Placement of Pinyin in relation to characters

As far as a "defined standard", I believe there are no official rules for pinyin placement. Texts in Mainland China are likely to place pinyin above the characters, while texts for foreigners differ in their approach. Sometimes even a single text will have different standards; for example, the New Practical Chinese Reader sometimes places pinyin above and other times places it below.

If I were to argue for one approach or the other, I would reason as follows: if the pinyin is to come in a block (e.g., a full paragraph instead of a word-to-word matching) then I would put the Chinese characters first and the pinyin second, to force foreign language learners' exposure to Hanzi without pinyin, and have them try to get through the characters as best as they can without resorting to pronunciation help.

In the word-to-word matching that I think is your primary concern, I would argue for pinyin placed above the characters. The first reason is consistency with texts used by native speakers (though one might very well say consistency with native approaches is not in general best for foreign language learners). The second, more important reason is that the tone marks (more than most letters) may appear to foreign language learners as if they are part of the characters. Placing pinyin above characters allows the letters to serve as a sort of buffer between tone marks and Hanzi.

Nevertheless, I highly suspect that a longitudinal study on the difference between learning outcomes for foreign language learners whose texts had pinyin above and learners whose texts had pinyin below would show no statistical differences. If your intuition tells you otherwise, I encourage you to find a first-year Chinese teacher and see if you can institute such a study, as it would be very easy to carry out. More interesting, I think, would be to include an additional group for whom the text's lessons are first written solely in Chinese characters, with pinyin presented separately afterwards (as opposed to a word-to-word matching). I think it's possible that the latter approach would show small differences in learning outcomes between either of the former two groups (my guess is the block group would fare better; others might disagree) though I'm not convinced they'd be statistically significant either.


What is the English translation of the artist and title of this artwork? (Characters identified: 吳山作)

The author is certainly 吳山，you can find similar works in this auction website.


As I write this, someone already left feedbacks for your second question.

As for the difference between 妖魔 and 妖怪:

妖怪: like a monster, its appearance looks quite different from other normal creatures (at least from what's in our minds).

妖魔: like a demon, having witch kind of looking, who can use the magic power in combat.

In short, 妖魔 has more magic power than 妖怪. 妖怪 is more powerful physically than its magic power.

This is my understanding and impression and might not be that accurate. Just as a reference.


All of your definitions (e.g., 吃虧, 虧損, 虧蝕) appertain to the pronunciation kuī – for this reason, memorising kuī suffices. The pronunciation yú is far less important.

As for the pronunciation yú, it is likely to be a glyphic variant of 于 (a character you have asked before) (see below, from Baidu). From the viewpoint of glyph evolution, the character pronounced kuī was first written as 虧 in traditional script no later than Han dynasty, only simplified into 亏 in the 20th century. The rationale of simplification being, 亏 is a relatively obscure yet graphically related character. Now it has become the dominant meaning associated to 亏.

References:

Baidu Baike
Multi-function Chinese Character Database


What semantic notions underlie 氵(left radcial for water) with 沮 (to prevent; to ruin; disheartened)?

汉字源流字典 (first picture) says its original meaning was muddy wetland.
王力古漢語字典 (second picture) also lists this meaning (but does not explicitly say whether it's the original meaning). There is also an example sentence where both 阻 and 沮 are used: 不知山林险阻沮泽之形也，不能行军。My understanding is that 阻 and 沮 are very similar but not exactly the same, with 沮 being water-related obstacles (swamps) and 阻 being mountain-related obstacles (the radical 阝 is usually related to hill or mountain).


A couther interpretation of 站在麦上顶你 is 站在麦词的立场上顶持你.

麦 is a short form of 麦词.

麦词 are the words of the rap music.

The MC stands the microphone controller.

喊麦 is the corresponding Chinese term in China.
The words are then called 麦词.

顶 means to support, to agree, to say yes, to give a plus (Google+), to give the thumbs up (Facebook) or to give an upvote (here, Stackexchange).
The similar terms are 赞 (Weibo), 推 (Twitter), and so on.

Therefore, 站在麦上顶你 may mean 用麦词支持你.
I support you from the standpoint of the rap words.
I support you with the rap words (so that you can continue ...).


Mixed Simplified-Traditional script on Twins' album cover - why?

A lot of "Simplified" characters existed as short-hand forms of Chinese characters long before the "simplification" of the written language in the PRC. Conversely, the PRC hasn't given up "traditional" characters completely. I wouldn't be surprised to see some mixing here and there.


I'm a native Chinese user and I can tell you [very definitively] based on my understanding of my first language that these two sentences are equally illogical (unless one interprets "killed" as "attemped to kill"), but neither of them are grammatically incorrect.
They are both illogical because, "杀了" means "killed" in the context of these two statements. So e.g. the first sentence means, translated very literally (so literally that it would sound unnatural in English), "He killed a person, but (he/she) did not kill (him/her) to death.", where the words in the brackets are words that are omitted in the Chinese sentence. You should see how (obviously) self-contradictory this sentence is in English - from my perspective the Chinese statement is just as self-contradictory as the English translation of it I gave.
Similarly, the second sentence means "He killed that person, but (he/she) did not kill (him/her) to death."
The difference of these two sentences (of "那" and "一") is completely irrelevant to the determination of whether they are grammatical and whether they are logical.
Edit:
As correctly pointed out in koshiyomi's answer, if the verb "杀" is replaced with some other verb, e.g. "吃" for the two sentencces, then there is a quite subtle difference between the two sentences, because:

It is perfectly natural to say a person ate something but didn't finish eating, whereas it is unnatural to say that a person killed someone but didn't kill him/her to death.
"吃了一个苹果" means "ate one apple" where "一" usually (but not always) suggests that one whole apple was eaten, but "那" in "吃了那个苹果" simply specifies which apple was eaten, with less suggestion that the whole apple had been eaten. Both sentences can be commonly understood as suggesting that the whole apple was eaten though (in cases where it has not been clarified whether the whole apple was eaten or not).

N.B. That the sentences are illogical does not mean that they cannot be used to good effect - e.g. often contradictory sentences are utilized in literature to achieve certain effects. For example, in literature you might have something like
"He killed that person.
But no, he did not die."
where the first sentence describes something that is not true but merely apparently true. I remember that this kind of contradictory decriptions were used quite often in the Japanese visual novel Fate/Stay Night.


What are some more detailed dictionaries?

I asked the same question on Reddit and was recommended the ABC Chinese-English dictionary. It uses many of the terms I have outlined by design.


EDIT: Also refer to Aminopterin's answer and Travis Hu's answer for more insights.

After some research, I found two reasonable explanations. But, IMHO, the two should be compiled as the following:

老 is a prefix that is added to make 虎 and 鼠 easier to pronounce; besides, it implies that people respect 虎 and fear 鼠.

The two explanations as follow:

Affix for smooth pronunciation
In the Classical Chinese era, texts were concise and some, if not most, of the words were one-character words. Yet, in colloquial context, people prepended/appended affixes to make the words easier to pronounce. These "new" words then became widely accepted and conventional.
Some common affixes and their associated words:

子(suffix)

獅子、兔子、鴨子、猴子、鏡子、桌子、椅子、房子、筷子、刀子...
lion, rabbit, duck, monkey, mirror, table, chair, house, chopsticks, knife...

老(prefix)

老虎、老鼠、老鷹、老師...
tiger, rat, hawk, teacher...

頭(suffix)

甜頭、苦頭、舌頭、骨頭、石頭、木頭...
sweetness, suffering, tongue, bone, stone, wood...

Affix with connotation
In Chinese, 老, apart from aged/experienced, has the implicit, figurative meaning of respected because people respect elderly so as to comply with the social value. That said, people prepended 老 on the ones they respect. This is why 老虎 and 老師 are named the way they are.
老鼠, on the other hand, has various interpretations. Some state that it fits to literal meaning of 老 – old. According to the Compendium of Materia Medica(本草綱目), a medical book, rats have the longest life span. Such misunderstanding came from the impression that rats have a high
rate of reproduction and have been around people back then for the longest time.
Some argue that the 老 in 老鼠 implies the cunning characteristics of rats. This interpretation can also be applied to 鷹. The rest argue that people chose 老 for 老鼠 to imply their fear toward rats and that rats are not easy to deal with.
As to why 獅 is named 獅子 but not 老獅, the reason is intuitive – to avoid conflicting pronunciation with 老師.


出人頭地

比喻超越他人，獨露頭角 Metaphor to surpass others, to stand alone

解釋： 讓他高出一頭。語本宋．歐陽修〈與梅聖俞書〉：「讀軾書，不覺汗出。快哉，快哉！老夫當避路，放他出一頭地也。』」後指超越他人，獨露頭角

出 = 超出 (Exceed); 高出 (higher than)
人 = people/ others
頭 = head (refers to the length of one head -- used here as a measuring unit)
地 = ground
The origin of '出人頭地' was  a quote from a famous scholar 歐陽修: '(放他)出一頭地' = '(give way and let him) get one head length of ground ahead'
Long story short,  歐陽修 read a great article and remarked "This author is great, I should give way and let him get one head length of ground ahead of me (in future achievements)"
The modern usage of 出人頭地 is 'to become successful in society' in general


Where to put 不 when responding in negative

As far as I can tell, the question does not require you to leave the 能 in the sentence. Since the 能 is already implied by the 可能补语 structure, the most natural way to solve your problem would be to leave off the 能:

你拿得来那本书吗？
我拿不来那本书。

By the way, to me it sounds more natural to move the object to the start of the sentence:

那本书你拿得来吗？
那本书我拿不来。

... but it's grammatically correct either way.


What's the difference in pronunciation between kuàir and kuàr?

They have the same pronunciation.

The wiki page on Erhua lists the IPA of both finals ("uar" and "uair") to be [wɐʵ]


First of all, why are there two lists of ingredient on each pack?

I have no clue. It doesn't make sense if there is only 1 zongzi in each pack.

  What is that 食品植物油? More precisely, what does that "shípǐn" add to the vegetable oil?

It should be 食用 (edible).

  What is 焦糖色? "jiàotáng" would be "caramel", but "sè"?

色 means color/pigment/dye. 酿造酱油（含焦糖色）can be interpreted as 'fermented soy sauce (caramel-colored)'.

  What is the difference between 味精 and 谷氨酸钠? In particular, it seems like wèijīng is not actually "monosodium glutamate" but some kind of more general term.

MSG is the main ingredient for 味精 but not necessarily the only ingredient.

  What is 红绕? Is it a toponym?

It should be 红烧 (red-braised).

  Why is 排骨 translated to "pork ribs" if it means only "ribs"? And does this mean there are actually bones in the dumplings or just the meat off the ribs?

In Chinese the 'default' meat is pork. Most 'body part' words like 排骨 (ribs), 肘子 (elbow), 口条 (tongue) refer to those of pork if the type of meat is not explicitly called out. In the detail ingredient list, however, you can see 猪排骨 is used for clarity.

From the description alone it is unclear whether the bones are excluded. Usually it is stated more clearly, something like 猪排骨肉 (meat from pork ribs) or 猪排骨(去骨) (pork ribs(without bones)).

  What are 食用香科?

It should be 食用香料 (edible flavors).

  What does 调科 mean? Does it exist on its own or is it just some food name together with 红绕, i.e. 红绕调科 is some food often shortened to just 红绕?

It should be 调料 (seasoning/condiment).

  What does 抽提物 mean?

Extract/essence.

  What are 香辛科?

It should be 香辛料 (spices).

  红曲 would mean "red food dye", but what's with that extra 红 at the end? What does this mean?

红曲 refers to the mold (monascus purpureus) and 红曲红 (monascus red) refers to the red dye extracted from the mold.

  Is the translation right?

Apart from the open issues above, the translation is generally right. One thing is in English you don't need to say 'edible' in a food ingredient list.


Idiom/成語 for "Worrying Doesn't Change the Outcome"

杞人憂天:

There was a man in Qi always worrying about the sky might fall. People use the term 杞人憂天 to describe someone worry too much, even about the most unlikely events.

Example:

Worry about car accident is one thing, worry about alien invasion or zombie apocalypse is really 杞人憂天


What do "BS" and "BH" mean in the 现代汉语词典?

