of the definitions is indeed newbie.

I'm pretty much sure the answer would be 菜鸟, but what the heck, let's post anyway and see if something better comes up.


Does 省亲 only refer to visiting wife’s parents by the wife?

省亲 指探望父母，有时也指其他尊长，但断没有指戚家长辈的。因为中国古时在婚姻关系中男方地位远高于女方，而宗族一般又居住在一起，故女方嫁入男方家以后，自然天天跟公婆生活在一个屋檐下，并没有探望的需要，而男方是不会去探望女方的父母的。这样看来，媳妇探望公婆的事情没有传统的词语也很正常。


Using archaic phrases like 红颜知己 or 忘年之交 is a bad suggestion, these phrases come straight from dated Chinese movies. No modern human talk like this in real life. It is like saying " She is my father's fair lady" or " she is my dad's dear confidant." in English.

If they are very close, saying she is 女朋友 (girl friend) is perfectly fine in today's open minded society.

The safest option is to call her your dad's 朋友 (friend). or 好朋友 (good friend) if you are not sure they are officially a couple or not.


Localization between Mainland China's 姑娘 and Taiwan's 小姐

姑娘 is more used in northern China or say the mandarin spoken regions. 小姐 is more often used along the coast especially in south.

小姐 gets the meaning of sex worker in 90s. In formal situation, it's still prefrered to use 小姐 rather than 姑娘, which sounds informal and rural.


Is there a distinction between 禁止 (jìnzhǐ) and 严禁 (yánjìn), which both mean "forbid"?

严禁 is short for 严格禁止，which means strictly forbid.
禁止 is kinda suggestive，严禁 indicates something is obliged not to do by the rules or law.
Actually in everyday use, there is no obvious distinction between them.


This is a typical example of slurred speech in colloquial Chinese. Just like we say "I'm" instead of "I am", "kill'em" instead of "kill them"; "kinda" instead of "kind of", "gonna" instead of "going to" in English.
While we usually represent these verbal shorthand by way of contractions (as demonstrated above in the first 2 examples) in English (and also in French), there is no conventional way to do so in Chinese, because morphemes are mostly monosyllabic - which means, you risk losing meaning by blurring out the sound when spoken and/or obliterating the character when written (Abbreviations are another matter) - which makes representing slurred speech on paper difficult.
Curiously, there are certain characters that are meant to be contractions and pronounced that way. For example, 甭 béng = 不用 bú yòng in Peking speak；and 諸 zhū = 之乎 zhī hū in Classical Chinese. These would be the true formal contractions that can be written down as-is. But such cases are scarce.
This makes it especially hard for new learners to grasp the nuances in the slurred verbal expressions because they are not familiar with the standard, formal way of pronouncing that term or phrase, and there is no proper way of representing that kind of speech in writing.
I would see the example cited by the OP above as part of a wide range of verbal corruptions that happen frequently in day-to-day speech. Other examples would include:

"大家" dà jiā pronounced as dà-ā (very common in Taiwan); or
麵包 miàn bāo pronounced as miàM-bāo, in which the interdental n consonant is pushed forward (i.e. corrupted) by the bilabial b that
immediately follows to give a m.

These should be differentiated from the formal rules that dictate pronunciation and tone in speech.


see online dictionaries, e.g. iciba: wing   in the wings
1In the stage wings, unseen by the audience. 在观众看不到的舞台两侧  bkrs:舞台两则 舞台左侧 舞台右侧


在广州生活最满意的是这一点

Without 令人，we understand that the sentence omits 我.  在广州生活我最满意的是这一点.
With 令人，it generalizes that it can satisfy normal people, not just me.


曖昧 = ambiguous romantic relationship

This phrase is in reference to a romantic relationship. Its usually from outsiders commenting on the relationship between a guy and a girl who are friends but may be more than that.

You can kind of thinks about it as the sort of weird stage before you've had the DTR (determine-the-relationship) conversation. If you don't have that convo, then you may be perpetually 曖昧.


"更进一步，不知道该如何做" equals "But further, I have no idea to do it"?

