Examples of correct and incorrect pinyin

An idea coming from here suggests to take the HSK vocabulary list annotated with pinyin and put the words list to Google translate. The post's author found 11% of words incorrectly converted for HSK level 1-3 words.
The issue is that the official HSK website provides only a words-list without pinyin in an excel format. However, you can find respectively here and here words-lists annotated with pinyin in a pdf or on a website which you can later programmatically convert in a suitable format.
EDIT, in comments:

HSK wordlist with pinyin in tab-separated values


What's the difference between 遇到 and 碰到?

I like to think of 碰到 as the equivalent of the English "bumped into"

And 遇到 as the English "came across" or "encountered".

The later being more formal and first being more oral in both the English and Chinese.


How to type the Chinese ellipsis ⋯⋯ using Google Pinyin IME?

I don't use Google pinyin on Linux, but a lot of (simplified) Chinese IME use Shift + 6 to produce ellipsis. I assume the Google pinyin might follow the trend.

And by the way, you can try all the symbol keys on the keyboard with the Chinese IME. They do not always produce the "full-width" version of the symbol on the keyboard. Some Chinese specific punctuations can be inputted in this way.


绝尘

ABC：

move very fast

KEY：

1 run as if flying

2 be above mundane thoughts

A netizen on Baidu Zhidao defines 绝尘而去 as：脚不沾土,形容奔驰得飞快

Another explains it this way:
绝是消失不见
绝尘就是消失在扬起的尘土里
绝尘而去就是飞快的离去了，消失在马蹄扬起的尘烟里

I would translate 大风绝尘而去 as big winds (are going to/will) sweep through


It is a title of a project, not a sentence.

「一带一路」」refers to "The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road"

「一带」(the one belt) refers to 「丝绸之路经济带」

「一路」(the one road) refers to 「21世纪海上丝绸之路」

Both are specific object, therefore the title cannot be just 「带和路」(belts and roads)

Using 「一个地带和一条通路」would be too wordy for a title. Not to mention 「丝绸之路经济带和21世纪海上丝绸之路」


Are 你美好的未来 and 你的美好未来 and 你迷人的眼神 and 你的迷人眼神 all correct?

"你美好的未来" and "你的美好未来" are reducted differently from the same sentences "你的美好的未来" (wordy)

你的美好的未来 (wordy)

你美好的未来 -- omitted 的 from 你的 (emphasize 美好的)

你的美好未来 -- omitted 的 from 美好的(emphasize 你的)

~

你的迷人的眼神 (wordy)

你迷人的眼神 -- omitted 的 from 你的 (emphasize 迷人的)

你的迷人眼神 -- omitted 的 from 迷人的 (emphasize 你的)

Please read Why there is no 的 after 你 in 你国家的医院好吗?
and When does an adjective require 的 to describe a noun?


What does 的 mean in 电影展示在盲人面前的不只是一时的多彩

「的」in that context means that which is....

電影展示在盲人面前「的」不衹是一時的多彩，電影改變着每一個聽電影的盲人的人生。
That which movies exhibit to visually-impaired people are not just fleeting displays of magnificence; for those people that listen, movies change their whole life.

Compare:

紅車 (Red car)
紅「的」是車 (That which is red is the car)

Grammatically, what's being cut out here is something like 東西 or 事情. The full expression of the above example might be something like 紅的東西是車 (The red thing is the car > That which is red is the car).


What does 开 mean in 会开完了 ("the meeting is over")?

This is a good example of a V.O. (verb + object) word and it’s flexibilities.
If we take a look at Tuttle Learners Dictionary’s entry for 开会, we have;

[v+obj: 开 open up + 会 meeting]
VERB
attend a meeting, hold a meeting

and example sentences:

我们最好开个会, 讨论一下这个问题。
Wǒmen zuìhǎo kāi ge huì, tǎolùn yíxià zhège wèntí.
We'd best have a meeting to discuss this issue.
王老师在开会。
Wáng lǎoshī zài kāihuì.
Teacher Wang is at a meeting.

The order of V.O. words can be switched around. In your example for instance it starts with the object and then uses the verb later.
You might see similar expressions like:

话说完了

饭吃完了

字写完了


Traditional Chinese phonology is organized according to initials (声母), finals (韵母), and tones (声调). This is a satisfactory phonological description of Chinese languages/dialects; it's not that different from a more granular description which broke apart finals into glides, vowels, and codas. I can only speculate as to why they decided to do it this way--perhaps that the scholars were describing the categorical distinctions of a dialect group led them to describe sounds in terms of representative characters for contrastive categories rather than descriptions of the specific phonetic realization. In any event, that's how they did it. The fanqie system for indicating pronunciation is a great example of describing phonetics in terms of characters representative of categories.

Many modern texts on 方言 are directed at linguistically inclined people, and they rely on the background knowledge of that general classification scheme. Also, since most modern 方言 descend from Middle Chinese, using the Guangyun system is pretty convenient at unambiguously talking about the phonology of a given 方言. This is especially common with tones. I have read a whole lot of charts like this.

This background knowledge goes beyond just "linguistically inclined people". I know some school children learn pinyin initial-by-initial and then final-by-final. The 注音 system used mainly in Taiwan (also known as Bopomofo, after the first few initials) is organized into initials and finals, though they also break out the -u- and -i- medials (e.g., huang = (h)(u)(ang)).

Now, to your original question. Why in the hell would a dictionary be organized this way? I can't say I entirely know. A few thoughts:

There isn't a standard romanization for Sichuanese that is taught in schools, the way standard pinyin is for MSM.
方言 books (that don't suck) tend to be written by linguists and use traditional linguistic terminology.
Chinese books are usually aimed at Chinese people, after all, so they tend to use Chinese characters rather than romanizations. I will say that I sure as hell prefer a traditional-Chinese-phonology approach over a "I haphazardly attempt to transcribe a language using Mandarin" one.


What’s the difference between a jianli 简历 and a lülibiao 履历表?

As the dictionary said, 简历 is perceived as 简要的(brief) 履历.

Based on this difference, 简历 is used more in the context of resume used for job search; it's used to impress the interviewer within a short time, so it's usually terse, brief, summary, with key point emphasized.

履历 is used more generally. Comparing with 简历 it usually contains more details, and is complete.


Differentiating "to do a burnout" and "burning tyres"

烧胎 is a technical term understood by motor-sports enthusiasts as a burnout. If you are really burning tyres, you would need to say 烧轮胎 instead:

  昨天晚上我在停车场烧轮胎。

A translation for your news clipping example would be:

  [学生]无法去上学......因为道路被石头和燃烧着的轮胎给封锁了。

TL;DR???


Should Chinese text be grid aligned in game dialogs?

In general, we don't care if it is grid aligned or not. And even in fonts that are not fixed-width, the Chinese characters usually have the same width.

To make it to look better, it is better to make the right boundary a straight line, not zigzaged. If you find it hard to achieve, then just leave it as it is.

Some punctuation marks, such as commas (，), periods (。), question marks (？), etc. do not appear at the beginning of a sentence, and can stick out of the right boundary.

In Chinese, we use full-width punctuation, not the half-width counterpart. And we don't include spaces in sentences. If English is mixed in the text, half-width spaces are usually used to separate English words (not between English word and Chinese characters).

Edit:

In Microsoft Word, there is a list of punctuation that should not start line:

!%),.:;>?]}¢¨°·ˇˉ―‖’”…‰′″›℃∶、。〃〉》」』】〕〗〞︶︺︾﹀﹄﹚﹜﹞！＂％＇），．：；？］｀｜｝～￠

And there is also a list punctuations that should not end a line:

$([{£¥·‘“〈《「『【〔〖〝﹙﹛﹝＄（．［｛￡￥


Is there any difference between 重大 VS 重点 (used as adj.)?

重大 means "important (adj) / serious (adj)"
重点 means "focused (adj)/ focal point (n)"
Important thing might not be focused at the moment; focused thing at the moment might not be very important in the grand scheme of things
For example, stopping gun violence is an important issue, but Americans just don't focus on it at the moment; On the other hand, American is focus on the issue of 'should the football players kneel during the national anthem.' It is not an important issue compare to other real issues, but it is the focal point at the moment nonetheless.