I originally thought my guess was just a wild stab, but after checking the 现代汉语词典 website, it didn't look as wild as I had thought.
I think BS stands for "bu shou" (radical), and BH stands for "bi hua" (strokes). In your example, 你·has five strokes, not counting the two in the radical.

Please check other entries to verify this. If my guess is correct, 她 should read: BS:女  BH:3


meaning of 把自己 and 收下 and 在地里 and some translations

收 means (among other things) to harvest
完 is used to indicate that the action is completed, finished. So
收完 means to finish the harvest, or as @倪阔乐 put it, to complete the harvest

Similarly 说完 means to finish what you want to say. 说完了没有？ "Is that all you have to say/Are you finished (talking)?". Grammar books usually discuss this 完 verb complement, so try to use them.

把 is another particle you have to look into. If used, the sentence order is changed. The object of action follows immediately after this particle, thus it gets more emphasis. Consider e.g.

我在吃午饭。 I am having lunch.
我把午饭已经吃完了。 I have finished eating my lunch. (Just to use the 完 again in combination with 把). Notice that 午饭 is pushed to the left of the sentence. This is an important particle and sentence structure that you have to understand. Again, consult your textbook or grammar reference for more.

As for 收下, it simply means to receive or to accept. E.g. 收下名片 to receive a business card or 请收下这个... Please accept this..., 收下礼物 to receive gifts/presents.

Here's one more example sentence that uses 把 and 收下:

请把它作为一件礼物收下。 Please accept it as a gift.

把 is immediatelly followed by the object 它 (it)
一件礼物 a gift (one piece of gift, I hope you know what a classifier is)
作为 as ...
收下 accept


What does 荠麦之茂，荠麦之有 in 《猗兰操》 mean? 韩愈《猗兰操》“荠麦之茂，荠麦之有”一句作何解释？

薺麥之茂，薺麥之有。
薺麥之茂生，薺麥之因有。
薺麥之茂生，因薺麥之有。
薺麥茂於雪霜之時，乃因薺麥之內有。
薺麥能茂生於雪霜之時，乃因薺麥之內在本有。
The buckwheat(?) can grow well in the snow because of its inherent ability.

君子之傷，君子之守。
君子之傷厄，君子之見守。
君子之傷厄，見君子之守。
君子居於艱難之境，方見君子之內守。
君子能安居於艱難之境，方見君子之內在操守。
A gentleman can live well in the predicaments, then people can see his inner integrity.


What does the use of 'verb 了 verb' indicate?

[verb]+[verb]

Repeat a same verb once, is called 'redoubling'. A redoubled verb indicates the action happens in a slight degree and a short duration.

Example:

點頭 ( nod head); 點點頭 ( nod head slightly)

試 (try); 試試 (try a little )

看 (look); 看看 (look briefly)

  [verb]+[counting word]+ [ verb]

In the cases of a verb following by a counting word and then the same verb again, the repeated verb is actually a [verb classifier]

Example:

點頭 (nod head); 點一點頭 (nod one nod/ nod head once)

試 (try); 試一試 (try one try / try once )

看 (look); 看一看 (look one look / look once )

  The particle 了  following a verb indicate 'completion'

Example:

點了一點頭 (nodded one nod/ nodded head once)

試了一試 (tried one try / tried once )

看了一看 (looked one look / looked once  )

  Now come to your question: what [verb]+了+[verb] indicate?

It is similar to point (3) with the counting word omitted.

點了點頭 = 點了(一)點頭

試了試 = 試了(一)試

看了看 = 看了(一)看


Can " 天空一片蔚藍 " also be "一片蔚藍天空"? And translation please?

天空一片蔚藍 or 天空是一片蔚藍 is sentence, which means The sky is all blue.

一片蔚藍天空 is a phrase, as you said, it means An azure blue sky.


The short version: I think English "go" is closer to the correct sound than English "few". If you want a non-scientific description which is reasonably accurate, I would use "low" (let's switch to the same consonant) with an added but not emphasised [i] between "l" and "ow".
The slightly longer version: Pinyin -iu is short for -iou, which means that if you stress the syllable and pronounce it very clearly, it rhymes with Pinyin you. For example, listen to the liu (select the third tone, it's longest and clearest) pronounced here.
However, note that the  diacritic (tone mark) in liù is placed on the u and not the i, which means that u is emphasised and i reduced. This can be written in several ways, but in Duanmu's The Phonology of Standard Chinese (2007), the broad transcription is [liəu] but in the narrow transcription, the [i] has been reduced to a superscript "j", so [lʲəu]. This reduction is fairly obvious if you listen to natural, connected speech. It's also common to further reduce the [əu]. If you listen to the same sources as above, but select the fourth tone for the same syllable liu, you will hear the difference.
If you're curious about other learner-related problems with Pinyin, such as other cases where one letter stands for many sounds (i is the most obvious example because the sounds are completely different), I've summarised the important ones here: A guide to Pinyin traps and pitfalls: Learn Mandarin pronunciation, which also contains some audio samples.


张九龄《感遇》“奈何阻重深”句解／Translation of a sentence in one of Zhang Jiuling's poems

“可以荐嘉客，奈何阻重深”。这句在说，这个水果是很给朋友们的一件很好的礼品，但无奈路途遥远，不方便。隐含着诗人当前所处的位置远离曾经工作和生活的地方而表现出一种悲伤的心情。“阻重深”，表示路途险阻，“重” chong 一般用在强制“很多的”的情况下，表示有很多的东西（通常都用在表示有困难）包围着我们，在这里强调很困难，比如“需要克服重重险阻，被围困的军队需要突破重重包围圈”。“奈何”表示口语中都是用“无奈”，表示没有办法或很难解决问题。

另外，在诗词和歌曲中，我们经常把一些并列式的词汇颠倒过来，比如“运命”平时都写成“命运”。


Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang and the revolutionary new technology

I write my piece of paragraph based on your English excerpt without referring to your own try. And hopefully it will meet your aim to identify a better style.

起初，多数人强烈反对，称人决不能僭作神明。当时，对未来后果的忧惧笼罩着大众。人类将如何演变？对此批判四起：一旦施用，人还称得上人吗？这种技术本质有违自然。诸此论调，引起世界各国政要也加入反对阵营，结果，除领军科学家外，无人许可应用该项技术。

其实这不过是官方说辞，真相恐怕永不能为我们所确认。有传每个政府都清楚该技术之威力，但皆不愿让他国轻易利用，故只能隐秘开展研究。一些人谴责那些科学异端出卖科技后退休跑路，但无可否认，现在它已经随处可见，令人惊骇。

我是周子望。约二十年前，科学家就已经开发出这足以改变世界的技术，而此时还是小孩的我无从知晓如此重要的研究正进行着。不论如何，这项新技术给我的人生带来了深远的影响。

Comments:

In Chinese writing, you are supposed to drop, merge, and change the expression of subjects constantly, and compact several topic-related sentences into one using link words. After all, Chinese sentences are separated by topics, instead of grammatical clauses.

Concision is virtue. Avoid too many grammatical words such as 的/地/得.

Chinese lacks "tense" in the grammar aspect, but it doesn't mean you are supposed to pay no attention to time.

In any case, this new technology has had a profound impact on my life.
无论如何，这新种技术会对我一生中有巨大的影响。（x）


Continuing your example:
if we remove '已经'

  所以，现在我不太爱坐飞机了

still means 'not anymore' because of '现在'. The reason you say '现在' in this sentence must be to compare past and current, so '已经' is optional in this sentence.

Now if we also remove '现在'

  所以，我不太爱坐飞机了

Well, it still more or less means 'not anymore', because of the '了'.  '了' here also somewhat implies 'after some incident', similar to '已经'. Ex:

  去年空难之后，我就不太爱坐飞机了

So if you want to state 'I really don't like taking planes due to some reason.', then for example:

  我有幽闭恐惧症，所以我不太爱坐飞机

would probably translate to 'I always have claustrophobia, so I don't like taking planes.'

but

  我有幽闭恐惧症，所以我不太爱坐飞机了

somewhat implies 'I recently got claustrophobia, so now I don't like taking planes.'


What is the difference between 能 and 能够?

Both 能 and 能够 mean 'can/ able to'

Subtle difference:

能 mostly refer to 有能力 (capable/ able)
够 in 能够 carries the additional meaning of '足夠' (enough to)

Example:

"Three inch of water can (is capable of) drown a person" 三英寸的水能淹死一個人

"Three inch of water can (be enough to) drown a person" 三英寸的水能够淹死一個人

"one dollar can (is able to) buy one Doughnut" 一美元能買一個甜甜圈

"one million dollar can (be enough to) buy a persons principle" 一百萬美元能够買一個人的原則


What does the word pronounced as "ma" in cantonese chinese mean in English?

Since ma in Jyutping isn't a valid syllable according to Cantonese phonotactics, I assume you mean Jyutping maa.

Modern Hong Kong Cantonese has six tones, of which five are indeed valid contours for the syllable maa. I'll use the Jyutping tone numbers below, giving an example word for each.

First tone (high level): maa1 媽 (mother), 孖 (twin)
Second tone: not possible
Third tone (mid level): maa3 嗎 (question particle)
Fourth tone (low falling): maa4 麻 (hemp)
Fifth tone (low rising): maa5 馬 (horse)
Sixth tone (low level): maa6 罵 (scold, abuse)


死牢 is a place for death sentence prisoner


Can 奉 be attached to verbs I want to use?

It's quite ancient-style, we don't use 奉 as "politely" any more today, except for several remaining set phrases, as dan listed.


百度 has lots of books under 现代修真小说完本, they seem to be about immortals.

修真 seems to be a Taoist phrase, '道教中，学道修行，求得真我，去伪存真为“修真”。' I think you're pretty close with 'cultivating the truth / the true reality / the true self'。


General guidelines for learning stroke order

The best place to start is with the Wikipedia entry on stroke order. It lists these guidelines, along with more detail and some nice animated examples:

  Write from top to bottom, and left to right.
  Horizontal before vertical
  Diagonals right-to-left before diagonals left-to-right
  Center before outside in vertically symmetrical characters
  Enclosures before contents
  Left vertical before enclosing
  Bottom enclosures last
  Dots and minor strokes last

In my experience, you don't need to panic about the details of each character, and there is sometimes disagreement about the "correct" order. If you learn the general guidelines, you won't usually make embarrassing mistakes. If you do want to see the details of a specific character, there are lots of on-line resources. Here are the two I most often use:

MDBG.net - Type the pinyin and press enter, then click on the character you want. Finally, hover over the >> arrow and click on the brush to see a stroke order animation.
zhongwen.com - Use the search page to find the character you want, then scroll to the bottom and click on the "Animated" link to see a different stroke order animation.

Although those are the two I use most often, the stroke order reference I find most beautiful and readable is the Wikimedia Commons Stroke Order Project, specifically, the Black and White images. Here's an example:

They're much easier for me to use than an animation, because they are static images. I can scan back and forth with my eye, instead of waiting for the animation to cycle through. I used them as the inspiration for my Mnemosyne flash card files. Mine aren't quite as pretty, because they are automatically generated, but they have the added feature of a grid to guide your stroke placement.

I just discovered the Stroke Fanning reference. It's very compact (500 characters on a two-page PDF), but I still find the Wikimedia Commons format much more intuitive to read.


In a scene from "Game of Hunting", people in handcuffs in a courtroom are wearing clothes marked "北看": is this correct and what does it mean?

This is short for "北x市xx看守所". The TV play is based on the city of Beihai(北海市) which belongs to Guangxi province(广西省), so 北 means 北海, 看 means 看守所. The typical name should be 北海市看守所. Actually, 北海 has at least two 看守所s. One is 北海第一看守所, the other is 北海第二看守所. If 北看 means 北海市第一看守所, then the other one should be short as 北二看.


Why is latte written as "那堤" in Traditional Chinese?

well, "拿鐵" is just a translation term. it helps to indicate the particular type of drink. in hong kong, another place using traditional chinese, latte is translated as "鮮奶咖啡" by starbuck.

"鮮奶" - fresh milk; voila, "咖啡" - coffee :)

toffee nut crunch latte --> 拖肥果仁脆趣鮮奶咖啡

gingerbread latte --> 薑汁鮮奶咖啡 <-- my favourite

i'm thirsty now, have fun :)


旧币 literally means "old currency"; it is not referring to any currency in particular, and without context it's hard to be sure. I believe the usage of "旧币" is only to tell the reader that, despite using "元", it is not referring to the modern renminbi, which has never had a value so low that old, off-season hawked clothes would cost thousands of it.