Actually, some more context would be good.
更进一步，不知道该如何做。
*One more step, I not know should how do.
Depending on the context, you can translate your sentence variously as:
更进一步，不知道该如何做。
I don't know how to carry on.
I don't know what's next.
I don't know what I should do next.


No.

主题 = 'main topic'

内涵 = 'meaning/connotation'

In English, the topic of a conversation is often very different from the meaning of the same conversation. The same applies to Chinese.


Usage of 的: The first day of (or without of) a fast?

When 'fast' refers to no food/drink/both/[sometimes sex] for a period of time by religion (Ramadan, for example), it's "斋戒."

When 'fast' refers to no food/drink/both for a period of time for political reasons (hunger strike), it's "绝食/绝食抗议."

When 'fast' refers to no food/drink/both for a period of time for medical purposes (blood test/surgery), it's "禁食 (verb)/空腹（adj.)."

"快" means "quick/fast/high speed" in adj.  "about to/nearly" in adv.

In you case, I would say "斋戒(的)第一天。"


The standard Chinese dictionary (《现代汉语词典》) lists xuè (fourth, not third, tone) as the official pronunciation and xiě as a colloquial variant. As such, in most compounds and technical terms, xuè is preferred. The pronunciation xiě is acceptable when you just want to say "blood" in casual speech.

There are several exceptions: the two modifiers 血糊糊 (xiěhūhū, "covered in blood") and 血淋淋 (xiělínlín, "gushing blood") are never read with the xuè pronunciation. There is also a word "血晕" the meaning of which differs based on which pronunciation of 血 is used.

血晕 (xiěyùn): to bruise
血晕 (xuèyùn): a traditional Chinese medicine term for fainting after childbirth due to loss of blood.

Note that this is only what the dictionary says. I suspect many native speakers make different choices in their own speech.


Beyond 习惯 a general “framework” desired for 得's uses in “主语”“动词” 得是什么?, “主语” “动词” 得是鸟语，“主语” “动词” 得 “名词,” et cetera

@user58955 is correct. Example E to H are wrong usages of 得, they all should be 的 instead.

E. 她说的不是。 What she said is not. (This is a bad example. As you can see in the English translation, something is missing here.)
F. 不懂对方说的是什么。 Doesn't understand what the opponent says.
G. 你说的是鸟语。 What you said is lingua avis.
H. 你说的是什么？ What is it that you said?

The pattern is obvious.

Now let's take a look at example A to D:

A. 他跑得快。 He runs fast.
B. 他跑得很快。 He runs very fast.
C. 听得懂。 Listen get understood.
D. 办得了。 Do get done.

Notice in these 4 examples, 得 acts as a connecting device between the verb and the status or result of the verb. Also notice that the weight of the sentence is on the status or result, 快, 懂, or 了. This is how you use 得 to form complements. In a sense A, B are only slightly different from C, D in there specific purposes, but the major function is the same.

Example A and B -- You wouldn't call the English counterparts complements, do you? But remember I talked about the weights. If the weight is on the modifier, the modifier would be considered as a complement. If you want a non-complementary adverb, you need to use this form:

他飞快地跑。 He quickly runs.

Now the weight is on the verb 跑, and 飞快地 acts 状语 instead of 补语.
Example C and D -- There just isn't an English counterpart. This might be why it's confusing you and making you think it's special. It's not. You just have to think the Chinese way.


Usage of the phrase '不错用' in Taiwan Mandarin

Here are some more examples of this style of adjective:

好吃 = 不错吃
好玩 = 不错玩
好用 = 不错用
好喝 = 不错喝

These terms are extremely common in Taiwanese Mandarin, however their origins are unclear. I suspect it's due to a mix of Taiwanese terms and errors in translation.
Let's take one example, the 不錯吃 phrase. At first glance it seems to be an incorrect use of Mandarin grammar; if you want to use those characters correctly you'd get 吃起來不錯. Otherwise what you'd normally use would be 好吃.
However, there are a few sources that say that the origin of the phrase may have come from the Taiwanese (Min, not Mandarin) phrase 未歹食 or 袂歹食. 歹 means "bad" so if you negate it using 未 or 袂 it becomes "not bad". A naive calque may yield the phrase "不難吃", but that doesn't mean the same thing - it means "this doesn't taste bad", which is not the same as "this tastes good". When you negate adjectives, sometimes they become the opposite, but sometimes they become neutral, and it varies from phrase to phrase.
In order to overcome this inconsistency, people may have used
不錯 instead, which does mean "good". In other words, the transition is:

未歹食 -> 不難吃 -> 不錯吃

So you end up with this phrase which seems like bad grammar from a Mandarin perspective, and bad calquing from a Taiwanese perspective. But it's also very commonly used and is here to stay, so just deal with it! :)


How to translate and answer the question?