重大事件 (and 重点事件?)
重大进展 (and 重点进展?)
重点工程 (and 重大工程? - this version sounds correct, but still is there any difference?)
重点扶持 (and 重大扶持?)

重大事件 (serious incident) and 重大进展 (important development) are valid

重点事件 (focused incident) and 重点进展 (focused development) are not valid

重点工程 (focused project)  and 重大工程 (important project) are valid.

重点扶持 (focused support) is valid;  重大扶持 (serious support) is not valid


What is the Chinese equivalent of English idiom "As if!"?

The closest answer I can think of is "才怪".

A: "In a few years I'll be driving a Ferrari."
B: "As if you'll ever have a Ferrari!"

A: 过几年我就能够驾法拉利了。
B: 你能驾法拉利才怪!

怪 means incredible in English 惊异，感到奇怪

才 means having the ability (能力：～能。口～。这人很有～干)

This phrase 才怪 is evolved from the longer phrase "才奇怪" and the usage of which only becomes popular in recent times. If you are interested, you can read up this article which describes at length the historical development of the phrase.

Quoting from the article,

才怪逐渐演变出了一种新的意义：表否定。“否定”的意义是与“奇怪”义有紧密联系的，觉得某事奇怪，主观上本身就有不赞成之意。只有主观上认为与自己看法不相同才会觉得奇怪，出乎意料。所以，我们认为“才怪”现代常用表否定的意义是从“才奇怪”演化而来。

Translated to English:

才怪 slowly evolves to mean an expression of disagreement. The words "disagreement" and "incredible" are closely related. To think that something is incredible implies that the person does not agree that it will happen. Only when a person disagree with something would he find it strange or out of the norm. Therefore, we believe that the contemporary meaning of 才怪 is an expression of disagreement and evolves from the longer phrase 才奇怪.

In my own words, 才怪 has the same exact meaning as "as if it would happen".

Usage example:

A: I'm not going to smoke again, I promise.
我绝不会再抽烟了，我向你保证。
B: As if this is going to be your last cigarette.
这会是你的最后一根烟才怪！


How did Middle Chinese "hæwk" evolve into Mandarin "xué"?

I'm not an expert on historical Chinese phonology, but this doesn't seem like an uncharacteristically distant sound evolution compared to other words:
           Baxter       (Zhengzhang
           –Sagart       Shangfang)
Hanzi | Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Mandarin
 學   |  *m-kˤruk   |      ɦˠʌk̚      |   xué
 穴   |  *[ɢ]ʷˤi[t] |      ɦwet̚      |   xué
 血   |  *m̥ˤik      |      hwet̚      |   xuè

Between Late Middle Chinese and Modern Mandarin, the final consonants /p/, /t/, /k/ were dropped. In Mandarin the only consonants a syllable can end on are n or ng.
/ɦˠ/ and /ɦw/ - back-of-the-mouth velarized and labialized fricatives, respectively, - likely shifted towards fricatives farther forward in the mouth.


It's the second half of internet phrase “XX虐我千百遍，我待XX如初恋” (XX has hurt me a thousand times, but I still regard it as my first love.)

In the case of 国足, it's a way to show the unconditional support for the national soccer league.


Your teacher was probably not very good.

The typical Chinese word for "liberation" is 解放, and it has been used in the same sense of political liberation for many years. Apart from its use in Communist Chinese apparatus (i.e. People's Liberation Army), you also have examples like:

婦女解放運動 - women's liberation movement
奴隸解放運動 - slavery abolitionism
民族解放運動 - national liberation movement
巴勒斯坦解放組織 - Palestinian Liberation Organisation

Alternatively, "liberation" can, and has, sometimes been translated using 自由 ("freedom"), depending on the context. Examples include the French newspaper Libération, which has occasionally been translated as 自由報 or 自由人報. Similarly, the video game Assassin's Creed III: Liberation has been translated in Taiwan as 刺客教條3：自由使命.

This might be because the word 解放 may be perceived as carrying revolutionary connotations (which some might want to avoid), which is not altogether dissimilar from the situation in English. This works because often the meaning of "liberation" can be expressed as 爭取自由/平等 or equivalent.


Why the sudden rise in usage of "吓死宝宝了"?

I think it's because of the Internet, which made this sentence popular. There was once a boy in Sina Weibo (China's version of Twitter) who sent a threat to a girl. The girl on Sina Weibo replied to express her dissatisfaction. The message was "吓死宝宝了".

It soon got around on Weibo. Many people were talking about this. So now many people use this sentence to express their discontent by force or threat.


I think there are 3 major reasons:

勿忘我 is kind of idiom that everyone use it.
We barely use 不忘我 and 别忘我 because they have some grammar issues. Instead, 不要忘了我 and 别忘了我 are the right expression.
勿忘我 much better than the other two from perspective of literature.


How to write " moving on" in traditional Chinese?

"Moving on" can translate some Chinese idioms, such as 堅持不懈,一往無前,堅持到底,奮勇向前, these are traditional Chinese. These idioms mean " always move forward bravely" 勇敢地一直向前进.

Hope this answer can help you.


What's the usage/meaning of 就 in this case?

Given the context,

大的行李托運了，這個小的行李就隨身帶着。
The big baggage I checked, and this small one (I'm going to) carry with me.

you can rewrite I'm going to to will then be.

The big baggage I checked, and this small one will then be carried with me.

The translation of「就」to then should be clearer in this way of phrasing.


In my understanding, 指 (zhi3) means "refers to". Sometimes it is interchangeable with 表示 (biao3shi4) or 表达 (biao3da2), which mean "expresses". Just like in an English dictionary, you might see a word with a definition that says X refers to Y or X is used to express Y. These words are used in a basically parallel way.


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


see examples for 想让 at bkrs: https://bkrs.info/slovo.php?ch=%E6%83%B3%E8%AE%A9 and iciba: http://www.iciba.com/%E6%83%B3%E8%AE%A9: 想让某人／事物做某事  want sb./sth. to do sth. (approx.= want to cause sb to do sth.) it would seem to observers that, 让 reinforces wish，(wish is to cause action), redundancy not uncommon phenomenon in Chinese,

想 has many meanings besides (6) 希望, 想要 hope; want 料想; 猜想 [anticipate]
余读孔氏书, 想见其本人 among 1-12 at bkrs, so that 让 seems to clarify the meaning as "want"


I'd say both you 1 and 2 apply here.

It is is an "abbreviation". A lot of characters can take a more simple form in handwriting, to make writing easier. It is not a correct form. It is not standardized.

Some of the character forms come from an abandoned simplification scheme in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_round_of_simplified_Chinese_characters, some of them are just made up in daily life.

I'd say I would treat this as incorrect. I do not have much difficulty recognizing the label, with the very specific context where it is used. But without the context, I'm not sure if I can recognize it as a simplification of "瓶".


Could somebody help fill in these blanks

这个汤怎么这么酸啊？我可喝不下。
But I'm wondering why there is a question mark in the end. This doesn't make sense


Do you let go of some 的 when there are multiple?

It's more native to say

他们老师的名字
我爸爸的手表

Generally, when the expression is his/her/my/... + people's + a thing, we tend to only use the last 的
However, I think this usage is more often determined "case by case"


Round seal stamp on a teapot (Characters identified: 沈紅英制)

沈 (right top)

紅 (right bottom)

英 (left top)

制 (left bottom)


This is how I read this passage:
公行之計是其於主也至忠矣

[If] you/公 use (行) this (之; read it as 此) strategem (計), this (是) inevitably [shows] (其; read it as 乃 or 然) to (於) the lord (主) pause (也) great loyalty (至忠) ! (矣)
Using this strategem is a display of [your] loyalty/devotion towards the lord.