The most likely answer IMO is the old, first series RMB. This had a brief history between 1948 and 1955, after which it was revaluated at a rate of 10000 old RMB = 1 new RMB.

Of course there are numerous historical Chinese currencies called "元", and if you keep their value in mind, it could have been during the late civil war's hyperinflation, but since currency valuations were so much in flux during this period, this answer is less likely.

Even less likely are the various pre-Republic yuans, since they were pegged against stable, high-value foreign currencies like the Japanese Yen and Mexican Peso (no sarcasm, these were both stable and high-value in the early 20th century).

By the way, I would pay more attention to the usage of "元" in the prices than the phrase "铜钱". The latter used to be real currency but is probably being used as a synonym of "money", just as "钱" used to be a unit of currency but is now used as the word for "money" today.


How would you say: "But only X years ago, in month Z of Year Y ..." in Taiwan

In Chinese, we use 'Y-M-D' format for stating date.

  "But only two years ago" - "祗不過兩年前"

~

  "in September 2015" - "在二零一五年九月" (In Chinese, we state year before month)

or

"在 2015 年 的九月" - "in September of 2015

Emphasize the month if it is an important information. For example, September is the end of summer holiday


兒

  http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/90/

  [4] final particle / suffix, placed after many commonly used nouns to avoid employing one-syllable terms in speech (very common in the Beijing dialect 北京話, see: 兒化, 兒化韻)

~

  "藍天高高雲兒飄飄" --> "High, high blue sky, little cloud float around"

The dictionary only mentioned 兒 can be used as a suffix, placed after many commonly used nouns to avoid employing one-syllable terms in speech.

In my opinion, adding the 兒 suffix to an object, can also humanize the object. For example, calling a goat '羊兒' or '羊羊' instead of '羊' give it a hint of youthful, human character. (like in typical baby talk)


Correct pronunciation for 北, 白 in Cantonese?

北 is definitely bak1.

白 is baak6.

I believe this b/p issue is probably just a romanization problem. Remember 北京 was Peking in times past.

Words that start with b are usually represented by letter [p] in IPA and that is how many romanizations started, from IPA.

The Meyer–Wempe Cantonese romanization system is one such pinyin that does write the IPA initial [p] as p and not b.


Usage of word "sun": 太阳 (tài yáng) vs 日 (rì)

I'd like to offer a slightly different perspective from the other answers, and suggest that the most important difference between the two is that 太陽 is a free word, whereas 日 is a bound morpheme, i.e. it cannot appear as an independent word.  Think of 太陽 as 'sun' and '日' as sol-.  Of course they are not word for word identical with the English forms, but the basic concept is, perhaps, somewhat similar.

I don't agree that 日 is more common as 'day' than as 'sun'; it is pretty much parallel with 月, which is both 'month' and 'moon', and it's really quite difficult to say which is more common.  The morphology of 'moon' is also somewhat similar to 'sun' in Chinese, except that 月 is free when it means 'month'. whereas when it means the celestial body, it is bound, and you need the form 月亮. (Correct me if I'm wrong!)

Historically, 日 was both sun and day. (天 was originally different from 日, consisting of two things: 一日and 一夜.) How 太陽 became the word for 'sun' is an interesting question. In a large number of dialects, especially in northern China, the word for sun is still 日頭. It seems that 日 kept its meaning as sun pretty much unchanged in these dialects.

太陽 seems to have been an astrological term for 'sun', with the moon identified as 太陰. Why did 太陽 win out and supplant 日 and all its variants, while 太陰 lost out completely? I'll award 5 *'s to the lexico-mane who can answer that one.


The '一' here is for emphasis

在追求这目标的过程中 = In the process of pursuing this goal
在追求这(一)目标的过程中 = In the process of pursuing this (one/ single) goal

The two sentence basically have the same meaning, but the "一" in the second sentence emphasizes the singularity of the object 目标. Affirm it is the 'one' goal stated earlier and stress its importance.

More example:

此理想 = this goal

此一理想 = this one goal (affirm it is the 'one' goal stated earlier and stress its importance.  )

此人 = this person

此一人 =  this one person (stress the importance of this person in the context, for example, "this one person holds all the keys to your future success")


What is the idiomatic way to say "clothing fits"?

I am a native Chinese speaker and glad to help you.
In Chinese, there is a more idiomatic way to express that the clothes do not fit.
You can simply say "合身".
As an example: 这件衣服不合身, 它太大(或小)了.
(Translation: These clothes do not fit me because they are too large (or small).

When you use "适合", a misunderstanding may occur. This word can also be used to describe how the clothes look on you. (Just as your example: you use it to say you don't like the style.
As an example: 这件衣服不适合我, 它显得太年轻了.
This means these clothes are often preferred by younger people.

When you say: 这件衣服穿不上
You only emphasize that these clothes are too small for you.


Are there Chinese language-learning karaoke videos at a basic conversation level?

Karaoke is more like combining the MV and lyrics together, most of them afford the instrumental version, which means that you can find them in Music Company. Of course, there is a faster way, if you know a karaoke store owner, he/she know how to get you a list of karaoke.

FYI -
Most karaoke videos are properties of music companies, but due to some reasons lots of people have access to the pirate. So you might need to be cautious to avoid the legal issue.


所以 means 'because' but it can also be used as a noun for "reason" , as in "不明所以" (don't understand the reason)

邓小平 is a noun,  之=(的),  所以=reason
邓小平(之)所以 = Deng Xiaoping('s) reason (for)

推动改革开放 (promote reform and opening up) is the action that the reason resulted in.

一来是为了提高人民的生活水平，二来是为了让中国经济从计划经济转变到市场经济。 is the description of the reasons

'之所以' is a common phrase for 'the reason why'; 'therefore' because it is so commonly used in literary form.
Example:
"(The reason why) he resigns" = "他(之所以)辭職"
"(The reason why) he ran away" = "他(之所以)逃跑"
The two examples above must be followed by the description of the reason


It's not popping veins, but cold sweat for frustration or helplessness, usually as a response to something completely out of the line or out of the context.

Wikipedia:

  Parallel vertical lines with dark shading over the head or under the eye may represent mortification, fatigue, or horror. If the lines are wavy, it may represent disgust. A far cuter way to represent frustration/mortification is (mainly for female/ young female characters) they tend to puff out their cheeks while their line is delivered in a gruff voice, an elongated 3 showing puffed lips to show that puffed look more.

Popping vein is visualized and then character-ized as '头上一个大大的井字'.


“FLAG” meaning in ‘bullet hell-style subtitles’ (弹幕)?

It was initially adopted by computer programmers. In order to mark the state of a certain block of code, they commonly use a variable called "FLAG" to store the value of state. For example you could have FLAG = 1 to mean that the user is male, then the following code blocks will work on the premise that the user is a male. Likewise, you can have FLAG = 0 to mean the user is female, then there will be a different logic followed.

Then it's widely used in China(first in Japan) to indicate some character's line indicates that something will happen in the future, usually someone's death.

For example, when someone says "Don't worry, I'll be right back. I promise." Then usually he/she is going to die.

Another example, when a girl says "I'll never date someone like him." They usually end up with being couple.

People use "FLAG" as a ridicule towards the noticeable pattern of story that occurs over and over again across Movies/TV episodes/Novels and so on.


I agree it's redundant. When there's a quantifier following with a noun, never use 们.

们【助】
用在代词或指人的名词后面,表示复数。如:孩子们

注意：名词前有数量词时，后面不加“们”，例如不说“三个孩子们”
(http://xuexi.123cha.com/zd/11586.html)


my preference: "很不起眼儿" can be translated into “unimpressive”,while "其貌不扬" into "unimpressive-looking". The reason is that "unimpressive" can refer to many aspects such as his appearance, his achievement, and etc. Compared with"很不起眼儿", ""其貌不扬"is more specific to the appearance, so "looking" is added to "unimpressive".


How do we translate the Chinese slang “抠脚大汉” into English？

Baidu baike:
网络语言，抠脚大汉即字面意思为抠脚的男人。事实上网络用语解释为：指一些猥琐男人在网络上扮女生，引围观，然后看着聊天记录一边抠脚一边大笑。

抠脚 : to scratch ones legs

抠脚大汉 ：Internet creep


What's the difference between 眼熟 and 面熟?

They are not fully interchangeable.

In 面熟/脸熟, 面/脸 are nouns for 'familiar what'. 面熟/脸熟 means 'familiar face'.

In 眼熟/耳熟, 眼/耳 are functioning as adverbs for 'how is it familiar'. 眼熟 means 'looks familiar', 耳熟 means 'sounds familiar'.

As a result, 面熟/脸熟 are mostly used for people, 眼熟/耳熟 can be used on anything that you can look at or listen to. For a familiar face, either one is fine.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Why Is The Color Red Considered Lucky In Chinese Language and Culture?

Here we have an old tale in China, saying that there is a beast called the "Nian" (年獸), and it will only attack people in spring. But it's afraid of all things red.

That's why Chinese people use many red things in the lunar new year (also in spring). It became a common color represent "lucky" in Chinese culture.

More information about Nian can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nian


I don't think "What do you think" is really a suitable question here... So I'll address the question in the title instead ("Are there transitive/及物动词 or intransitive/不及物动词 verbs in Chinese?"):

Sure there are. And I really doubt they are "mostly" separable verbs.

For instance: 他走了 "he left", or 花開了 "the flower blossomed". There are a large number of such verbs that seems quite clearly intransitive. There are also many that goes both ways like in English. The character 吃 for example is by itself also a verb (in contrast to your example of 吃飯), and it can be both intransitive: 我吃了 "I ate", as well as transitive: 我吃派了 "I ate pie".

You claim regarding 參加 or 游泳 taking adverbials of place instead of objects seems highly suspect to me. I fail to see what is adverbial about 比賽 in 我參加了比賽 "I joined a tournament".


You should really think of it like "establishing" given the context.

目前，优酷网融资的几千万美元中，超过一亿元人民币将用于版权建设 =

Currently, out of the 10s of millions of USDs that Youku has financed, over 100 million RMBs are being used to establish copyright protection [for their videos].


Word order question. Describing a rabbit's eyes

... the "How" of the main verb in the sentence should always come before the verb itself.

This is correct if "how" is referring to the adverbs. In Chinese, adverbs are placed before verbs, unlike in English they can be either before or after.

  It's eyes were red, like a pair of rubies." (它的眼睛红红的，像一对红宝石)

The thing with this sentence that makes it easily mistaken is there are two verb clauses:

were red. (是)红红的
like a pair of rubies. 像一对红宝石

The structure is quite obvious in its English version. But in the Chinese version, copula 是 is omitted before adjective 红红的, making it ambiguous to learners or even native speakers.

Hence, #2 is not "how" or adverbial for #1, but another verb clause. The order of the two verb clauses should be dictated by the semantics, not syntax or grammar. Since one clause is direct description and the other is analogy, there is no right or wrong on the order.


Why do HSK lists differ from character frequency lists?

To answer your second question:

From a mathematical perspective, it will depend on the texts that are sampled to compile any list and the variances associated with those samples. Languages evolve and there is no true character frequency, only an approximation. Spoken Chinese will have a different character frequency to written Chinese because the spoken language has a high entropy. It is likely that the HSK test had a panel of experts select characters based on what they deemed to be suitable, whereas the list you referenced was mass sampled by some kind of web crawler.

It is inconceivable that every single electronic Chinese character on the internet has been sampled, and if it was that would be very biased as that would ignore all of the written works not uploaded to the internet. Depending on the format of the inputs there will be a huge difference, if lots of text was taken from 微薄, then the character 哈 might rank as common, purely from comments that are like "hahahaha" for example. If classical Chinese was sampled heavily then characters like 曰 might feature much more frequently than 说.

Some of the HSK 5 and 6 words are very political and business oriented, but there are not many scientific words.


Pocket money is a synonym of allowance and it is translated: 零用钱 or 零花钱.

Allowance, akin to subsidy, can be translated as 津贴 or 补贴.

Disability allowance for instance would be translated: 残疾补贴.


如何把名词形式的 'Nothing' 翻译成中文 How to translate the English noun form of Nothing into Chinese?