Your answer is incorrect.
The subject of your sentence is 学经济的人 （people studying economics, "study-economics-people") and your predicate is 多 (many). So putting it altogether:

学经济的人(很)多。 (positive) or 学经济的人不多。 (negative answer).


How can I get better at reading handwriting?

I have been able to purchase in China books that have different styles of handwriting including shortcuts. They also have a layer of thin paper over the top of each page so you can trace.

You can also look for books that show common characters written in different styles from print, traditional to script etc.

This is not something you will be taught unless you pay someone to go through with you, as it's not commonly taught in classes.


how to translate "请优先发给我，抄送其他人" in an email?

优先 expresses priority/precedence/privilege, but not urgency.

In this specific sentence it feels redundant to me. I think the person was trying to emphasize that he/she should be the only one on the TO line and others on CC line are FYI (for your information) only.


How Cantonese and Mandarin writing can be identical

First, Cantonese is rarely written. In the few places where Written Cantonese is used, yes, each syllable is always one character (though for some words, like 乜嘢、唔好、即係, people often say multiple characters together so fast that it may sound like one syllable).

Each Chinese character has a defined pronunciation in Cantonese (sometimes a character has multiple pronunciations in different contexts), and there are often certain predictable patterns between the Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations of the same character. And the pronunciation of a word is simply the pronunciation of each character concatenated. That means that if you take a word written in Mandarin, and read it literally in Cantonese, it will be pronounced with the same number of syllables as in Mandarin, and moreover the pronunciation will be based on the Cantonese pronunciation of each character, which is often somewhat related to the Mandarin pronunciation.

However, that may not be the way that that thing is usually said in Cantonese. In such cases, the way that people usually say that thing in Cantonese is considered a different word, and in Written Cantonese is written with different characters (which may or may not be the same number of characters that Mandarin uses). These are basically vocabulary differences between Mandarin and Cantonese.

Many commonly-used verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, will have different vocabulary between Mandarin and Cantonese. But if you consider all words overall, the number of differences is small, and most words will be the same in Mandarin and Cantonese (as in written with the same characters, though the pronunciation of those characters will still be different). The vocabulary for "apple" is not different between Mandarin and Cantonese.


How to say “pen and paper roleplay game”?

桌上角色扮演，or in jargon among players: 跑团。

P.S. It seems that other answerers don't know the term 跑团游戏, which amazes me.

Edit:

The etymology of 『跑团』is unknown to me, but I guess it's because "a group of people playing (running) in the virtual world".


Are phrases of the form 我[something]去 informal or slang (or just plain incorrect)?

It's a correct usage of 我...去. It's usually used when asked "你干什么去？"

It would be like:

A: "你干什么去？"

B: "我跑步去"；“我上厕所去”；“我睡觉去”；“我换衣服去”；“我做礼拜去” （more clear than 我礼拜去）

When asked with "你（要）去干什么？"， one usually uses 我（要）去...

It would be like:

A: "你（要）去干什么？"

B: "我（要）去跑步"；“我（要）去上厕所”；“我（要）去睡觉”；“我（要）去换衣服”；“我（要）去做礼拜”

Those colloquial terms are commonly used in daily dialogues.


What is the difference between 诚意 and 诚信?

诚信: means honesty and credibility

诚意: means honesty only

You can't say:

  他对我有诚信。

Because if somebody 有诚信, he/she will be always 有诚信, not only for you, but for everyone. So you just say 他有诚信 or 他没诚信.

You can say

  他对我有诚意。

意 means mood here. One can be 有诚意 now, but wasn't other times, can be 有诚意 for you, but not for others.