Some words do not require 地 to be an adverb but we can add 地 to them to emphasizes 'the manner' of the subject
Examples:
一致反對 = unanimously oppose (the objection is unanimous)
一致地反對 = unanimously oppose (oppose in a unanimous manner)
猛烈攻擊 = fiercely attack (the attack is fierce)
猛烈地攻擊 = fiercely attack (attack in a fierce manner)
強力支持 = strongly support (the support is strong)
強力地支持 = strongly support (support in a strong manner)
In some cases, adding 地 can remove ambiguity. For examples: "猛烈攻擊" could mean [fierce(adj) attack (n)] or [fiercely (adv) attack (v)] while "猛烈地攻擊" can only mean [fiercely (adv) attack (v)]; "強力支持" could mean [strong (adj) support (n)] or [strongly (adv) support (v)] while "強力地支持" can only mean [strongly (adv) support (v)]
Another way to remove ambiguity is using 的 to indicate adjective and noun, e.g. 猛烈的攻擊, 強力的支持


What is the difference between 款式 and 格式

The way out of your conundrum is to realize your original assumption I know both of them mean "style" is the source of confusion.

Words can become flexible and have more than one meaning, or "senses of the word". However, usually when asking about the meaning of a word, we are talking about the primary, or most common usage of a word.

In this case, even if both 款式 and 格式 can sometimes be used as "style", only one of them can be considered "style" as its primary use, primary meaning.

款式

Out of the choices, only this would have a primary meaning of "style"

CDICT search for 款式 translates this as:

pattern
style
design

格式

CDICT search for 格式 translates this as:

form
specification
format

On a more technical note, Yellowbridge etymology on the word 格 shows

木 [mù] tree; wood, lumber; wooden
各 [gè] each, individually, every, all

Perhaps one way think of what this word means, is that, at least in ancient times when this word was developed, wood was commonly thought of as a practical material for making, reshaping all kinds of different "forms" or "things"

In Taoism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Feng Shui, within their five elements, 木 or "wood element" is associated with creation/creating.

Conclusion

So, as long as you can let go of the idea that both "mean" style, then you can see that the difference in these terms is:

款式's primary use/meaning/sense is "style"
格式's primary use/meaning/sense is "form"

Unless you are not sure what the difference between the words "style" and "form", that would be new question then.


What is the origin of 没 as an alternative to 不?

This is a knottier question than it first appears. The answer is hard to summarise, but it seems to be related to the special status of 有 and 無 from the beginning of Chinese.

In the Old Chinese of the oracle bones, there seems to be fairly neat system of four. 不, 弗, 毋, 勿, where each of these is a combination of p-type vs m-type, reflecting non-modal (uncontrollable) vs modal (controllable / volitional) respectively; and vowel-final vs *ɯd final, which reflects stative/eventive/passive vs not. There was also 非 as a straightforward merger of a p-type with the verb 惟／唯／維.

Discussions of oracle bone Chinese often keep 亡 and 無 to one side, as they are verbs with negative polarity, and they replace 有 in negative sentences, rather than negating it. [Look in the 詩經: 亡 and 無 rarely paired with 有, and the two times 無 is with 有, it has a "futurity" about it, similar to modern Mandarin 不要 or 不會] We thus see that even from the time of Old Chinese, 有 was already a bit "special", different from other verbs. Compare Tibetan མེད med, the negative form (and not particle / prefix) of ཡོད yod, to be / exist (used in the construction for have).

According to Chappell & Peyraube (2016), 沒 was used before the Yuan, and only appeared with 沒有 from the Yuan onwards (specifically by 1350). It had been "semantically extended" from its root meaning of "sink" via "disappear", replacing 無 and then "extending to an aspectual negator or a marker expressing a perfective negation".

We see that in southern varieties of Chinese, negative equivalents of 有 (rather than negative adverbs) still exist: e.g. Min 無 (Southern Min POJ: bô, Fuzhounese BUC: mò̤); Cantonese 冇 mou5 (with a different tone to the now literary 無 mou4), Northern Wu 嘸沒 (Shanghainese hhmm meq). Interestingly, Xiang varieties generally use 冒得 instead of a cognate of 無 on its own for the negative of 有: an example of suppletion; 無 is still used as a perfective with verbs though.

So there is just something about 有 and 無 that became amplified with its use in the "perfective" through Middle Chinese.


1.我 [从头到尾] 把他的电影看了一遍。

2.我把他的电影 [从头到尾] 看了一遍。

Both are idiomatic.
[从头到尾] is an adverbial phrase that can be placed before or after the object [他的电影]. Just like the two sentences above.
In either case, the adverbial phrase must be placed before the verb phrase [看了一遍]
#1 place the adverbial phrase before the object. It emphasizes the adverbial phrase [从头到尾](from start to finish) -- What do you do from start to finish?
#2 place the object before the adverbial phrase. It emphasizes the object [他的电影] (his movies) -- What do you do to his movies?


下 means the following content.
残 means incomplete.

下残 means the following content is incomplete.


It's maybe "Specification of Requirements". I imagine that the character holding the megaphone is the team manager, while the one being yelled at is a software engineer. It would be nice to have a screenshot of that sticker to illustrate the question.


多大 or 多少？Which should be used when and where?

多大 is about the size (how big, how old)
多少 is about the quantity (how many, how much)
(1) 他的年齡有多大？
(2) 他多少歲？
In (1), the question is asked from the point of view of the accumulation.
In (2), it is asked from the point of view of the precise number solely.
Could these two terms be used interchangeably? No, because even if they do are used in the same linguistic context, the meaning of the sentences won't be the same.
(3) 他給你提供的幫助有多大？
(4) 他給你提供的幫助有多少？
In (3), it is about the importance of the help (thus it is more subjective).
In (4), it is solely about the number (from an already expected amount).


“汉字的序顺并不定一能影阅响读”

根剑据桥大的学研究，词汇中的字表母达的含并不义重要，重的只要是首末字母的位正置确与否。其字他母的位置可完以全混乱但你仍可通以顺地读出语句。这因是为人的意并识不是逐字阅母读，而逐是词阅读。

尽管剑大桥学从做未过这个实验，但这个段子确实让友外网海产生了不小兴趣。当它入传中国时，也就有了开头的那句话。

这也以可给一些网友一些发的挥空间，让他们利用这种自错动纠机制的洞漏来计设一些段子，以及用巧来妙回避某论些坛的关河键词蟹。

设注应计时意，最保好持每句两话首末个字不变，否效则果会大打折扣。另也外宜不过计设短语的句。

e.g. 小别致长得真东西。

source萌娘百科

btw，I can read the whole text in 3 seconds, partly because it expresses very simple ideas. It's true that reading Chinese text doesn't necessarily need you "voicing" in your mind. This is much different to alphabetic language for I know.


Differences Between Classes of ＊过 Verbs ( 通过, 经过, 透过, 穿过, etc. )

2 alternatives in an abstract sense: iciba： 以（介）：例句：他～自学完成了大学全部课程，

征求（动）：（有关的人或组织的同意或核准）：这问题要～群众，才能做出决定。


No, it isn't a typo.

喜得 roughly means obtained by good fortune, so 祝賀你喜得貴子 is a congratulatory message meaning something like congratulations on being blessed with a son.


What is the verbatim meaning of the phrase 了不得了?

It's rare to use "了不得了" in Chinese, but using "不得了了"(Bu4 De2 Liao3 Le0) is more common.

So, "不得了"(Bu4 De2 Liao3) means that cannot be ignored and even extremely serious/important. The "了"(Le0) at last does not have any real meaning but just a short pause of the phrase.

It's proper to say "不得了了, 您儿子被蛇吃了!"

The verbatim meaning of the sentence above:

  It can't be ignored that, your son have been eaten by a snake.

Be careful don't confuse "不得了"(Bu4 De2 Liao3) with "不得了"(Bu4 De2 Le0) and "得了"(De2 Le0) and "了不得"(Liao3 Bu4 De2).


Can anyone explain to me what "热闹的嬉笑怒骂外加弹唱小曲" means?