It is a real problem in Chinese translation, because there is no such word as “nothing” in Chinese. If you want to translate “nothing” into Chinese, you will have to paraphrase it into something else, such as “not anything”.

  I have nothing.

  → I do not have anything.

  → 我没有任何东西。

  → 我什么也没有。

Here comes the problem:

You want to translate the following sentence:

  You will turn him into nothing.

You can only paraphrase it into:

  You will not turn him into anything.

  你不会把他变成任何东西。

or

  You will turn him into nonexistence.

  你将把他变成不存在。

You want to translate the pun? I don't think it is possible to make such a pun in Chinese.


The answer:

生我才必有用 (Heaven gave me my talents have to be of some use)
不相上下 (Evenly match)
人不為己天誅地滅 (The universe will eliminate the ones who don't take care of oneself)
鴉雀無聲 (Complete silence)
才高八斗 (Highly talented or educated)
三山五嶽 (From all over the nation/ eight famous mountains in China)
依樣葫蘆 (Copy; Imitate)
源遠流長 (Long historic background)
樂不思蜀 (Too happy to think of home)
黑白分明 (knowing black from white)
後起之秀 (New wave of talents)
入不敷支 (Incomes can't cover expenses)
行屍走肉 (The walking dead)
落井下石 (kick someone when he's down)
處之泰然 (Take it calmly)
精誠所至金石為開 (Sincerity can split metal and rock)
賊過興兵 (Close the stable door after the horse has bolted)
不學無術 (Not educated and have no skill)
無地自容 (Deeply shamed)
如狼似虎 (Beast like; savage)
可有可無 (Not essential)
民不聊生 (The People are struggling to survive)
天下無敵 (unrivaled in the world)
皮笑肉不笑 (fake laugh)

a. 不屈不撓 (Never submit, never yield)

b. 雖無過犯面目可憎 (although committed no crime, your face is loathsome)

c. 天下烏鴉一様黑 (corrupted people are the same everywhere)

d. 精兵簡卒 (reduce the number but raise the fighting ability of an army)

e. 至高無上 (The ultimate; no better than this)

f. 點石成金 (With one touch turns rock into gold)

g. 用人唯才 (Hire on merit base alone)

h. 指鹿為馬 (Twisting the facts)

i. 高瞻遠矚 (Having good foresight)

j. 開天闢地 (Creating a new world)

k. 長軀直入 (Go straight in)

l. 義不容辭 (Honor bound)

m. 不毛之地 (Desolate place)

n. 口誅筆伐 criticizing orally and in writing

o. 天無二日 民無二主 (the sky has only one sun, the people have only one ruler)

p. 樂不可支 (too happy, I can't stand it)

q. 不敵 (lose; can't defeat)

r. 滅頂 (Drown)

s. 三思而後行 (Think carefully and thoroughly before taking action)

t. 栩栩如生 (life like; like it is alive)

u. 與虎謀皮 (make deal with dangerous people; courting disaster)

v. 大魚大肉 (great feast)


What's the difference between saying '我不比她差' and '我比她不差'?

Judging from a native speaker point of view, use '我不比她差' only.
'我比她不差' doesn't make sense in Chinese, as no one uses '我比她'+ '不' + adjective.

When you want to say 'I am better than her', say '我比她好' instead of '我比她不差'
When using '我比她' + adjective, don't use '不' in front of the adjective; native people don't understand it and don't use it like that.

When you want to say 'I am not worst than her', say '我不比她差'.

More example: When you want to say 'I am taller than her', say '我比她高' instead of '我比她不矮'


How to ask for a given choice of options?

请问，您是学生，老师，还是来参观的？

请问 = May I ask


How can I ask, "Will this email address be removed from this mail group?"

You can say "这个邮件地址会被邮件组删除/移除吗？". First, you need to catch the important words in this sentence. " email address"(邮箱地址),"removed"(移除) and "mail group" (邮件组). You can make a sentence with these three words in a logical order. " will" is future tense, so you need to use "会".


Is there a politically neutral Chinese term for Greater China that is acceptable to all Chinese speakers?

maybe "大中華區". most multinational corporations used this term to describe the regions you mentioned.

such usage is correct, in context of nowadays, or recent decades. historically, taiwan was integrated into the chinese empire after ~1683. before that time, formosa was colonised by the dutch, spanish.

history of taiwan

last, and most importantly is: how do you define "chinese speakers".

there're many ethnicities in "greater china" can speak chinese, they've their own cultures, languages and ideas of state / nation. so, "politically neutral" is, imo, unattainable.

it's better to seek a term that's vague, fuzzy enough; that no-one want to waste time and effort to argue its precise definition.


What does 雄于 in 少年雄于地球，则国雄于地球 (from a Liang Qichao quote) mean?

雄 as a verb has the meaning of 'be dominant'

少年雄于地球 = (If our) youths are dominant on Earth

则国雄于地球 = Then (our) nation will be dominant on Earth


What's the lyrics to Onra's "Like the Seasons"?

It's perhaps Shanghainese Mandarin. This song tries to create an old atmosphere from the early 20th century in Shanghai. Onra probably intentionally make it very blurred and unclear. But back then, people who do not live in Beijing their Mandarin accent is not accurately. They would mix their hometown local accent with the standard Mandarin accent.

After listening this song couple times. As a Shanghainese, it sounds like "我...在怀念你" (I'm missing you) to me.Some comments under 网易云 also mentioned this. In the song, "我" sounds like "吾", which is close to its Shanghainese pronunciation; and "怀念" also sounds close to Shanghainese. So it's a Shanghainese lady speaking Mandarin. However, I cannot give you a 100% sure answer.


Which is the proper translation for 委员会？

You are not the first person to wonder about the difference between 'commission and committee.'

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-commission-committee-and-council

Seems to me, in English, the difference is how they are formed: a committee is formed of volunteers, a commission is appointed. In China this distinction seems not so apparent, so they use 委员会 for both.

The original meaning of committ-ee was 'person to whom something is committed/entrusted'.
The original meaning of commission was 'authority entrusted to someone'.
So, actually, there is not much difference in English either! Both come from Latin 'committere'.


前面 means "in front of" or "at the front of". It can be used for anything that has a front, though in some cases just 前 may be better.

面前 means "in front of the face". It can only be used in the context of things that (literally or metaphorically) have a face. In many cases it carries a sense of "in the face of" or "in the view of". For example:

法律面前没有特权
There are no privileges before the law.
如何在喜欢的人面前表现
How to present yourself before a person you like / are attracted to.

So your initial suspicion is right.

You can use 前面 for a person, but only if you're strictly referring to the position, and not to the sense of "looking at". For example, you could use 前面 when you want to say "there are many people in front of me in the line" but not when you say "The student is standing in front of the teacher", where 面前 would be more appropriate.


SZTV News: 外交部告诫美方：敌人是病毒不是中国: please correct my transcription

Here I come!

应对日益严重国内疫情，美国总统特郎朗普频频妄图甩锅中国。他妄称在新冠疫情的问题向上，中国故意误导了国外社会，还频繁拿病毒源头做文章。对此外交部表示美方一些人应该尊重事实、尊重科学、应该认识到他们的敌人是病毒不是中国。
特朗普之外西方部分政客和媒体借疫情大肆渲染向中国索赔的论调。对此都[ming2(?)]多名外国政要和学者都看不下去了。捷克总统泽曼和新加坡国立大学李光耀公共政策学院[chuang4(?)]是创始院长马凯说等人都做出了反驳。


What's the difference between 称赞, 表扬 and 夸奖?

They have similar meanings in daily usage.

I personally consider 赞扬 > 称赞 > 夸奖 = 表扬

表扬 and 夸奖 are more common words and are often used when an elementary student is praised by his/her teacher for a good mark in exam. (It’s definitely natural to use them in other scenarios, but we began to use them frequently since elementary school).
称赞 and 赞扬 are often for someone with greater achievements or a higher moral level, such as someone bravely fought the crime for a just cause. 扬 raises the object to a higher level, for which I consider 赞扬 greater than 称赞


What does 初期运营速度 mean when we talk about high speed railway?

初期运营速度 means operative speed in early phase. The early phase could be a trial run to see if everything works okay. And later on, they might increase the speed based on the data they collected from that trial run, or they would fix if any issues are identified.


How many people are learning Chinese as a second language today?

Estimated by Ethnologue: 198.7 million as of 2021 (Mandarin Chinese only).
Note:

The data above is the total number of people who speak Mandarin Chinese (ISO 639-3: cmn) as their second language; it doesn't show differences between "learning Chinese" or "speaking Chinese".
If we define Chinese language as a macrolanguage (ISO 639-3: zho), the number is beyond my knowledge.
Using Chinese as second language doesn't necessarily mean he/she is not of Chinese nationality. There are millions of minorities in China who speak their native language (Uyghur, Tibetan, Yi, Korean, etc. ) but use Mandarin Chinese as second language.
People who learn Chinese outside China are estimated to be 25 million according to MoE PRC (although this may be an exaggerated number, and may also include ethnic Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore).


Communication - 交通，交流，联系，接触，沟通，交际，打交道

Q1: what sort of things would be connected with 交通?

places are being connected. e.g. "建公路交通兩地" (build highway to connect the two places

Also:

交通(v): back and forth" E.g. "交通來往" (to and fro, back and forth)

交通(n): "traffic" E.g. "香港的交通很繁忙" (H.K's traffic is very busy)

  交流 - to communicate (2 sides don't necessarily know each other)

Also: 交流(v): to exchange (idea, knowledge, information)

  联系 - 1) n. relationship between things, 2) v. to get in touch with so - Q2: is this after a long time (to get "back" in contact), or just generally?

In general. You can get in touch with people you didn't know before

  接触 - 1) to touch/connect (physical), 2) to contact, to communicate (与/跟) - Q3: what sort of physical action would constitute 接触?

接触 means "make contact; touch" you can use part of your body to 接触 (touch) anything. And two objects physically make contact is also 接触, e.g. 電線接触到水 (electric wire makes contact with water)

  沟通 - to communicate - Q4: what distinguishes the act of communicating through 接触, 沟通, 交流 (and 练习 if 练习 isn't contacting someone after a long time, per above)?

沟: to mix, to circulate

沟通 : means "to exchange (idea, feeling) ;

  打交道 - to come into contact with / have dealings with - Q5: what sort of people/things would you have dealings with? Under what circumstances would you say that you have had dealings with so/sth?

people who are not in your circle. We don't say "與父母打交道" or ""與朋友打交道", but we do say "與美國人打交道" , "與某公司高層打交道"


Is the following text grammatically correct?

Notation

删掉的内容
增加的内容
(注释)

首先，你必须 试探观察 你的对手，因为他的话 靠不住不可信。不要让他的想法弄垮 得稀巴烂 你的思想。其次，你应该每天选择自己的战斗 (not sure what you want to say here)。如果你有对交战的渴望，请不要冲动地行动，由于因为 交战的成本比仔谨慎 思考 的成本高得多。不仅 要 观察别人，还要记得他们的想法。因此，首先了解你自己的 难事难处 ，然后理解别人的努力。结果，最终 你 会 变得更加 熟练成熟，因此并且(因此 and 结果/最终 are duplicated) 将来你会超越自己。尽管看起来有些事情超出了你的能力，但别 放心担心(I don't known what you want to say here, but it should not be 别放心)，你不是辅助角色，也不是其他人的替罪羊。只要你相信自己，你就可能成功 了。最后，其他人可能会欺负你，但 请 尝试忽略他们 ， 并 你 注意专注于 你 自己 的目标。你可能做 到 不可思议的事情！
Note: I still don't get what you want to say. When I made the corrections, I treated each sentence as a standalone sentence.


There might has been some misconception here.

Banana blossoms (香蕉花) is a food ingredient, it has nothing to do with the nickname for the American born Chinese- 'banana'(香蕉) (which is white inside, yellow on the outside. Meaning they might look Chinese, but they think and act like white people )

Another nickname for American born Chinese is 'bamboo stick' (竹昇), (which is empty inside, meaning they don't have any Chinese character inside them)

  "tall skinny Chinese person" or "long skinny Chinese person"

The misconception might have came from your Chinese friend thought 香蕉 = 竹昇, and 竹昇 in other context, can be used metaphorically to describe 'tall skinny person'.