诚信 is a trait, 诚意 is a mood.

You can say

  他今天有诚意.

not

  他今天有诚信


Why is there a 零 after 块 when you pronounce 1000.20元? It's 一千块零二毛， but why?

This has nothing to do with counters but the numerating system.
Whenever there is a jump in the place values - in your case, a jump from 1 thousand dollars (千塊) to 2 0.1 dollars (毛) - 零 must be inserted in between for the sake of completeness. (You may think of $1000.2 as having 0 百塊, 十塊, and 塊, hence the jump.)
So you would expect the same goes for 1050 as 一千零五十, not 一千五十, because 十 does not immediately follow 千, or equivalently, 百 is missing.
Conversely, for 1500, no 零 is needed between 一千 and 五百, because the 百 counter immediately follows 千. Some may argue both are fine, but frankly 一千五百 is more concise and understandable.


How to translate "detangling knot" or "knot that unties"?

活结
Pleco Basic Chinese-English Dictionary

knot that can be undone by a pull; slipknot (opp. 死结)
系了个活结
xì le ge huójié
make a slipknot

活扣
ABC

slipknot; knot that can be easily untied


How to address fellow students junior to oneself (学妹，学弟)?

To be honest, although you could use 学弟, 学妹, etc. to address other students, the most natural way of addressing them (especially when you interact face to face) is by full name. Full names retain a reasonable amount of respect without making it sound too formal. Adding a suffix would only make it overly formal and consequently awkward. For example, full name + 同学 might be used by a teacher when announcing an award given to the student.

Side note: 兄，哥 were used in more ancient times such as 师兄 and 师哥. Back then things tend to be much less casual. For example, if you and your older "classmate" both train under the same martial arts master, you'd might call that student 师兄.

Reference: I grew up in China.


Does anyone recognize the characters written here? (Characters identified: 天倫樂敘)

I'm quite sure it is 天伦乐叙. Search for 天伦乐叙、乐叙天伦、天伦叙乐 on google or baidu, there are many results. Like this.


Must 怎么 be right after 你 in this sentence: 你怎么知道我的名字

什么 is a modifier for 名字 in 你叫什么名字
怎么 is a modiifer for 知道 in 你怎么知道我的名字
You cannot move 怎么 in the sentence. And you can see that they are actually of different structure.


What is the purpose of "到" in 他在行窃时被当场抓到

Your two questions answer each other! When 到 follows a verb, it indicates that the action has successfully completed. In linguistic terminology, it's sometimes referred to as indicating "completive aspect".

However, when you ask "how is past tense indicated here?", you should be aware that Mandarin doesn't always indicate past tense.  There are a number of aspect markers (including 了、到、过), but none of these directly correspond to English past tense.


How do I best translate the interjection "Entertaining!"?

'This event is entertaining'
'這個活動很富娛樂性'

'Entertaining' in this context is an adjective, which is translated as '富娛樂性(的)/有娛樂性(的)'in Chinese.

[entertaining] = [富娛樂性]

[entertaining + noun] = [富娛樂性(的) + noun]

'Entertaining event' is '富娛樂性的活動/節目'
'Enjoyable event' is  '讓人享受的活動/節目'
'Fun event' is '有趣的活動/節目'
~
Edition:
Patrick Dark wrote:

I changed my text to "娛樂性!". "富" would seem to be unnecessary since that's implied by use of an exclamation mark.

No, 富  or 有  is necessary in this context
娛樂性 means

(adj) ' of entertainment'

Example: 這是一個娛樂性活動 (this is an event of entertainment / this is an entertainment event)

(n)  'entertaining element'

Example: 這個活動的娛樂性不高 (this event's entertainment element is not high)
富/有娛樂性(的) literally means "~ that have entertainment element". It is used as an adjectival phrase in a whole. Equal to 'entertaining'(adj) in English.
'


How do you say "we only have one carrot left"?