嬉笑怒骂 is a common expression

嬉笑 (playfully laugh); 怒骂 (angrily scold)

嬉笑怒骂 means "to ridicule" (ironically and/ or bluntly )

[热闹的][嬉笑怒骂][外加][弹唱小曲]

[lively][ridicule][plus extra][playing of little song]

"弹唱小曲 (play little song)" -- "sing song about it" is the third way of ridiculing beside "playfully laugh" and "angrily scold"

  "热闹的嬉笑怒骂外加弹唱小曲” means: " lively ridicule every which way and more"


Any chance someone could tell me what these characters mean?

It was an attempt to write "河內國"

日语：河内国〔河內國〕／かわちのくに〔かはちのくに〕

Kawachi No Kuni

河內 - inside the river

國 - country


Can someone recommend a good book that can explain chinese characters and how they came to have their meaning

this one talked about the early chinese characters from ancient inscription, in english:

early chinese writing, by frank herring chalfont

though it was printed in 1906, imo, the info is precise & correct; most important, it’s a free download, provided you’re not in “you-know-where”


Is it ever ambiguous if 几 means "how many?" or "a few"?

It depends on your tone and context.

If the statement itself does not have any prior or future statements, then it would likely be a question.
Here are the possible context：

从上海到东京坐飞机要几个小时 ？ In this case, you are asking a question， your tone would also be in an inquiring manner, to make it clear its a question

从上海到东京坐飞机要几个小时, 你总不能要我每天来回吧？ In this case its a statement (It takes a couple hours from Shanghai to Tokyo, you can't expect me to travel between them everyday ?）


Can someone please check this piece of writing?

It's pretty fine, just to make it more natural:

我的城市

我出生在里米尼。因为我在这里住了二十年了,所以我是一个里米尼通。 在我的城市中心有几个很有名的教堂和博物馆。每年有很多游客从世界各地来里米尼游览古迹。 里米尼人也很喜欢去市中心买东西,散步,见朋友。在里米尼有很多有意思的地方。凯沃尔广场是一个特别精美的地方。，在这那儿有一个大喷泉和一个真特别漂亮的雕塑。广场对面还有许多非常好的餐厅和酒吧。"日餐厅"做饭做得很好吃,它是我最喜欢的餐厅。 里米尼是一个海边城市, 所以夏天我跟我的男朋友一起去海滩。附近有一家多厅电影院。，我很喜欢去这那里看电影。 我爱我的城市。


If 蓝天 means "blue sky", does 青天 mean "cyan sky"?

蓝天白云 and 青天白日 are idioms, so they cannot be changed.

蓝色 means blue, but 青色 is arguable.

In the colour printing technology, the jargon term 青色 is defined to be cyan. However, if you are not talking about the colour printing technology, 青色 can mean blue, cyan, green, or even black.

  青天白日 blue sky and white sun

  绿水青山 green water and green mountains

  山青水秀 the mountain is in green, and the water is beautiful

  青，取之于蓝，而青于蓝。
  Cyan, is made from blue, but cyaner than blue.

  雪青色 violet colour (lit. bluish snow colour)

  青草 green grass

  青衣 black clothes

  青布 black cloth

When does 青 mean blue? When does 青 mean green? When does 青 mean black? There are no rules and no logic for it, just idiomatic. For example, many people use 青草 for “green grass” and therefore 青草 becomes the idiom of “green grass”.


Firstly, you are correct... both can be used at the end of a sentence, but they do not have the same meanings.

吗 ma = question particle

吧 ba = suggestive particle

Here's some examples:

你还好吗？(Nǐ hái hǎo ma) Are you okay?

你还好吧。(Nǐ hái hǎo ba) Come on, you're okay, right? (suggesting that they're okay)

Or, In many cases 吧 is in response to 吗:

Person A: 好吗？Okay?
Person B: 好吧。 Fine...

That girl said you should use ba because she thought you should be more suggestive

我们一起吃饭吧！（Wǒmen yīqǐ chīfàn ba）sounds more assertive than 你想跟我一起吃饭吗？（Nǐ xiǎng gēn wǒ yīqǐ chīfàn ma?）


Agree with StumpyJoePete.

As we all know = Everybody knows.

For all you know = You don't really know for sure.

I think Damian Siniakowicz's suggestion will work.

We better wash the vegetables first, for all we know, they could be covered in pesticide

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，说不定有農藥呢。

A couple more suggestions:

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，誰知道有沒有農藥呢？

我们还是先把蔬菜洗一下，可能有農藥呢。


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

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

等到: "wait until"

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

~

等到 "waited till"

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

user17686 wrote:

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

No, 等待 and 等到 have different meanings.

等待黎明 (wait for dawn)

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

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

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


Translation: “世界上，治疗心脏病最好的方式就是不要开刀。”

The epitaph is probably

  "I would like to think that I've left the world of cardiovascular surgery better than when I found it. That would be a suitable epitaph." — C. Walton Lillehei, 1995.

materials

C. Walton Lillehei, the “Father of Open Heart Surgery”. This article proves Mr. Lillehei has the title "心脏病之父", and he is an American.
State of the Heart: The Practical Guide to Your Heart and Heart Surgery. This book quotes what he said as

However I cannot find that epitaph on his tombstone.

So, the statement "在他的墓碑上面，刻了..." seems not true.


Forming sentences with resultative and directional complements

Yes, there are indeed differences. I will mostly give a discussion of in the example you gave since I'm really not competent enough to talk about the complements.

In (3), we have 来到, which means that 我妹妹 must have arrived (or is arriving). (Notice that the lack of a 了 means that without more context, I cannot infer whether or not this is in the past tense.) In any case, there's a slight difference between this and "my sister came to Shanghai": we can still mean "arrived" by "come", but the connotations should be noted.
In (2), we have 来 ... 了, which merely indicates to me that 我妹妹 must have come to Shanghai. There could also be connotations of arrival, again dependent on context. There could also be connotations, because of the 了, that 我妹妹 has now left 上海. (As an aside: I would group 了 with the verb, instead of separating them.)
Like (2), (1) feels ambiguous. I could read 到上海来了 as "has come to Shanghai", and like in (2) it could be that the sister has just come to Shanghai (so has arrived), or merely "she has come to Shanghai" in a more general sense. However, unlike the other two, (1) gives me the sense that Shanghai isn't just some intermediary stop for 我妹妹 because of the placement of 到. The other two can be slightly ambiguous in this respect.


Express ordinal number of hour in Chinese?

I had never head the expression 第……小时 be used to describe time. 第三个小时的第五分钟 would be more confusing, and more complex than 两点零五.

But the similar form may be used when the time is related to some certain beginning. Here are some example:

第84分钟，在VAR的判罚下，巴西队获得点球机会，由乔治扳平比分……[1]
夜幕逐渐降临，就在［救援的］第20个小时，救援现场传来喜讯……[2]


Why use 有 in 只要前排的牙齿有脱落... about shark teeth?

"前排的牙齿脱落" means "the entire front row of teeth drops off"
前排的牙齿有脱落 is short for "前排的牙齿有脱落(的部分)" which
means "the front row of teeth has dropped off (parts)"

脱落 in the second sentence is in effect a noun for "脱落(的部分)" - "dropped off (parts)"

If you don't want "前排的牙齿" to imply it is "the entire front row of teeth "  it  has to be changed to "前排有牙齿" (the front row has some teeth)

Unlike in English, Chinese language doesn't use verb tenses. For example, both 'is' and 'was'  is written as '是' in Chinese.


Why is Western punctuation used in Chinese writing?

I have found answers in Chinese Wikipedia:

Classical Chinese has a punctuation system of its own. However, this system is rarely used. The method to read Classical Chinese without punctuation was taught in elementary schools in the past, but it was still too difficult for common people to understand. You may know that Chinese is an isolating language, which means morphemes are quite sequence-sensitive. Even a simple phrase can have quite a few different meanings. In Modern Chinese, this appears even more often.
Examples:
是你 (It) is you
是你。 It is you.
是你？ Is it you?
哼！是你？ Hmph! Is it you? (contempt)
During the late 1910s, there is a movement called New Culture Movement, and a major goal of it is to teach everyone to read and write. The Classical Chinese was too hard for people to read, and lacking punctuation is one of the difficulties. On 29 November, 1919, Ma Yuzao and other 5 person submitted a proposal of calling for using modern punctuation system, which mixed classical and Western punctuations (according to Guan Xihua, 2002). Outline of History of Chinese Philosophy by Hu Shi is the first work applying this punctuation system.
The reason of adapting a "Western" punctuation system is to make reading texts easier, especially for those who is learning reading for the first time. Since the using of new punctuation system, Baihuawen, or Modern Chinese was popularized quite rapidly.