Example:

'他像竹昇一般又高又廋' (he is tall and thin like a bamboo stick)

'他七呎高卻只得一百二十磅重, 那不就是活脫脫一條竹昇麼？(He is seven feet tall, but only weight 120 pounds, is that not virtually a bamboo stick?)

The fact is, 香蕉 and 竹昇 might mean the same thing, but they obviously are not the same phrase, and the nickname '竹昇' doesn't contain the metaphorical meaning of 'tall and thin person'


果 is the abstraction of all kinds of "production of flower". It could be fruit, or nut.

水果 means "juicy fruit" literally, but it could be any "production of flowers" which tastes delicious, e.g banana. But usually, people don't call nuts 水果, but 坚果 instead.


When should 了 be after the verb and when should it be at the end of the sentence?

In my opinion, you can use "了" right after the verb or at the end of the sentence when "了" is used to show the past tense. However, in your case, that's another thing that I want to clarify.

I think, "去面试" should be treated as one phrasal verb, something like the phrasal verb "go fishing", "go shopping" in English.Here "面试" (interview) is a noun which has a verbal meaning, and thus I will treat "去面试“ as one verb, rather than treat “面试” as the object of the verb "去".If you say "我去了北京", it's different because here "北京" is the object of "去“. Treating the two words as one verb, of course you should not insert “了” inside it.

I would say :

  因为我去面试了，所以我刮了胡子. or 因为我去面试了，所以我刮胡子了.

I would also say:

  因为我去参加(参加=participate in)了面试，所以我刮了胡子.

Here, “去参加” is treated as one verb and “面试" is its object.

or

  因为我去参加面试了，所以我刮了胡子.


How do you say "I mean", as in "that is not what I mean" ?

Actually,there is not a statement of 'I mean' in 'That is not what I mean'.

In Chinese, 'That is not what I mean.' is '那不是我的意思。'.

So, '我的意思' is just 'what I mean'.


"给我" is usually interpreted as a command or an order to do something for the speaker.

"站住" means to halt or to stand still.

"给我站住" is not an idiom, but a command to stop a person from walking away. In this case, Google Translate got it wrong. "给我站住" is usually spoken when someone has done something bad and you want that person to stop walking away from the "crime" scene:

  你给我站住！

"等我" is to ask someone to wait for you. Therefore, the two do not share the same meaning at all.


There really isn't much to say here - 「謙」 originally meant modest words or modesty in expression.

I don't understand how 言 ("to say"; "speech", "words") relates to modesty. Language, speech, words can be used to boast, exaggerate, and lie!

This looks to be a problem in the way you're thinking and reasoning about language, rather than a specifically Chinese language question. This is like asking

I don't understand how the word "gutless" relates to little; without. You can be without fear ("fearless")!

Statements like this are very difficult to respond to in a context relevant to language, and these really aren't the right kinds of questions to help understand language better.


When is it right to use 是什么关系 rather than 有什么关系?

是什么关系 = what is the relationship / connection

有什么关系 = have what relationship / connection

Both are grammatically correct, but in different context, "有什么关系" could mean " what does it matter" e.g. "他死了有什么关系?" = (what does it matter that he died)

A and B 是 XX 关系 =  the relationship between A and B is of XX
A and B 有 XX 关系 = A and B have the relationship of XX
Y 有什么关系 = what does Y matter
Y 没 关系 = Y doesn't matter
Y 没什么关系 = Y doesn't matter whatsoever

Example:

"A 和 B 是 父子的关系" (The relationship between A and B is of father and son)

"A 和 B 有 父子 关系" (A and B have the relationship of father and son)

"你输了有什么关系?" (What does it matters that you lost?)

"你输了没关系" (it doesn't matter that you lost)

"你输了没什么关系" (it doesn't matter whatsoever that you lost)


Under the section Pronunciation of initials for the pinyin page on Wikipedia there is the following:

  Note on y and w

  Y and w are equivalent to the semivowel medials i, u, and ü (see below). They are spelled differently when there is no initial consonant in order to mark a new syllable: fanguan is fan-guan, while fangwan is fang-wan (and equivalent to *fang-uan). With this convention, an apostrophe only needs to be used to mark an initial a, e, or o: Xi'an (two syllables: [ɕi.an]) vs. xian (one syllable: [ɕi̯ɛn]). In addition, y and w are added to fully vocalic i, u, and ü when these occur without an initial consonant, so that they are written yi, wu, and yu. Some Mandarin speakers do pronounce a [j] or [w] sound at the beginning of such words—that is, yi [i] or [ji], wu [u] or [wu], yu [y] or [ɥy],—so this is an intuitive convention. See below for a few finals which are abbreviated after a consonant plus w/u or y/i medial: wen → C+un, wei → C+ui, weng → C+ong, and you → C+iu.

Also under letters for the orthographic rules of pinyin it says:

  Syllables starting with i are written as y in place of i (e.g., *ian is written as yan). Standalone i is written as yi.
  Syllables starting with ü are written as yu in place of ü (e.g., *üe is written as yue).


Is 不 A 不 B a grammatical structure like 又 A 又 B?

They are different. Most [不 A 不 B] terms are either idiom or four characters idiomatic phrase that you have to memorize individually.
The A and B in [又 A 又 B] can be a single character word, a compound word or even an entire phrase. e.g. 又高又瘦，又高又瘦削，又想高大又想瘦削
Below are the common [不 A 不 B] terms:
[A complement B ]
不慌不忙: (not panic, not hurry) stay calm
不聞不問: (not listening, not inquire) ignore
不知不覺: (not know, not feel) not notice
不經不覺: (not experience, not feel) not notice (of time passing)
不瞅不睬: (not looking, not pay attention) ignore
不明不白: (not understandable, not clear) unclear
不倫不類: (not any type or kind) ridiculous
不慍不火: (not angry, not enrage) calm; mild
不痛不癢: (not hurt, not itchy) insignificant attack/ lost
不飲不食: (not eat, not drink) not eat nor drink
不眠不休: (not sleep, not rest) tirelessly;  relentlessly, persistently
不忠不孝: disloyal, not filial (no virtue)
不仁不義: unkind, unjust (no honor)
不過不失: (not considered a wrong doing, not considered a mistake) average/ mediocre
不折不扣: (no discount, no rebate) truly; definitely
不離不棄: (not leaving, not abandon) never abandon
不盡不實: (not detailed, not true) not telling the truth
不驕不躁: (not prideful, not irritated) stay calm and focused
不屈不撓: (not bending, not yielding) Never give up
不三不四: (not this, not that) dubious
不依不饒: (not agree with, not forgive) pestering/ not let things go
不聲不響: (Silent, not make a sound) silently/ be silent
[A contradict B ]
不卑不亢: (not too humble, not too excited) proper demeanor
不偏不倚: (not lend away , not lean onto) right on/ Objective (opinion)
不緩不迭: (not slow, not swift) steady normal pace
不男不女: (not a man, nor a woman) sex unknown
不上不下: (not up, not down) struct in the middle
不大不小: (not big, not small) the right size
不冷不熱: (not hot not cold) mild reception; right temperature
不高不低; (not high, not low) middle position (of rank or level)
不胖不瘦: (not fat, not thin) average body type
不咸不淡: (not salty not bland) unremarkable taste/ mediocre
[B until/ unless A]
不死不休: not stopping until one is dead
不吐不快: not happy until saying (something)
不時不食: do not eat unless it is in-season
不見不散: not leaving until we meet
I would update this list when I think up more.


What does 以 mean in 也提供了低层级的控制功能以尽可能提高灵活性和性能?

Literally speaking, you could translate 以 into "so that""in order to" or some other words that introduces the goal or objective of something.

P.S. It seems that this sentence is obtained from direct translation [i.e. word-by-word] with minor modification according to grammar. Usually the structure of these translated Mandarin sentences is fairly close to the that of the original English, so you could try to check each word one-by-one.


The same as "I don't think so".

我 **可**(means emphasize) 不觉得
我不觉得
不觉得
不

When it's a single word "可不", as you post, it is an interjection often used when spoken; it means "exactly" or "you're right".

For example:

你真帅
那可不

And there won't be any usage of this meaning in the form of "我" + "可不",  especially when they are two characters behind "可不".
Just remember the usage scenarios of oral language like this (a sentence only has 3 characters).

And why can this negative word be used to represent approval?
This is called 反诘 ("rhetorical question").


Looking for a legit place for Classical Chinese grammar rules

The best reference in English is probably Pulleyblank's Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar. I don't think it is available in a digital version though, so you'll have to look up a print version.


Why is 喂 used over 你好 when answering the phone?

Most languages use an alternate greeting for telephone calls; the English "hello", although originating from before the telephone, was popularised by it, so much so that it has become a common greeting outside the telephone:

hello
1883, alt. of hallo (1840), itself an alt. of holla, hollo, a shout to attract attention, first recorded 1588. Perhaps from holla! "stop, cease." Popularity as a greeting coincides with use of the telephone, where it won out over Alexander Graham Bell's suggestion, ahoy. Central telephone exchange operators
were known as hello-girls (1889).

So the mandarin 喂 is not an exception, only that unlike "hello", people do not use it outside telephone calls.
The reason for telephone greetings is that it was a medium where reception may be bad and you are unsure who you are talking to. Thus a short greeting meant to solicit response (i.e. "can you hear me") is used.


No. They are not interchangeable at all.

经常 bears more frequency than 时常. E.g. 我经常去看你 Vs. 我时常去看你. 我经常去看你 indicates I go see you more often than 我时常去看你.

If you say 我经常去打球，I'd think your frequency of playing ballgames is high. If you say 我时常去打球, I'd take that your frequency is normal/moderate (or probably a bit above normal), neither very high nor low.


I haven't looked up in the dictionary, so my answer may not be accurate. Just for reference.
方法 means the way that should be followed when doing something. Example: 使用方法 (the way to use something, like washing machine or ointment)
办法 seems to be more colloquial, and mostly refers to the way to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Sometimes it is equivalent to 方法. Example: 我没办法吃这么多。(I can't make it to eat this much. )
方式 refers to the "style" when doing something. However, it is not eqivalent to 样式. The latter refers to what a thing looks like. Example: 传统方式未必是落后的。(Traditional way(style) is not definitely out of date. ) And: 传统的样式是很好看的。(Traditional style is very beautiful. )
Hope this will help you. ^o^


How to say "development and support" in Chinese

开发与技术支持

开发 is development as in software development.

技术支持 means technical support.

支持 by itself means support.

seems to be a common enough paring, here's two examples:

I guess you could also just say 开发与支持 if you wanted to cut out the whole "technical" part.


Difference between 品格 / 品质 / 人品 / 人格 / 素质?

It would try to explain the difference in English on my best and I will include the common meanings.

  品格

It means generally the way a person deals or reacts with the outside world, it could also refer to the quality and character of a literature work. It could also mean the quality of a product, but people often use the word 品质 for this meaning.

  品质

It refers the quality of a product or the quality of a person's morality, IQ, EQ, health and so on.

  人品

It means personality, however, more on the degree of a person's morality in the society. Although, recently, people has been using 人品 as luck, this is not yet officially accepted as a meaning for this word.

  人格

This means personality.

  素质

It refers to the quality of a person's behavior.


問得好!

Here are some differences.

syntactic difference:

一樣 can be a predicate (謂語).
同樣 is only used as a modifier 修飾語, i.e. in front of a noun and connected with 的 (adjectival) , or in front of a verb phrase, or sentence (adverbial).

semantic difference:

一樣 same (identical)
同樣 same (equivalent)

I think these will account for your examples:

他们两个长得同样:  V得 here requires a predicate, so 同样 is bad.
妈妈点了一杯咖啡，我也一样: here 一样 is pro-verb (not proverb) which resumes the predicate 点了一杯咖啡; 同样 can't do that.
他认识我，同样，我也认识他: here 同样 is an adverbial; it means 'in the same way'

Another example, that (I think) shows the semantic difference:

我在美國看到同樣的情形: I saw the same (equivalent) situation in America.

I'm a little less sure on this one, but I don't think it has to be an exactly identical situation; just one that strikes me as fundamentally equivalent.

Anyway, nice examples, and good careful thinking!


I agree with  user3306356.