她可怜巴巴地向我哭诉，“我们只剩下一根胡萝卜了！”
She plaintively cried, "We only have one carrot left!"
我回答道，“你到底要什么， 那根胡萝卜还是这根棍子？
I replied, "So, what do you want, that carrot or this stick?"
(I need a break from learning Python!)
I think 只有 is more 'we only have', not so much 'we only have blabla left'.


I think you are close.

Basically:

知道 = to know

我知道 = I know

我知道的 = What I know

就 = Just

這麼多 = this much

就這麼多了 = Just this much

I personally wouldn't translate this as "Beyond this I know nothing." It would be closer to "What I know is just this much", however I would translate it as "I only know this much". I don't see where this sentence would insinuate the "and no more" or the "beyond this"; it is not expressed in the sentence.

It's the type of sentence that would benefit from a bit more context to get a more accurate translation.


Mandarin: different ways of asking if someone prefers A to B

Sentence 3 is correct in grammar.

  妳覺得中國菜比美國菜好吃嗎?

I would probably put:

  中国菜和美国菜，你更喜欢哪一种？
  你喜欢吃中国菜还是美国菜？
  中国菜和美国菜，你觉得哪个更好吃？


那麼/ 這麼 is the Mandarin counterpart of 噉 in Cantonese.

Example: 那麼辦好嗎? (is it okay to do it like that?) = 噉做好咩?

Example: 這麼辦好嗎? (is it okay to do it like this?) = 噉做好咩?

The difference between 那麼 and 這麼 is the proximity. We use '這' when the object is near you; and use '那' when the object is not near you.

'噉' in Cantonese doesn't make this distinction.

You can point at something right in front of you and say "噉?" which is from the point of your own perspective.
You can point at something in a distance and say "噉?" which is from the object's point of perspective.


Is there a chengyu to mean "undeserved reward" or "undeserved luck"?

a particularly lazy coworker who gets a promotion/raise even if they did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

It is 無功受祿 or 竪子成名

If it was you who get the undeserved reward, you can use 受之有愧: as a self-humbling respond.

~

someone who is clueless about a specific task but somehow lucks their way to a satisfactory result (copy-pasting random code from the internet and obtaining a working program)

It is 歪打正着

~

someone who doesn't mind deadlines but somehow doesn't get burnt when the day of reckoning comes (forgetting to file the tax declaration, but not getting investigated by the tax authority)

you can call it 大難不死，福大命大 or 時辰未到 (time for the karma to take effect has not come yet/ not the time to die yet )

不勞而獲:  'to succeed with no effort' doesn't state a reward someone obtained is deserved or not. (you can get a reward with no effort by working smart) therefore not included in my answer

Is there a chengyu to mean “undeserved reward”

無功受祿 fit the bill. (clearly stated the reward is undeserved)


Why does a search for the Hanja in the Korean word 순진(純眞)하다 yield pictures of Japanese Whetstones?

There's a couple of things going on here:

「眞」is not used as a character representing common vocabulary in Chinese and Japanese anymore, being totally replaced in those two languages with the 略字 (약자, abbreviated character) 「真」. In Japanese,「眞」retains some usage for proper nouns, while in Chinese「眞」is not used at all, unless quoting ancient texts.
Korean mixed Hanja-Hangul script is not really used anymore, so Google's search function will prioritise Chinese and Japanese search results when Chinese characters are used as a search term.
Based on (1) and (2),「純眞」will highly prioritise a Japanese proper noun, if it exists as a result. In this case,「純眞」happens to be part of the name of a product.
Based on (1), if you want to search for images relating to the meaning「純眞」, you need to use「真」if you're using a non-Korean search engine.


As a modern Chinese word, the age of "语法" is about 100 years. Because modern Chinese originated from the May 4th Movement, which took place on May 4, 1919. But there was also the word "语法" in ancient Chinese, for example:
Case1：
《左传·昭公二十年》：“尔其勉之！相从为愈” 。
唐-孔颖达疏：“服虔云：‘相从愈於共死。’则服意‘相从’使员从其言也。语法，两人交互乃得称‘相’，独使员从己，语不得为相从也。”。
Case2：
金-王若虚《论语辨惑二》：“故凡解经，其论虽高，而於文势语法不顺者，亦未可遽从，况未高乎！”