"睇下我嘅"  (Taei har ngo gea)

"take a look at mine"

It is definitely colloquial Cantonese.

These kinds of "rough" phrases are usually meant to indicate something to boast or show off or a demeaning comparison, like, "pay attention, you might learn something"; "this is how I would do it"; "you see those biceps?"

This phrase therefore has to be a follow-on to demean someone else's poor performance.


How would you interpret: "你的美如日; 你的智若猫头鹰"?

i would suggest:

其妍也﹒如冬之日﹒和煦可人

其智也﹒若夜之鴞﹒慎默覃思

here's a brief explanation:

his/her's beauty (妍), is like (如) the winter sun (冬之日), warm (和煦) & pleasant (可人)

his/her's wisdom (智), is like (若) an owl (夜鴞), think (覃思) carefully (慎) and silently (默)

如冬之日 do not indicate the sun itself, it implied the sunshine in winter.

then, 鴞 is one of the name used in ancient time for owl.

have fun :)


询问奸雄所见略同的由来 and how does it relate to chinese

Based on the web search, It was first appeared in "<三国志·蜀书·庞统传> with annotations by 裴松之", it first appeared as "天下智谋之士所见略同耳". and then it was used as 英雄所见略同 in some later books. 英雄(Heroes, Great Leaders...) instead of 智谋之士( aka 谋士, counsellors to emperors).  Literally, It can be interpreted as: Heroes ( to kings/emperors) share same points of views and strategies, or Heroes' points of views are a bit similar. The difference is from the interpretation of the char 略, e.g 略 as in 战略 (strategy), or 略 as in 略有所闻 (a bit).

the widely used translation for this idiom is "Great minds think alike", it doesn't matter which interpretation you used.


Was 我 pronounced 'è' at some time in the past?

Your observation is brilliant. However, there's no easy conclusion.

People summarize the formation of Chinese characters into six categories, namely 象形, 指事, 会意, 形声, 转注, and 假借. For the case of "饿", it's a phono-semantic compound (形声字) made up of "食" -- the semantic part, and "我" --- the phonetic part. Therefore, you may find the prononciations of 我 and 饿 are similar. However, a phono-semantic compound does not neccessarily follow exactly the same prononciation. "我" is a ideograph (指事字), which has a more vague origin for its pronounciation.

The prononciation of Chinese characters can date back to more than two thousand of years ago. At that time, most researcher now believing, there was no tone system and the words use suffices to identify its speech, etc, like Latin does. It also uses suffices to distinguish between different phono-semantic compound words. For example in Old Chinese, the prononciation for 我 and 饿 are /ŋaːlʔ/ and /ŋaːls/ respectively(from this). It differs so much from modern days, and it developed a long way and changing from time to time. A thousand years later in Tang Dynasty, when we called the language Middle Chinese, the prononciations of 我 and 饿 changes to /ŋɑ/ but with different tones (上声 and 去声 respectively).

For 我 and 戈, they have some relationship in terms of origin. In the old days, "我" means one's own country. And country always has armies. "戈" is the arms made up long wooden stick and a metalic blade (see 说文解字). Today, we can only know that 我 and 戈 shares the same vowel in Middle Chinese, and this is related to the similar syllable coda in Old Chinese. But the root reason of the similarity is still unclear. We still lacking convinceable evidences to claim anything. Digging out the pronounciation of two thousand years without any audio documentation is a difficult thing, not to mention the prononciation system and rules.


What is the purpose of the 賣 (卖) component in the character 讀 (读)?

well, 賣(u+8ce3) is sell; while (u+27da0) is pronounced as "育".

left is 賣(u+8ce3), right is (u+27da0), note the difference of the middle component:

well, in the past, 賣(u+8ce3) is for 買賣 (buy & sell) only. other characters e.g., 讀, 贖, 覿, 續 are using (u+27da0).

so, 讀 as a phonosemantic compound character is, combined "言" & (u+27da0); that's why it's 屋韻﹒徒谷切

somewhere in time, the (u+27da0) is less used, and 賣 is more "popular"; which causes confusing.


Purpose of 要's location in 今天晚上老板要和我们一起加班。

When 要 is used to mean "do something", it usually means "will do sth" or "want to do sth", and also sometimes "need to do sth".
In your original sentence, 要 can mean both "will" or "want to" depending on the context. See the following examples.

今天事情比较多，所以今天晚上老板要和我们一起加班 (There is too much to do today, hence the boss will join us in working overtime tonight).
老板想知道我们加班时到底有没有认真干活，所以今天晚上老板要和我们一起加班 (The boss wants to know whether we are taking the overtime seriously and wants to join us tonight).

As for the position, I am not sure whether there is an explanation involving grammar. The second one does not sound natural while the first one does.
I can come up with an example where 要 is placed right before the verb, only with slight modification to your sentence:

今天晚上老板和我们一样要加班 (The boss has to work overtime tonight just like us).


These words are very similar in meaning. There are some more variants like 添加，加添，添增……

新增 is generally used in the sense of "add a new feature", often in the context of software. However, it can also substitute for other variants of "add". It puts more emphasis on the fact that something has changed, rather than what has been added.
新增 is often used as an adjective.

增加 tends to be used with things that can be expressed in numbers, like money, weight and so on. 增添 is more commonly used for more abstract things like content or effort. However, it's not wrong to switch them around.

添加 seems a bit more formal, more likely to appear in written language. It's often used for sentences like

牙膏中添加少量的氟化物
some fluoride is added to toothpaste

... and other food-related expressions.


丰富的一天 - an eventful day with plenty activities but you may not get anything positive out of them.

充实的一天 - perhaps not as many activities as in 丰富的一天 but you actually get something positive from part-taking in the day's activities.

It does sound a bit odd to say “今天过得好丰富？“. Perhaps "今天是丰富的一天" sounds better.


高 = highly; 兴= delighted
高兴 = happy; glad; delighted
describe a  emotional state of being delighted

~

开= open; 心 = heart
开心 = happy; joyful
metaphorically describe an effect of being happy

Both 高兴  and 开心 means 'happy', but with different emphasis.
For example, if you are glad that you didn't get killed in a car accident, you can say: "我很高興我還活著" (I am glad that I am still alive), but you wouldn't say: "我很開心我還活著" (I am joyful that I am still alive)
Another example,  We use 我很高興見到你 (I am glad to see you) as a polite greeting, but "見到你我很開心" (seeing you make me happy) would be a more passionate expression.

开心 is also more personal, e.g. "今天是我最开心的一天" is more natural than "今天是我最高興的一天"

Another word for 'happy:
快 = satisfactory; 樂 = delight
快樂 = happy/ joyful/ cheerful (describe a joyful emotional state). It can be a noun or an adjective


Best translation for: “Frequent abuse leads to restrictions”?

濫用 is only one of many aspects of abuse. Abuse is inappropriate way to use something. When you get the meaning, you are free from fixed expressions. Say, 愛用宜守規，違者得限制。


Standard Chinese translation of "I'm not a bad person"

B is person, which is a noun. So you should use 不是. Bad is an adjective and it's used to modify person, so the translation should be

我不是一个坏人。


What if you learn all the stroke orders in the wrong order?

You don't need a teacher to learn stroke order properly, you just need to learn the basic rules and make a habit of looking up the stroke order for new characters you learn. This will feel like an additional burden for a while, but you'll soon learn the rules and you will find that you can often guess the right stroke order, even for a character you have never seen before.

If your goal is to write neat, beautiful characters, then you do need input from a human, but to learn basic handwriting and stroke order, you don't have to have a teacher, as long as you look things up.

Some suggested resources:

Pleco or Hanping for looking things up on your phone
ArchChinese or MDBG for looking things up in your webb browser
Looking things up in printed books is a pain, especially if you're a beginner
Many apps teach you stroke order: Skritter, Pleco, TOFU learn.