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

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


I have a complex feeling about Chinese trashy-novel "fever" in the West...
OK, time for the answer.
Translating literature is far beyond correctness. I'm not an expert, so I'd just bring you some suggestions.
For the title:
Thousand Miles To Become A God
Although a thousand is ten hundreds, the meaning of this title is not away from the original one.
For name of the book:
I don't know if the book appears more than once in this novel, but if it doesn't, it will still be fine even if we just name it by our instinct. By my observation, most authors of this kind of novels don't really care about proper names.
On Heavenly Principles
宪 has the meaning of "principle" as in 宪法 (constitution).


What is the purpose of using 成语接龙 to learn 成语?

The purpose is to force one to recite idioms without explaining what they mean.

I believe this kind of recitation is a good way to learn language. Recite it first when we are young; ponder about its meaning later when we have a sound background of related skills, such as logic, critical thinking. This belief is well backed by him, who learned English, German, French, Latin and Greek by recitation, allegedly. Recitation is also an important method to learn in classic Chinese schools.


Some advanced words: bamboozle, hoodwink.


Basically you are right ☆
My interpretation:
有时候称有有时候称无，自然是本意去分开说，妄称有无，而不是那佛有有时有无时（一会儿存在一会儿又不存）的道理便很明显了。

The first and third 有 means "have the quality of", the second 有 is opposite to 无, and they mean "existent" and "nonexistent".

EDIT:

我方才看了整篇文章《焚书•答周西严》，这里做一些改正：

这是一篇驳论文。第一节立靶子，第二节道理论证，第三节类比论证。

驳论点为物物生而有佛性，区别在于自不自知，按今天的话讲，叫开窍不开窍。不开窍的，除了那些个土木瓦石无知觉，贤智愚不肖又太“专情俗世”，都是可以让他开窍的，按原文叫“以佛乘”。

  天下無一人不生知，無一物不生知，亦無一刻不生知者，但自不知耳，然又未嘗不可使之知也。惟是土木瓦石不可使知者，以其無情，難告語也；賢智愚不肖不可使知者，以其有情，難告語也。除是二種，則雖牛馬驢駝等，當其深愁痛苦之時，無不可告以生知，語以佛乘也。

作者说了，这不对啊！那人的观点，和自知的就是佛，不自知的就不是佛有什么区别呢？我不晓得那人啊，他前半生干的事情，是出于哪个的主张（意思应该是，所谓佛性是什么东西他知道么），那不就是天天在用而不知道吗？不知道就算了吧，还说目前不敢莽撞地修佛。那么他目前不是佛，来日就能是佛了？来日修佛的时候，要是发现是佛，今日他不修佛他的佛又去哪里了？有的是佛有的不是佛，自然是他存心去区别，随便称有称无，而不是你那佛有的人有有的人没有的道理便很明显了。

  據渠見處，恰似有人生知，又有人不生知。生知者便是佛，非生知者未便是佛。我不識渠半生以前所作所為，皆是誰主張乎？不幾於日用而不知乎？不知尚可，更自謂目前不敢冒認作佛。既目前無佛，他日又安得有佛也？若他日作佛時，佛方真有，則今日不作佛時，佛又何處去也？或有或無，自是識心分別，妄為有無，非汝佛有有有無也明矣。

他说自己恐怕还成不了佛，他有胆说自己这辈子成不了人么？我不知道……（一顿推论）……既然能成人，怎么就不能成佛了，还要等哪一天来！天下难道有不是人的佛，不是佛的人么？假如一定要为官成家之后才能去成佛，那就是说成佛要等闲着的时候才可以，那就是说成佛有碍于事业咯。既然这样那你们这些人要去成个什么佛？既然这些个事都能阻碍成佛，那看来，这佛也没什么用处，那不是更加笑死人了？我才稍稍一议，你们就万劫不复了，啧啧啧！

  且既自謂不能成佛矣，亦可自謂此生不能成人乎？吾不知何以自立於天地之間也。既無以自立，則無以自安。無以自安，則在家無以安家，在鄉無以安鄉，在朝廷無以安朝廷。吾又不知何以度日，何以面於人也。吾恐縱謙讓，決不肯自謂我不成人也審矣。既成人矣，又何佛不成，而更等待他日乎？天下寧有人外之佛，佛外之人乎？若必待仕宦婚嫁事畢然後學佛，則是成佛必待無事，是事有礙於佛也。有事未得作佛，是佛無益於事也。佛無益於事，成佛何為乎？事有礙於佛，佛亦不中用矣，豈不深可笑哉？才等待，便千萬億劫，可畏也夫！


Contracted pronunciations of 今天 and 这里【這裡】(Taiwan)?

I don't quite have enough personal experience of enough parts of Mainland China to be able to judge how prevalent it is. I will say however that it is far more prevalent in urban Taiwan (particularly Taipei) than rural Taiwan, and more prevalent across Taiwan than in its closest linguistic areas on the mainland, i.e. Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong. I do find more northern Chinese prone to "slurring the sounds", most characteristic of the Beijing dialect of course, but also fairly common in fast speech across the parts of the north that I've been to, from Shandong to the northeastern area.

The 连音 / contraction so common on Taiwan is what you're picking up, enough to be a defining characteristic of casual Taiwan Mandarin, and easily perceived by a Mainland Chinese ear. The "extreme reductions" have been studied by linguistics researchers, and according to this 2009 paper from researchers at University College London, it is actually an ongoing productive process. Vowel + vowel interfaces are most likely to be contracted.

The outcomes of a lot of these contractions are starting to be fossilised, and are changing the phonotactics of colloquial Taiwan Mandarin slightly. Some of these are documented in this 2006 paper from NTU. Certain initials are more resistant to change than others; the labials b-, p-, f-, m- are mentioned as consistently so, with the one exception being 根本 gēnběn which becomes "gèmm" with an elongated m, phonetically [kəmː˥˩].

Of course, removing contrasts do create conflict and confusion. This 2010 paper from UCLA shows that perceptual cues nonetheless remain. Length seems to be increasingly contrastive in this role, as are the exact scale of the tones.


Off the top of my head, the emphasis appears to be different in these two forms. If I use verb1 + 着 + [verb1 complement] + verb2 + [verb2 complement], the second verb is to me a more important action. For example, I would interpret 你不应该听着音乐做功课 as "You mustn't listen to music while doing homework" and 你不应该做着功课听音乐 as "You mustn't do homework while listening to music". These are not the same. If I want to tell someone that to focus on her homework, I use the first sentence. If I want someone to focus on the music we are listening to (so as to better appreciate it), I would use the second sentence.

In comparison, if I use 一边 + verb1 + 一边 + verb2, there is less of an implicit emphasis on either action. If I see 你不应该一边等巴士，一边拍照, my interpretation is that it does not matter whether the person addressed stops taking photographs and waits for the bus, or gives up waiting for the bus and takes more photographs.


What does 些 mean when it's combined with 什麼?

You are correct, "些" is used to mean "a few" and it also applies in the example you gave above - ie. you can't even find 'a few' words to say.

I believe you can also leave out "些" and it will still mean almost the same thing. To me, with/without "些" the sentence means the same thing but has a slightly different emphasis/tone to it.

For me, with "些" it feels a bit 'softer'...as if you are genuinely out of words (maybe you saw something and suddenly lost for words); whilst without "些" it sounds like you are frustrated (someone has annoyed you, did something stupid) and you don't know how to comment/what to say to them.

ps. I would personally say:

  我就是不知道要說(些)什麼

pps. I'm also learning Chinese, so confirmation from someone who is a native speaker would be nice :)


What’s the function of 還, 了, and 呢 in the sentence, “我還以為他不走了呢”?

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

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

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

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

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


Difference between 给 and 跟 (e.g. in 我给你讲 and 我跟你讲)?

給 = Give/Let, 跟 = With/Together. When used with another verb together, "給" designate the "transceiver" / "receiver" of the verb, while with "跟", both party are the subjects.

The examples you chose is a indistinguishable case (there are probably a lot of them). Let me elaborate with something else:

我給你吃飯 = I let you eat
我跟你吃飯 = I eat with you
你給我吃飯 = You let me eat
你跟我吃飯 = You eat with me / You and I eat together
我給你休息十分鐘 = I give you 10 minutes to rest
我跟你休息十分鐘 = I rest for 10 minutes with you
你跟我休息十分鐘 = You rest 10 minutes with me / You and I rest for 10 minutes together
我給你看看 = I'll show you this / (I give you a look of this)
我跟你看看 = Let's see this / (I look at this with you)

As for your examples, I guess we can distinguish them literally with:

我給你講 = I give you a speech
我跟你講 = I speak with you

However, the physical actions of these two are probably not distinguishable from each other.


Like all cross-linguistic and cross-cultural translations, this requires a knowledge of the context, not just of the source material but also of the target language.
In medieval and Renaissance Western Europe, the 科举 was not "a thing" in the same way as in Imperial China (and East Asia), with the viva voce being more traditional. However, with greater knowledge of these practices, an accepted translation for certain terms formed, e.g. 科举 = imperial examination.
There are plenty of possible translations for 状元 which are native to English, that any good Chinese dictionary should give:

top scorer
best in class
top of the class
leading light (best applied to the world of work)

However, in most academic texts, zhuangyuan is used, in recognition of its origin.


Firstly: 孬 is a fairly old character, attested in the Kangxi dictionary. However, the pronunciation there is given as:

  呼怪切，歪去聲。

...which implies modern Pinyin: huài (Zhuyin: ㄏㄨㄞˋ).

Even back then it was known as a dialectal character.

In Cantonese, the character is pronounced as a straightforward liaison, with initial of the first and the final (including the tone) of the last:

  不 bat1 + 好 hou2 = 孬 bou2

But that can't account for the n- initial; rather the pronounciation naau1 was borrowed back from Standard Mandarin, and only in pronouncing phrases from the standard language.

So, we have to look to another form of Chinese, possibly one of the Mandarin dialects. But we get inconsistent answers from the Internet commnuity: 河南方言, 东北方言, possibly others.

It is also attested in Shanghainese, and I personally think this is the most likely place that the expression originated; on the interface of Jianghuai Mandarin and Northern Wu, possibly where the local cognate of the tag question 好不好 has nasalised.

Just goes to show, contracted expressions are sometimes lost in the mists of time.


What does the "hào" mean in "àihào" for "hobby"?

好
[粵] hou2 | [國] hao3
(1) [adj] good; fine; nice | [ant] 壞
....

~

好
[粵] hou3 | [國] hao4
[v] like; love; be fond of
[v] be liable to; be likely to
Example:
好(hao4)酒= like to drink
好(hao4)賭= like to gamble

愛好= 'love and like' = interest/ hobby


Is 进 correct: 他喜欢进我的房间(来)和我聊天儿？

进 means 'enter'

  他喜欢(进)我的房间(来)和我聊天儿 --> he like to (enter) my room (to) chat with me (X)

As you can see, it is not a good choice of word in English. A better wording should be  "he like to (go to) my room (to) chat with me". In Chinese, it would be

  他喜欢(到)我的房间(来)和我聊天儿 (O)

Other example:

他喜欢(进)旅馆过夜 --> He like to (enter) hotel to spend the night (X)

他喜欢(到)旅馆(去)过夜--> He like to (go to) hotel (to) spend the night (O)

  You can use 去(go to) or 来 (come to) instead of 到, and you can omit 来(to) in Chinese

Example:

他喜欢(去/来)我的房间和我聊天儿

他喜欢(去)旅馆过夜


In spoken Mandarin, what adjectives can be used to complement a person's appearance?

Some other words are:

  漂亮 (piàoliang)
  秀丽 (xiùlì)
  姣好 (jiāohǎo)
  俏丽 (qiàolì)
  标致 (biāozhì)
  文雅 (wényǎ)

The adjectives you came about and the words above often used for females. By the way it's sometimes impolite to describe a girl as 性感。


Has "⿰面了" been suggested as a analogical simplification of 䩍?

Yes, but actually no.

Yes, because the 2.9.008 rule of the second part of the Second Stage simplifications (1977-1978) postulated simplifying 尞 to 了 wherever it occurs: 撩, 瞭, 缭, etc.

No, because all the simplification schemes are explicitly referring to popularly used characters only, and the practice was and remains to avoid overindulging in simplifications: texts where such characters can occur are probably about the character itself, and thus its original form is preferred. 䩍 (U+4A4D) is not even remotely a popular character, with its only claim of fame being the appearance in the Kāngxī Dictionary.