It can be seen that the word "语法" was used in the Tang Dynasty，about 1200 years ago.  In ancient Chinese, there are two words: "语脉" and "文理"，they are similar in meaning to the word "语法" in modern Chinese．Here are some examples:
1."语脉＂
Case1：宋-朱弁 《曲洧旧闻》卷三：“ 王临川 语脉与 南丰 绝不相类。”
Case2：明-胡应麟 《少室山房笔丛·丹铅新录六·笨字义》：“凡读古人文字，务须平心易气，熟察上下语脉，得其立言本意乃可。”
Case3：清-张尔岐 《蒿庵闲话》卷一：“今详语脉，首句自为一事，重在无出乡。”
2."文理"
Case1：《三国志·吴志·张严程阚薛传论》：“ 张紘文理意正，为世令器， 孙策 待之亚於 张昭 ，诚有以也。”
Case2： 宋-司马光《进通志表》：“文理迂疏，无足观采。”
Case3： 明-谢谠《四喜记·双桂联芳》：“圣旨到来，宋祁文理精通，第一甲进士。”
Case4：《红楼梦》第二三回：“单把那文理雅道些的，拣了几套进去。”
Case5：鲁迅《伪自由书·不通两种》：“文理总未免有点希奇。”

Whether it is "语法" or "语脉" or "文理" in ancient Chinese; Neither of them is quite equivalent to "语法(grammar)＂ in modern Chinese.  Because there is no such thing as grammar in Chinese, it is only the comparison of modern Chinese people that gives rise to this concept．The grammar of ancient Chinese is mainly reflected in the use of vocabulary and sentence structure.The most prominent feature of standard Chinese grammar is that there is no morphological change in strict meaning. Nouns have no case, also have no part of speech and singular or plural．Verbs are not personal and have no tense. This characteristic, which is different from that of European languages, makes Chinese regarded by many linguists as having neither grammar nor part of speech for a long period of time in history.
《马氏文通》is the first systematic work on Chinese grammar in China. Its author is Ma Jiantong(马建通).Written in 1898, this work officially initiated the study of Chinese grammar.Taking ancient Chinese as the object of study, the book drew on the theories of Western grammar studies (mainly Latin), as well as some Chinese sayings on function characters, and established the first complete Chinese grammar system．Therefore, the real Chinese grammar can be said to have originated in 1898, at the age of 131.


Why native speakers always say "一块钱" and write "一元钱 "instead of "壹圆钱"？

To begin with, there is one thing called 大写 (daxie, “upper case”), in contrast to 小写 (xiaoxie, “lower case”).

  小写：一二三四五六七八九十百千  -  元

  大写：壹贰叁肆伍陆柒捌玖拾佰仟  -  圆

Daxie numbers are only used in finance in order to protect against falsification, because they contain too many strokes to modify. For example, 一 can be easily modified to 二 or 十, but 壹 cannot be modified. Therefore, daxie numbers are usually seen on invoices, receipts, cheques, promissory notes, etc, in order to protect against falsification.

The tamper-proof technique daxie has been used for over a thousand years since the Tang dynasty, invented by the empress regnant Wu Zetian (武则天), and enforced by the emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋). It has been tested for so long time as the best practice of tamper resistance. Therefore, daxie numbers finally became the tradition of finance, and are now printed on cash.

However, when we write it down, we still use xiaoxie, like 一元钱, unless we are really writing financial documents, such as receipts and cheques. Daxie numbers are regarded as the specific jargons that should be strictly limited in financial area.

一块钱 is the colloquial term of 一元钱, because in the past the money was only made of metal.

  Colloquial:   块      毛      分

  Formal:        元       角      分

壹圆 is only used on invoices and receipts, and printed on cash.


How am I meant to interpret 毛主席是我们心中的红太阳

There's a theory that goes something like: 紅太陽 = 紅日 = red fuck. But, that seems a bit preposterous to me.

reddit

This is on purpose, the translator is a troll


What is the difference between 我像太阳 and 我像陽光燦爛著?

我像陽光燦爛著 means "I'm shinning like sunshine."

我像太阳 means "I'm like the Sun."