Stroke order might feel like a big hurdle for you at the moment, but it really isn't that hard. Compared to learning any other aspect of Chinese; stroke order will only end up taking up a very small proportion of the time you invest. Just look things up as you learn new characters and after learning a few hundred characters, you'll wonder why you thought it was so intimidating when you first started out.


看穿 and 看透 are hardly used in the literal way. They are almost synonymous as I can't think of any instances where they're not interchangeable. 看穿 has a slightly more derogatory tone as it's often used against tricks or lies. 看透 can be used against philosophical subjects such as the meaning of life.

I think the most natural thing to say about an invisible man in Chinese is that he is transparent or invisible: “他的身体是透明的。”

Update:

If you want a phrase akin to "seeing through", it should be (透过[X])看到[something inside/behind X]. It sounds natural but the focus is on the object being seen rather than the transparent medium. When you try to emphasize the medium, this phrase feels like explanation or development for a previous declarative (such as "he is transparent") rather than a standalone one. Also this phrase doesn't necessarily mean [X] is transparent; alternatively [X] can be a fishnet or the viewer has supernatural vision.

Examples (all of them are optimized for natural-ness and fluidity rather than syntactic completeness, but I asure you they're all grammatical correct):

蒸馏水冻成的冰块是透明的，人们可以*看见*里面的气泡。
当他穿上隐身衣的时候，你可以*透过*他的身体*看到*后面的东西。
*透过*云层，我隐约*看到*星空。
他*透过*窗静静地*看着*外面的世界。

[Advanced tips] There is a widely known phrase 透过现象看本质 (commonly translated into "see through appearance to perceive the essence"; 看 here is more 'find', 'seek' than 'can see'.) which sounds very serious and has a strong textbook tone. If you say 透过[XX]看[YY] where XX and YY are both two-character words, depending on the context it may (unintentionally) either inherit the seriousness, or become sarcastic, or sound like a ragged verse. This can be avoided by simply not using two-character words or replacing 看 with 看到/看见 or add fillers in between of the sentence to break the similarity.


How do you say "Clean" as in "clean a city"

You could use 清洁城市 or 清潔城市.  打扫 also means clean but it is usually used when cleaning (actually sweeping) happens in a smaller area (i.e. cleaning your place / your room etc)


Split it up to questions, omit the second modal particle "吗"

  我需要带 XXX 吗？[...] 还是只要带影印本？

or, combine into one sentence, omit the second verb "带"

  我需要带XXX, [...] 还是只要影印本？


This doesn't exactly match the usage you observed, but《现代汉语词典》 differentiates between 布 and 佈 as follows:

  布: 1. 用棉、麻等织成的，可以做衣服或其他物件的材料, 2. 古代的一种钱币, 3. 姓
  佈: 1. 宣告；宣布, 2. 散布；分布, 3. 布置

This would lead me to believe that the traditional character 布 is only acceptable in cloth-related compounds and that 佈 is correct in both 公佈 and 佈置 (and all related verbs). This doesn't account for the prevalence of 公布; perhaps that's a simplification that's been in use so long that it's now commonly accepted.

(Of course, as you said, in situations where simplified characters are used, the distinction is irrelevant.)


How to translate: “对我来说，北方人的口音和语速 {makes it difficult for me to understand them}"?

对我来说，北方人的口音和语速 makes it difficult for me to understand them.

This translation sounds more like English grammar. Chinese people will say

  对我来说，北方人有口音，语速很快，很难听明白。

Hope this could be of some help.


Are there online resources for learning the Chongqing dialect?

As a form of Southwestern Mandarin, you can approach the Chongqing dialect with resources designed for Sichuanese in general. The English Wikipedia gives a lot of resources on "Si4cuan1hua4", including a good overview of the phonology, and a introduction to Sichuanese Pinyin. The Chinese Wikipedia gives a little more detail on the Chengdu-Chongqing dialect.

As for books, most will naturally be in Chinese. In English, there is the Lonely Planet China Phrasebook, which includes Sichuanese, but with a very idiosyncratic romanisation. Otherwise, there are only academic papers (e.g. Malmqvist's Syntax of Bound Forms in Sïch'uanese), although there are quite a few that mention Sichuanese or one of its constituent topolects.

Of the free papers that I was able to find in Chinese, there is this on the evolution of the checked tone from Middle Chinese through early Southwestern Mandarin to the modern Chongqing dialect.

There are naturally quite a few books about Sichuanese and the Chongqing dialect in Chinese, among them the 四川方言詞語考釋 (ISBN: 7806593713), the 四川方言词汇研究 (ISBN: 7500488165), both about vocabulary; and 四川方言与普通话 (ISBN unknown; published 1982) compares it to Standard Mandarin. Sichuanese-to-Chinese dictionaries include this one from 1987; there is one for the Chongqing dialect in particular (ISBN: 7562113378, apparently); also, one for the related Chengdu dialect from 1998, 成都方言词典 (ISBN: 7534334209 apparently), was one of the rather epic 现代汉语方言大词典 series. There is also a course, 四川方言会通 (ISBN: 7807521880), apparently published in 2008.

Elsewhere on the Internet, there are quite a few websites in English based on Chengdu Sichuanese rather than Chongqing Sichuanese. Among them, this Chengdu diary has an entry concentrating on dialect; there are a few guides to the phonology on gochengdoo.com; and there is an interesting Sichuanese primer on the blog Long Legged Fly. There is a now (in)famous video of a white American person speaking some Sichuanese here on YouTube; the Tudou version is here. Also some here on Tudou. Plus a few courses on the Chongqing dialect can be on fyan8.com.


Is it possible to ask a question with just a single noun?

Sure it is, in oral Chinese, you can question someone if they care for tea like

  茶？

You do not need 吗 as the question marker.

When you use this expression, please make sure, first, both you and the person you are asking are in the same and easily understandable context, like, you holding a teapot and an empty cup in front of that person; second, the person you are asking had better be in a relatively equal standing with you, this is a very casual way of asking!


You should understand the three characters in the words firstly.
心：Mind
意：Sense
神: Focus

So add 留(keep) before them, becomes:

留心：Keep in mind --> remember
留意：Keep in sensitive --> ?
留神：Keep on focus  --> look out / be careful

My translation may not accurate in English, if someone have better translation, please comment below.

In your example,

sentence 1 talking about reading/studying, so 留心 should be the only correct word.
Sentence 2, here 留心 is separated, it's a derivative usage in my opinion. It means "keep defensive (because I remember he did something bad.)".
Sentence 3, I don't understand the meaning... and I don't want to guess (although I could) since it's a tutorial/exam, it should be clear.


Yes, that's fairly normal. In fact the actual construct here is merely ... 都不 ....

It is somewhat more commonly seen with the character 連 ("even") prefixed, i.e. 连痒都不痒一下. Similarly, the counter 一下 ("once") at the end is optional, i.e. 痒都不痒. All three forms express the same meaning of "not even once / not at all".

Taking all three into account: (optional: 連) [verb] 都不 [same verb] (optional: [single counter for action])

Note that the counter does NOT have to be 一下. So while any number of verbs can be used with this construct way, you should take note to use the appropriate counter for the action. Or alternatively, don't use any at all. Examples:

連吃都不吃一口: S/he/they wouldn't even take one bite (一口, lit. "one mouthful").
連看都不看一眼: S/he/they wouldn't even look once (一眼, "one look").
想都不想: Without thinking.


Is there a Chinese idiom that involves a "Creator"?

The authors's claim seems likely true.  Of course among the several authors and the editor who passed the article on, some may have had a different idea than others.

Victor Mair at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=24360 was right to say "no matter what the authors may have meant if they were thinking of a Chinese term, or even if they weren't thinking of a particular Chinese term, paper was written in English for consumption by the international community of scientists, and ... conveys the wrong message for a scientific paper."  Really the paper should not have been printed this way.