By the way, note that in the actual Second Stage, were it implemented, 面 is simplified into  (U+2BA51) as well (rule 1.2.009). So, ⿰了 is the actual IDS you are looking for, looking like this (http://glyphwiki.org/wiki/u2ff0-u2ba51-u4e86, just drew it):


How do you politely ask for things in Mandarin?

Politeness in Mandarin is expressed by using different politeness elements, which include politeness characters, wording or manner of speaking. Usualy one element is enough in one sentence, because using 2+ elements in the same sentence may sound too polite, causing a feeling of distance.

Would you please pour me some water? 请给我倒些水好吗？

Note: it is different from 我想喝水. Because 我想喝水 is not a request. If you tell me you want to drink some water, I will think, ok, no problem, go ahead and get some water for yourself, as you didn't ask me to get some water for you.
When making a request in Chinese, usualy we don't say 谢谢. Instead, we say 谢谢 when the request is either accepted or fulfilled.

A:您能帮我给他带个口信嘛？ B:可以。A:谢谢。---Request accepted but not fulfilled yet.
A:请给我倒杯水好嘛？ B:给你。A:多谢。---Request fulfilled。

Here are some examples of making polity requests in Mandarin:

您能帮我个忙嘛？ ---Politeness character 您 is an equivalent personal pronoun of 你 in Chinese showing your repect for others, including the elder, your superiors, and so on.
请帮我个忙。---Politeness character 请 is used here to show politeness when asking for a favor
我看，也只有你能帮我这个忙了。 ---Wording, which makes a request indirectly.
帮帮忙吧。 ---Manner of speaking, in a supplicatory way.
可怜可怜我们母子俩吧。---Wording + manner of speaking， which instigates pity.

By the way, the following are the expressions to use when someone says 谢谢/多谢 to you:

别客气 / 甭客气 / 不用客气 / 客气啥 / 太客气了 / 没事儿 / 见外啦 and a lot more.


My closer Chinese friends do use the terms 白人 and 白种人 neutrally in the same way we use "white people", but by and large I find Chinese people avoid these terms, and are set slightly on edge when I drop them casually into conversation. One friend told me she doesn't use 白人 because "听起来有种族歧视，不是吗?". Instead she and other Chinese usually use "美国人/法国人/英国人 etc." to indicate whiteness, but of course this can lead to some politically incorrect statements：

A: “你的朋友是华裔吗?” ("Is your friend ethnically Chinese?")
B: “不，她是美国人.” ("No, she's American.") [actually she's both]

Or this one:

B: “是不是美国人和黑人之间发生过很多冲突?” ("There have been many conflicts between Americans and black people, right?") [as if the two are separate groups]

In both examples, I'm fairly certain that the speaker is using "美国人" to mean "白人". Most Americans would take offense at this definition, because it subtly implies that non-whites are not true Americans, even if the speaker didn't mean it that way. Ironically, it is the avoidance of the term "白人", not its use, that causes the political incorrectness.

So, to answer your question, I think "白人" or "白种人" actually is the most neutral term possible for "white people", despite the fact that it seems to make most Chinese people slightly uncomfortable. Neutrality aside, 老外, 洋人, and 鬼佬 all refer to all Westerners, not just whites. And I don't think any Chinese people would self-identify as "白人" because of their skin color, except jokingly.


What are the distinctions between 大概 and 大约？

大概 is more general

大約 is more narrow. Specifically be used to express estimation of numbers

Both 大概 and 大約 can mean "approximately"

"There are approximately fifty people" can be translated as "大概有五十人" or "大約有五十人"

More example:

大概二十英尺 / 大約二十英尺 (about 20 feet)

大概四十岁 / 大約四十岁 (about 40 years old)

大概三年/ 大約三年 (about 3 years)

However, 大概 also means "probably" and "roughly"

You can say 他大概不会来了 (He probably won't come), but you cannot say 他大約不会来了 (He approximately won't come)

You can also say "大概說明一下" (roughly explain a little), but you cannot say "大約說明一下" (approximately explain a little)

  Whenever numbers are involved, you can safely use either 大約 or 大概 for "approximately"


Technically, when you say "增加了n倍", "n倍" is describing the difference the two number. So the original x becomes x*(n+1), while the difference is n*x.

If you want to say that the latter number is just n times the former, then it is "增加到了(原来的)n倍"

However, in casual speech, people may not always respect this rule, which makes it confusing. Sometimes we have to make a confirmation to make sure we get the real number.


他身患绝症. 绝症 implies terminal, such as cancel, which is incurable most of time.

Or 他身患恶疾 means he got a very serious desease.


Is this funny way of saying things some dialect?

我在网上找了一下，你提到的这篇文章标题是《死都没人爱的9种女人》，事实上它有“正常中文”版本的原文：

其实还可以搜索到一篇内容十分类似的文章《十种汉子该暴挨，你属于那一种？》，前者应该只是把后者内容当中的“男人”替换成了“女人”。而后者2006年左右就出现在网络上了，这种类型的文章作为段子实在是很过时。现在的大多数网民应该都不会觉得这篇文章有趣。

至于你提到的这种“奇怪的中文”的版本，确实网上可以搜索到：

这应当是通过某种类似于在线翻译的方式由电脑自动转换的，在网上还可以搜索到一些类似风格的文章。我不清楚这些网站在转载时进行这种转换的原因。不过显然这并不是为了有趣，也不是标准汉语的特殊形式，也不是所谓网络语言。应该说，就是网络上的一种信息垃圾。不用去深究，也不要把它作为学习中文的参考。


For the standard mandarin that is regulated by mainland China, the "r-coloring" is part of it. There is an official test for speaking mandarin, "r-coloring" is mentioned in its guideline(《普通话水平测试(PSC)大纲》) and must be tested:

  2·2 读双音节词语50个。
        目的：除考察应试人声母、韵母和声调的发音外，还要考察上声变调、儿化韵和轻声的读音。

  2.2 Read 50 two syllable words. Tone sandhi, "r-colored" final, and neutral tone should be tested, aside from testing how well one pronounces each initial, final, and tone.

About when should one read or write as "r-colored", let me quote something form 《现代汉语词典》, which is explaining the notations within the dictionary:

  6 书面上有时儿化有时不儿化，口语里必须儿化的词，自成条目，如：【今 儿 】、【小孩 儿】。书面上一般不儿化，但口语里一般儿化的，在释义前加‘（~ 儿）’，如【米粒】条。 ....

  When a word is sometimes written with "儿" and sometimes not, but must be spoken as "r-colored", it would have its one entry, e.g. 【今 儿 】、【小孩 儿】。When a word is usually not written with "儿", but usually spoken as "r-colored" in speech, ‘（~ 儿）’ will be appended to explanation, e.g. 【米粒】

(Note, the dictionary used a small font for the above italic 儿 in the quote. I don't know how to type it here)

The dictionary's notation may be irrelevant here, but we can see there are words in standard mandarin that written “儿” is optional, or usually not written with "儿", but should be spoken as "r-colored". Examples are given in the quote. The written form and the spoken form sometimes do not match.

About how it is applied in real life, you should remember that most people in China do not speak standard mandarin (very well). The application of "r-colored" tones is quite regional and may differ a lot from place to place. Some people do not use them at all, and some use a lot. I think you should follow your teacher as when to use "r-colored" tones in speech.

As when to use it in writing, though the dictionary listed a lot of words as "sometimes written with 儿 and sometimes not", there is, in fact, a small set of words that are usually written with "儿". You can drop all "儿" in writing with words outside the set. I cannot list all words in the set. The most common one that usually written with "儿" might be "一会儿". You can follow your reading materials as when to "儿" in written form.


How old is the term 哲学 as a name for philosophy?

The wikipedia page you quote literally says "1874年，日本启蒙家西周，在《百一新论》中首先用汉语词“哲学”来翻译philosophy一词". So "哲学" as a word is as old as that.
The Classical Chinese occurrences are about the word "哲", not "哲学". They are not exactly the same thing.


Historical: How was Chinese written in telegrams and early computers?

For telegrams, the Chinese Commercial Code (中文電碼) was used.

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

Roughly, to send a telegram, someone needed to go to the post office, write down the text message, info of sender & receiver - by hand, on a form.

Then, the worker would "translate" each Chinese character into 4 digits, according to the Chinese Commercial Code book, something like this:

Then, the message was sent by morse code to the nearest post office to the receiver. The morse code was "translated" back to 4 digits, and looked up again in the Chinese Commercial Code book. Afterwards, the message was sent by a post office worker to the receiver by hand.

The CCC is still used today in Hong Kong: the residents' identity card shows their name in Chinese, English & CCC.

Another service, the telex, which was widely used in the past, cannot handle Chinese characters. As I remember, we only sent Latin characters (A-Z) & numbers (0-9).

It was in the pre-1980 timeframe.

The first computer (OK, personal computer) that could handle Chinese was the ETen Chinese system (倚天中文系統); it dates from about mid-1980.

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

Those were the days... :)


I think, your intuition is right. 泡面 sounds fancier, and people prefer fancier names unconsciously.

方便面 sounds cheap; they were just instant noodles for filling one‘s empty stomach. The name reminds the way how migrant rural workers eat 方便面, which is very common to see in train stations of big cities.

泡面 sounds as elegant as 泡茶 (make tea); because usually it takes time to 泡 (verb) something and then to enjoy what has been 泡-ed.


Do people in China say 新年快乐 at Spring Festival?

Yes. 新年=New Year, while it does not specify whether it's the new year of the Chinese calendar(农历) or the Gregorian calendar(公历).

So it's ok to say 新年快乐 in both cases. And normally we'll interpret it based on the context. If you wish to be more specific, you can use 元旦 for 公历新年 and 春节 for 农历新年.

Edit:

My personal opinion about the usage of 快乐 in greetings (as a native speaker myself):

Generally, 新年快乐 seems more formal to me while 新年好 seems more casual.
新年快乐 is mostly used with other greetings/blessings, starting with 祝(你). eg. 祝你新年快乐，万事如意，心想事成. Thus, it's better used in written language, where you'd use one long sentence to express your best wishes to someone.
Both can be used when people meet during the Spring Festival, but you'd use multiple short phrases instead of one long sentence in the oral language, so 新年好 probably better suit the case.


Is the text 若承租人是公司，则必须提供法定代表人资料 official and correct?

The text sounds very official and formal
若 (if)
承租人 (tenant)
是 (is)
公司 (company)
则 (then)
必须 (must)
提供 (provide)
法定 (legal)
代表人 (representative)
资料 (information)

若承租人是公司，则必须提供法定代表人资料。
If the tenant is a company, then it must provide the information of the legal representative

I think 法定(legal) is not needed, since the representative is bonded by a legal agreement with the company


What are the seal characters on this white jade pendant? (Characters identified: 龍德)

Looks like 龍德, which seems to be the name of various Chinese and Vietnamese kings.


Baxter–Sagart's (2014:135) view on *s.t-:

Preinitial *s- had a range of effects on unaspirated stops and affricates . . . Old Chinese *s.t-, but not *s.tʕ-, evolves to MC sy- (plausibly [ɕ]), presumably through an intermediate stage [stɕ] that simplified to the Middle Chinese palatal fricative sy- under the influence of pre-initial *s: *s.t- > *stɕ- > *ɕ- = sy-.

For 少, B–S's MC reconstruction is syewX. The consensus of MC is ɕiᴇuX. This is supported by the fanqie 書沼切 of the third division in Guangyun. All MC reconstructors concur the 書-initial is /ɕ/.

I believe B–S is aware of the conflict between the above theory and the presence of the 妙-type phono-semantic compounds. In fact, B–S applied the square brackets (which indicates uncertain identity, not lack of evidence, in which case parentheses would be used) to not only *s.t for 少, but also *m for the 妙-type phono-semantic compounds:

眇/杪/渺 *[m]ewʔ
妙 *[m]ew(ʔ)-s

Reconstruction evidence from the Chinese script is important but needs to be used with caution (Baxter–Sagart, 2014:26):

As with rhymes, in using evidence from the script to reconstruct Old Chinese, it is important to take into account not only which words were written with the same phonetic element, but also which words were not written with the same phonetic element. Traditional Chinese philologists noticed cases where initial consonants that were very different in later pronunciation were apparently treated as interchangeable in the early script.