"I am like the brilliant sunshine." would be 我像燦爛的陽光

陽光燦爛著(yángguāng cànlànzhe) means "The Sun is shining."

著 is used for Present Progressive Tense or Present Participle. To put it simply, -ing.

The "brilliant" in the "I am like the brilliant sunshine." is a Adjective, so it should use 的(de)


Is this pinyin alphabet used to spell in Chinese Sign Language? Otherwise, which one is used in Mainland China?

This matches some intro materials I was shown in Changchun. I think it's the mainland standard. It's also repeated in a few places around the net if you baidu it.

I have to say though, the standardization of Chinese sign language is a work in progress, the signers I met in Changchun were an extremely heterogeneous bunch language-wise, it was amazing the sheer diversity of signs they would accept for common phrases. And pinyin was not exactly their favorite toolkit, it's much harder to remember if you're deaf. So your mileage on the ground may vary, good luck with this project, whatever it is!


Does the meaning of 靓丽 change depending on how 靓 is pronounced？

According to the 两岸 dictionary, the pronunciation for 靓丽 works like this:

【臺拼】jìnglì
【陸拼】liànglì

So this is mostly a Taiwan vs. Mainland pronunciation difference.
According to the Students Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese normally jìng means:

1 make up one’s face (woman), apply cosmetics, rouge.
a) prink, adorn, embellish, trim.
2 ⦿ 靜 jìng 1, quiet, still, tranquil, calm.

While according to KEY liàng means:

{dialect} attractive, good looking, pretty, handsome, beautiful

Longman's also notes:

〈粵〉
❶ 漂亮﹐好看：靚女／靚樣。
❷ 美味的：靚湯。

So it seems this Cantonese pronunciation has somewhat taken over on the mainland while not influencing Taiwan as much.


What are the most difficult things to learn for a westerner?

I think the difficulties include:

The tones, while almost all western languages don't have such a conception.
Remember how to write a character. There are many characters that you have to learn and remember.

but the grammar is easier. In Chinese, you don't have to take care of gender, inflection,conjugation, number and particles.


你是第幾任總統/校長？How to translate this into English properly?

It is a bit awkward isn't it? ‘You are the how many'th President?

I suggest a rewording to something like (my Chinese is not good): 有多少总统您前？ That can easily be translated as 'How many Presidents have there been before you?'


First, 个 is not a classifier for 大米 , So I changed it to 些

There are only two potential particles for verbs.

得 (able to)
不 (unable to)

吃完 = eat all

吃[得]完 = [able to] eat all

吃[不]完 = [unable to] eat all

The placement of the object is flexible. When using [subject+ verb + object]sentence structure, the object is placed after the the verb, e.g. 我吃了米 (the verb particles 得 and 完 are part of the verb)
The object can also be placed before the verb in passive voice sentences e.g. '米被我吃了'
The object can also acts as the topic in [topic] + [comment] structure, and be placed at the beginning of the sentence.

  [S+V+O] sentence:

  [1. 我] [2. 吃] [3. 得] [4. 完] [5. 这些大米]

  [1. subject] [2. verb] [3. potential particle] [4. resultive particle ] [5. object]

It is very straight forward--  'subject' then 'verb' then 'object'.

  [Topic+ comment/opinion] sentence:

  [1. 这些大米] [2. 我吃得完]

  [1. topic] [2.comment]

  [这些大米(topic)] + [我吃得完(comment)]

  The object [这些大米] is the topic. the relative clause [我吃得完] is the comment.

Both examples above are grammatically correct.

  [O+S+V] sentence (passive voice):

  [1. 这些大米] [2. 被][3. 我] [4. 吃] [5. 完]

  [1. object] [2. passive marker] [3. subject] [4.verb] [5. resultive particle ]

We don't use passive voice with potential particle. Potential particle only works in active voice

[这些大米被我吃完] is grammatically correct
[这些大米被我吃得完] is grammatically incorrect

  Objects with potential complements

In summary:

object must be placed after the verb in [SVO]  sentence, and potential complement is part of the verb.
object can be placed at the beginning of a sentence in [topic + comment] sentences.
in [OSV] (passive voice) sentence, we don't use potential complement