But historically there has been huge debate over how ancient, or classical, or later Chinese, ideas of 天 relate to western religious ideas.  Does 天 mean God, or god, or heaven, or just sky as a metaphor for the grandest most stable aspect of existence?  Even within the 论语/Analects some occurrences seem quite materialistic, so that it would mean overall nature, and others more anthropomorphic suggesting a God with personal intentions.  Many other characters have similar ambiguity and there is every reason to suppose that through history different Chinese people have meant different things by this.

I have not found a source giving the original Chinese from this paper.  But the website http://wap.sciencenet.cn/info.aspx?mod=news&id=339768 discusses this case and offers several idioms, which they claim would not seem religious to most Chinese people but would to many westerners:

相信很多母语为中文的朋友都会理解，“造物主” “神奇的造物主” “上帝之手”……当初赵忠祥在《动物世界》里不都是这么讲的吗？在我们眼里这样的表达和“大自然”无异，也并不会有任何宗教相关的意识和概念。但是当这些东西放到英文环境下，其含义往往会丰富起来。

At first I was not clear on the phrase 赵忠祥, but March Ho's comment led me to find it is the name of the narrator of a TV show  《动物世界》 (Animal World).

Certainly those idioms can be religious in Chinese.  But "上帝" is also used for what some western physicists call the "God Particle"--the Higgs boson, and that is never understood religiously.

Mair goes on to say:

  Even if they were unaware that "the Creator" — especially when
  capitalized, as it always is in the paper under consideration —
  generally refers to the Judeo-Christian God, at least Le Xiong must
  have been aware that the Latin suffix -or indicates one who performs a
  specified action.  Thus "the Creator" (not "a creator") is a very
  different proposition from "creation".

But within the English language many creationists say just as indignantly that everyone should know the suffix "tion" in words like option, election, creation, indicates that someone has opted, or elected, or created something, so they insist "Creator" is not a different proposition from "creation."  I am not willing to blame the authors for ignoring Latin etymology.

As to the article, yes it should not have appeared this way.  As to what the authors meant, as Stan well says,  the authors don't believe in creationism, and they didn't mean it.


What Cantonese verb was spoken on what boyfriends 港女 pick? Sounds like 打鍋?

打鑊 (give a beating) came from a Cantonese slang 打鑊甘
打 here means 'to beat up' and  鑊 (wok) is a classifier for session/ time/ instance of beating (and other things too)
She said: 想打鑊佢 = 想打他一頓 (want to beat him up)
Other examples of 打鑊:
打你幾鑊 = 打你幾回 (beat you up a few times)
見一鑊打一鑊/ 見鑊打鑊 = 見一回打一回 (beat you up every time I see you)
俾人打鑊 = 被人打一頓 (beat up by someone)
I like explaining Cantonese slangs because they are fun to say. 想打佢 is not funny at all, unlike 想打鑊佢 (鑊 indicates a substantial amount).


Graceful ways to break away from a conversation

It usually depends on the situation. If it was a company telling me about a product I might be interested in, and I hear them out, I usually end with 谢谢,我再考虑考虑

if it's one of my my friends, I usually make an excuse such as have to go now, have to sleep, have to eat etc... and add something like 我们哪天接着聊吧, or 回头见

If talking to my parents, I usually say 就这件事, or 没有别的事, etc


芦花 is the correct song name. 崔晓琳 is the original artist, but the artist 雷佳 version is more popular.
You can listen it here: https://y.qq.com/n/yqq/song/000lL1ly0LYiE6.html.


You just need to use face, prestige, reputation, and so on.

爱面子 be keen on face-saving
保全/顾全面子 save face
丢面子 lose face
给面子 give face to somebody
面子问题 matter of face; issue concerning one’s reputation

I hope that would be useful for you.


广州话普通话 defines 後尾 as

粵
表示時間或空間上居後

with two sample sentences

佢後尾卒之簽咗字
他最後終於還是簽字了

佢排隊排到最後尾。
他排隊排到最末尾。

广州话方言词典 starts of with pronunciation

hau6 mei5

and it has the first definition:

1 後來；最後

with one example sentence in Cantonese and Mandarin

佢後尾點樣ǜ？
他後來怎樣了？

and one Cantonese example:

後尾大家都同意。

definition two:

2 末尾；最後（指位置）

and one example sentence:

最後尾樖係李樹。
最末尾的那棵是李樹。

it also lists pronuncation:

hau1 mei1

and defines it as:

後來；最後；後面

with two sample sentences in Cantonese and Mandarin:

佢後尾點呀？
他後來怎麼樣了？

你高, 企後尾啦。
你高, 站在後面吧。

Depending on the context you could choose something like 最后、末尾、后来、后面.


Punctuation and Footnotes in Mandarin Chinese

Use numbers in square brackets, before punctuation, separated by "、"

什么什么[1]、[2]。

For more detail, search baidu for 脚注格式.


Yes, 就快下雨了 is idiomatic in Mandarin.  The similar variations are: 快要下雨了，快下雨了，就要下雨了，天就快下雨了，天快下雨了，天要下雨了，etc.


The problem is than pinyin x also sounds "like" an English sh. I'm pre-embryonic at Chinese but I've been an armchair linguist for years and I'm in China trying to pick up Mandarin right now.

Both Pinyin sh and x are different from English sh.

In English sh your tongue is at the ridge just behind your upper teeth.

In Pinyin sh your tongue bends backwards at the tip toward your palate. It curls upward.

In Pinyin x the middle of your tongue is at your palate and the tip of the tongue is at or near your bottom teeth.

But even knowing this and usually being good at mimicking speech sounds I must get it wrong constantly because people don't understand most of my efforts at Chinese. Also as I move from place to place I'm sure people don't all pronounce these Chinese sounds alike.

So what you might find is that maybe many Chinese hear your "English sh" as a "Pinyin sh" but perhaps some others might find that to them they hear a "Pinyin x", or hear a strange sound they don't immediately associate with either Chinese sound.


Taxi / Bus driver

"师傅, 我要去天安门."

all the manual workers

  "师傅, 我想做一个木头大象"

"Mr.Carpenter, I wanna make a wooden elephant."

  "师傅, 你能搬动大象吗?."

"Mrs.Porter, Can you lift an elephant?"

  "师傅, 我要给我的大象烫个头发"

"Miss Barber, My elephant needs a perm"

Note: not used in high class barbershop

  "师傅, 我不是坏人"

"Mr. Entrance Guard, I am not bad."

In real life, there are some native Chinese call doctors, teachers 师傅, not much, but it really does, the doctors and teachers said they don't know if they should laugh or cry, embarrassing, since in practice, 师傅 are always applied to these professions that do not need to learn from in colleges.

Note
You call one 师父 who teach you some professional skills.


What’s the difference between 制定 and 制订?

After some research I have found that there isn’t much practical difference between the two terms.

However, 制订 refers more to the actual thinking and creative aspect of a plan, as in its 创造性, while 制定 refers more to the confirmative and definitive aspect of a plan being put in place, or its 权威性.


Your understanding of "大专院校" is probably right.

But "大专" used alone is different from "大专院校". It is probably the short form of "大学专科", and is a kind of education after secondary schools but has shorter terms (usually 2~3 years) and does not provide a bachelor's degree. On the contrary, "大本", or "大学本科" usually takes 4~5 years and will provide a bachelor's degree.


These words came from the translation of a Japnaese manga, 死神 BLEACH Can't Fear Your Own World.
「这才是快给我住手。我可没那个意思陪你去自杀喔」

The original Japnaese words are shown below.

それこそやめとけ。

Stop it!
Just stop it!
That's it!
停！
這就算了吧！
這就省了吧！

This sentence may have the meaning of 才.
But, we don't have to translate it word by word.


权力的游戏 - Game of Thrones names - latest episode - SPOILERS

First of all, I'm Chinese and I'm a big fan of the Game of Thrones. I've read both the English and Chinese version of the novel.