The example 喻四古歸定 was immediately given where initials y- and d- in MC were often interchanged in OC:

弋 yì < yik ‘shoot arrow with string attached’ is phonetic in
代 dài < dojH ‘replace’

余 yú < yo ‘I’ is phonetic in
涂 tú < du ‘path’

Edit

In constructing OC for 少, Zhengzhang (2003:154) caters both the agreement with MC sy- and phono-semantic diversity.

*hCj- 則生成書母字，如「勢」hŋjeds、「恕」 hnjas、「手」hnjɯw' (「手」與「杻」為同族詞，跟兄弟語「手指」泰文 niu'、緬文 hnjoɯh、基諾語 n̥u 同源)。「少」可諧「秒杪眇渺妙」應是 *hmhjew'，這樣才能與「鈔訬吵」 *smhreew 相諧，並跟「小」 *smew' 轉注（小少與「秒眇」等同根，但與「沙」只是異源同形）。

As for *hCj- (C: consonant), they make characters of the 書-initial (MC sy-), such as 勢 ('potential', shì, OC *hŋjeds), 恕 ('to forgive', shù, OC *hnjas), and 手 ('hand', shǒu, OC *hnjɯw'). 手 and 杻 ('ancient instruments of torture', chǒu) are family characters, and is etymologically the same as 'finger' in Thai (niu'), Burmese (hnjoɯh), and Jino (n̥u). 少 concurs with 秒杪眇渺妙 and should be reconstructed as *hmhjew'. This is also to reflect *smhreew in 鈔訬吵 and to be derived cognates with 小 (*smew'). Note 小/少 and the 秒/眇-type phonosemantograms are of the same origin, but not with 沙.

Zhengzhang (2003:141) also considers the preinitial *s- to usually precede nasal consonants (which is not what B–S thinks, see obstruents in point 1.):

戌 *smid, 烕 *hmed, 滅 *med
小 *smewʔ, 少 *hmjewʔ, 渺/秒 mewʔ
需 *snjo, 儒/襦/孺/濡 *njo

Moreover, unlike B–S, Zhengzhang does not attribute any morphological function to the preinitial. It merely serves to apparently explain phono-semantic compounds and phonetic loans.

In defence of B–S's OC construction: what is different in B–S than previous reconstructions is that it is heavily inspired by Vietic, Hmong-Mien, and Kra-Dai because they received early loan words from Chinese. I looked up Hán Nôm readings of 少; none of them began with /s/ but th (/tʰ/) instead:

thiểu, thẹo, thểu, thỉu, thiếu, thẻo

There is also morphological reason why a preinitial *s- is added before the Vietic *t: it either increases the valency of a verb (of a character other than 少), or creates an oblique deverbal noun (from said unknown character) (Sagart and Baxter, 2012).

少 shǎo < syewX < *[s.t]ewʔ ('few')
少 shào < syewH < *[s-t]ewʔ-s (adj. 'young'; n. 'the youth')

Notice in 少 shào (but not 少 shǎo, your character of inquiry), B–S is confident there is a morpheme boundary between *s and *t (denoted by a hyphen but not a period). This is because *s is likely to be a nominalising agent, creating the sense n. 'the youth', as seen in e.g.:

群賢畢至，少長咸集。（晉·王羲之《蘭亭集序》）
All the literati, the young and the old, have congregated. (Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion, tr. Wikisource)

While your hypothesis that 弋–代 is analogous to the 少–妙 situation is possible, you need to find more pairs as evidence. B–S obviously does not adopt this in their reconstruction because it is useless in face of Vietic evidence. Whereas this may work in Zhengzhang's system. B–S also did not reconstruct 吵 in OC, which has both “s-/t-” and “m-” readings in Guangyun (and so in Japanese [Go-on: みょう・しょう, Kan-on: びょう・そう] and Korean [묘, 초]). I have yet to find any B–S theory for the concurrence.

Personally, I think Zhengzhang synthesises existing evidence well. But B–S has a more analytical and innovative touch in their reconstruction. Evidence regarding 少 and whatever that it associates with are frequently conflicting, so there is yet a fixed answer.

References

Baxter, William H., and Sagart, Laurent. Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2014.

Zhengzhang, Shangfang. Old Chinese Phonology. Shanghai Educational Publishing House, 2003.

Sagart, Laurent, and Baxter, William H. "Reconstructing the *s- Prefix in Old Chinese". Language and Linguistics, vol. 13, no. 1, 2012, pp. 29-59.


How to translate "transparent communication" to Mandarin?

Nowadays 透明 can also mean transparent in the sense of openness as a calque from English.

Though 透明沟通 or 透明的沟通 indeed sounds a bit weird to me. But 开放透明的沟通 (open and transparent communication) is okay. 透明的沟通机制 (transparent communication mechanism) and 透明的沟通平台 (transparent communication platform) are fine too.

Edit: I would translate "a new paradigm of transparent and accountable communications" as 透明且负责任的沟通新范式.


演 ＝ 氵+ 寅 but what's it got to do with water!? How did it get its modern meanings?

http://dict.shufaji.com/word-2326.html

甲骨文（水，喻流程）（矢，代军事操练），造字本义：古代军事模拟实战的流程式操练。篆文将甲骨文的“矢”写成“寅”，明确了军事操练的含义。隶书将篆文的成。

the 氵also got another meaning of flow (process flow), so it does mean that process flor for traditional battle(war) training.


Is 交替更迭 redundant? Would this be proper grammar: 雨天與晴天交替?

交替 and 更迭 are two similar terms that complement each other in an four characters idiomatic phrase. Using four characters idiomatic phrase is a very common practice in Chinese speech.

For example:

小心 (careful) and 謹慎 (cautious) have similar meaning, it is often put together as an idiomatic phrase (but not a true idiom)

You can say "你要小心" or "你要謹慎", they deliver a similar message, and both are to the point.

You can also combine the two adjectives into one idiomatic phrase "小心謹慎" and say "你要小心謹慎" to illustrate a more detailed message and add literary flair to your speech.

"雨天與晴天交替更迭" is grammatically correct and detailed. However, it would be more elegant to say "晴雨交替" or "晴雨更迭" (another way to make idiomatic phrase is reduce a long phrase into four characters phrase)

More examples:

縱横 (intersecting) 交錯 (crossing) --> 縱横交錯

聰明 (intelligent) 伶俐 (smart)  --> 聰明伶俐

We do it in English too, e.g. "He is a clever, smart man"


Is my sentence 我本来要带你去的，但是我的车抛锚了 correct?

Since the second sentence includes 从那儿 and 打车回来 (come back), I would assume the two speakers are in the place they want to come back to, therefore the first person (A) is not 带 "taking" the second person (B) anywhere. She's going to pick her up.

I think the main sentence sounds better with 准备, or 想, instead of 要, as it introduces an intent (then disrupted by the car breaking down), instead of a sure thing.

我本来准备去接你，但是我的车抛锚了。
I was going to pick you up, but my car broke down.


What does 是 mean/indicate in sentences such as 虽然有些人吃素是因为宗教的关系，但小林不一样?

「是」因爲 translates to 「is」because of or 「is」due to. There's an implicit phrase that's omitted in these sentences, which is (the reason behind)...「is」due to....

  雖然有些人吃素「是」因爲宗教的關係，但小林不一樣。

  Even though (the reasons behind) some people eating vegetarian「is」due to religious considerations, 小林 is different.

  小林不太喜歡吃肉食，「是」因爲有些肉食有很多骨頭，讓他麻煩死了。

  (The reason for) 小林 disliking meat「is」because some meaty foods contain a lot of bones which greatly inconveniences him.

Like the English equivalent of these sentences, the phrase the reason behind is omitted. The English equivalent, however, will also omit「is」for grammatical reasons:

  Even though some people eat vegetarian due to religious considerations, 小林 is different. 小林 dislikes meat because some meaty foods contain a lot of bones which greatly inconveniences him.

Please note that in Chinese, the omission of the reason behind is necessary in this case; we don't say ...的原因是因爲..., especially in written materials, as this is highly redundant.


For buildings, according to 住宅设计规范(Design code for residential buildings) GB50096-2011,

2．0．13 过道 passage
　　住宅套内使用的水平通道。
2．0．20 走廊 gallery
　　住宅套外使用的水平通道。

So the internal transport space, such as the passageway inside the cinema or train, can be said as "过道".
And the transport space which is outside the building, independent, covered, can be said as "走廊".
Except for buildings, "走廊" can also be used for a narrow strip(corridor) connects two areas. Such as "河西走廊".


...前 and ...内 are the short version of 之前 and 之内 respectively.

They are completely interchangeable, ...前==之前， ...内==之内.
三天前==三天之前，三天内==三天之内，第二次世界大战前==第二次世界大战之前

...后==之后 is the same thing. 两年后==两年之后

The only difference is longer ones look more formal.


Pedroski wrote in his answer:

  After enumeration, such as '几‘， any word you can't explain will be a classifier.

Agree with that.  "句" in "我想对你说几句话" is not a noun but a classifier

If you say 我想对你说几句, you  just omitted the object "话" but it is still implied. Similar to saying "may I have a few?" in English, which an object is implied,

For example, a man is eating candy, his friend pointing at the candy and ask: "May I have a few?" he doesn't need to state the object "candy" which is understood by both parties

With the same logic, the object in 我想对你说几句 is made understood with the present of the verb "说" (say). The object of the verb "说" (say) is always "话" (e.g. 真心话, 不中聽的话, 重要的话 etc.)

Example of "句" as a noun:

with classifier: 一個句 (a sentence), 個 is a legit classifier for 句(n)
with applicable verb: 造句 (make a sentence), 造 is a verb applicable to 句(n)
with applicable adjective: 疑問句 (interrogative)

疑問句 (interrogative) is a single term, but 疑問 functions as an adjective and 句 functions as a noun within the term


What is the 成语 for "face like buddha, heart like scorpion"?

I didn't see this film, so I am not sure if this is the original one used in the film.
From your description, I guess the idiom is "人面兽心", which literally means "a human's face and a beast's heart", actually is used to describe a man who looks kind, but really is vicious, evil or wicked.
By the way, I think you can show us the time point or the scene when this line appears so we can easily catch it for you.
Update:
The original word in the film is "菩萨脸,蝎子心". I don't think it's an idiom. I'll treat it as an analogy, a figure of speech. Actually, "菩萨" isn't Buddha, but Bodhisattva, an image in Buddhism. The subtitle translated the meaning well and I think it's easy for you to understand.


first, it is not 国产地效船双船+试飞. It should be 国产地效船+双船试飞.

Second, if you want to add 双船 to 国产地效船 as a phrase, you should go with 国产地效双（体）船.


Was "jih pun"- an origin of "Japan", came from Cantonese?

日 means "Sun"

本 means "origin"

  http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/410/

  日本 Japan

  jat6 bun2   (jyutping)

  ri4 ben3, lv4 ben3   (pinyin)

Japanese pronunciation of 日本 is /ni pon/ (Nippon),

Chinese use the Japanese Kanji 日本 and pronounce it as Chinese characters.

Cantonese pronounce it as /jat6 bun2/
Mandarin pronounce it as /ri4 ben3/ or / lv4 ben3/

The Cantonese pronunciation of 日本 is in deed more similar to /jih pun/ than the Mandarin pronunciation does.


太 -> too, extremely, very

他不高兴 -> He's not happy -> He's unhappy

他不太高兴 -> He's not very happy -> He's a little unhappy


Where are people using the expression 過得 / 过得?

Both 过得 and 过得去 are common in China, but 过得 and 过得去 can have different meanings.

过得: 生活得(怎么样), how one's life lives; For example, 你过得怎么样？：How are you getting along? or how is your life (you live)?

过得去: to get through or get by; It has literal and metaphorical meaning. The literal meaning is to physically get through and metaphorically, it means to get through a difficult situation. For example, 我过得去 could simple mean 'I can get it through'. 我生活还过得去： 'Things in my life are able to get through.' It implies that your life is okay or not too bad.


What's the meaning of "刀不长眼"? Is it proverb or something like that?

It means the knife doesn't have eyes, it could hurt people easily.
In the sentence, it means if things lose control, some people will get hurt, so better it's better to calm down.