For Ramsey and Eyrie:

Ra-m-sey,  to mimic the "Ra" sound, because there is no such sound in Chinese, we use 拉（La1) instead. Actually a funny story is that there are a lot Chinese dialects in which people pronounce "R" as "L". One of my friend from Fujian always say 热死了(re4 si3 le1) as le4 si3 le1. This works for the "m" too. Chinese is a monosyllabic language. Almost every word is pronounced as "consonant+vowel"(耳 and other er sound words are the exceptions). So when we meet a single "m" in a name, we always translate it as 姆(mu3）. There is also no sound like "sey" in Chinese. So we translate it into 斯(si1).

Eyrie follow the same rule because there is no sound like "rie" in Chinese.

For Tyrion, he is translated as 提利昂(a translation for the closest sound in Chinese). The "小恶魔" is a translation for his nickname "the Imp" actually.

Actually, as a Chinese, I think the translation for the name of characters in the Game of Thrones are pretty good. My favorite translations in the books are the names of the bastards.

River: 河文
Snow: 雪诺
Flower: 花佛
Stone: 石东

In these Chinese name, the first character is the meaning of the name and the second word is a sound mimic. And they read great in Chinese.

And also, what do you think is a better translation for the Hound？


Is there any difference between 姨丈 and 姨夫？

amongst "姨丈", "姨夫", "姨父" or "姨爹"; "姨丈" is the most common one.

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000150395

imo, your teacher is . . . :(


In reading Chinese, we are always faced with the difficulty of correctly grouping characters. Here the correct pairing is not 都挺。 Rather, you should view 一直都 as one group, meaning all along and 挺 as a modification to 想。The meaning of 挺 comes very close to 很.
Examples：

我一直在等你/I’ve been waiting for you all along.
今天挺冷。/It’s pretty cold today.

I would say there is virtually no difference between 一直 and 一直都. The choice is guided by rhythm.


看我这脑子

看： see or look;
我： here means 我的，mine;
这： such;
脑子： head;

As a whole, "Look, (that is) such a head of mine!" or "See, (that is) such a head of mine!" It means I am not that intelligent or brainy. In this context, it is specifically referring to one of the functionalities of a head, memorizing things, and it's just like to say "oh, my bad memory" or "look, my bad memory".


他给了她一个他买的戒指 (he gives her a ring that he bought) seems grammatical，but may sound strange， maybe one could also say 他作为礼物买了一个戒指给她 （he bought a ring for her as a present）

for the following cf。外国人实用汉语语法：

in the attributive， verb＋的， 的 generally can not be omitted，

examples：讨论的问题，旅行的人都来了，请的客人都到了

exceptions exist with 的 optional ；我看见过游行队伍 （some dissyllables modifying dissyllables）


Sichuanese: When Is First Tone 55 Vs. 45?

When you are talking about 成都话, the first tone (阴平) follows the following rules:

1) The regular case for the first tone is 45. When you are reading a single character, you should use 45.

2) When the character is part of a phrase or a sentence, it may change. Specifically, when a first tone character A is preceded by another first tone character B, A is changed to 55. For example, 区分 is pronounced qu(45) fen(55).

In addition, the default tone values for the second tone (阳平), the third tone (上声) and the fourth tone (去声) are 21, 42 and 13, respectively. These are used when you read a single character. When they are combined with other characters, the following rules are followed:

3) If a second-stone character is followed by any other characters, its tone value is changed to 22 (from 21). For example, 可以 should be pronounced ke(22)yi(42). Still, when you hear recordings, you may not hear the flattening. So I feel this rule is not strict.

4) If a third-tone character is followed by any other characters, its tone value is changed to 44 (from 42). For example, 口音 should be read as kou(44)yin(55) by this rule. However, when listening to recordings, again I hear something like kou(43)yin(55). The falling tone is reduced but is still discernible. Further, the first tone of 音 is also read as 55 here.

You can find the above pronunciation yourself in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtauJBczNwA

In summary, I think there are two forms of tone values. One is the standard form, and another is a reduced form used in compound words. It should just come naturally.

The origin Chinese reference for this is:

成都话中，阴平、阳平、上声、去声的调值分别为45, 21, 42, 13。在单读一个字时，音调遵循以上所列。但在词汇与语句中连读时，会有一定规律的变调。

一个阴平字之前一个字读阴平时，本字变调为55。

一个阳平字之后有任何字时，本字变调为22。

一个上声字之后有任何字时，本字变调为44。

Reference: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E8%AF%9D


折 is not a simplified character. 摺 just happens to be a rarer character that means the same thing, namely to fold (v), or folder (n).

折 is here much more versatile, and has additional connotations, such as break, lose, die, act, and so on.

Here we have words such as 打摺 (fold), which is obviously not the same as 打折 (make a discount).


Similarity in geographically close areas (越南,云南)

Perhaps the key to looking at the two (越南 and 云南) is in "南" as these regions were all remote and to the south of most ancient Chinese empires/kingdoms.

There once was a kingdom called "越", which existed roughly from 2032 BC to 222BC (Baidu). It occupied most of eastern coastal areas of modern day China (you can see it on a map on Baidu-the 越 Kingdom is the bright yellow area labeled with a red character
https://baike.baidu.com/pic/越国/24727/0/b7003af33a87e950c7d9a59a19385343faf2b47e?) If you read stories from the Warring States era, you will encounter references to the kingdom of 越. In fact, at one point, one of the Kings of 越 took on another kingdom to its north (齐 Qi- roughly modern day Shandong Province), but failed to wipe out (齐)-which might have led to the demise of 越. By the way, in the same era (millennia), there were references to the existence of 东越 as well as 南越 -- 越 may be an ethnic name as well as a political (aka state/country) one.

Now could it be that the people who occupied 云南 were the same who also occupied 越南? Somebody may be able to dig out some historical documents to verify that. However, historically, 云南 had been called 南夷, "夷" being one of the many derogatory categorical terms used by ancient Chinese to refer to the "barbarians", aka non-Chinese. I am mentioning this because "越南" had been referred to by other names (other than "夷").

According to Baidu, the name "云南" came about in the Tang Dynasty when a Tang emperor asked an emissary from that region "where did you come from?" The emissary responded with a gesture "from the south, beyond the clouds." ("王问：君在何方？使遥指南曰：南边云下")


In English, when you say "something/someone, who/which has some characters, is abc/is doing xyz.", after translated to Chinese, usually it will be "some characters的something/someone is abc/is doing xyzor separate to two sentence, "something/someone has some character, (optional: 而且/and) is abc/is doing xyz."

In your sample, in addition to @user3919509's answer, you can also say "那个正往店铺走的男子很高". Since "The man" could be anyone, in this case you want to add "該名/那个". In another case, if everybody knows the man, say, we have his name, it will be little different. For example, "Tom, who is working in a big company, has two kids", you can say "汤姆在一个大公司工作，有两个小孩。“

Hope this helps.


What is the difference between 華誕 and 誕辰?

都是一个意思，一般华诞表示国家的生日，是很美妙的事件。诞辰没有华诞那么宏大美好，但也有赞美的意思。


To describe a man acting creepily towards a woman, is there a word that means 害怕 (afraid) but less strong?

I suggest:

心里发毛
feel nervous · be panic-stricken
Example: 他让我感到心里发毛 (he creeps me out)

Basically 心里发毛 describes "you have a dread that you can't put your finger on"

dread : anticipate with great apprehension or fear.

can't put your finger on: not be able to say exactly what is wrong or different about a particular situation


Why 了 is not used, and what is the meaning of 玩 in 上个星期天，我跟好朋友一起去林学院的农场玩?

I try my best to expalain it with my fair English.

First, here we have two verbs “去”and “玩”. And there can be following cases for your sentense:

.....去.....玩。
In this case, both verbs are emphasized. That means, information described about these verbs are all important.
.....去了..... 玩。
In this case, with 了 after 去, the tone has slightly more emphasis on the verb related to 去.
.....去......玩了。
In this case, with 了 after 玩, the tone has slightly more emphasis on the verb related to 玩. (But this case is a bit not that natural in this sentense. Not that “fluent”.)

By the way, here 了 means already.


How can I ask for extra ingredients in a dish?

If the ingredient you asking for more is free, like condiments (salt, sugar, oil) or side greens (onion, pickle) you can say "多 ~ ":

  多盐，多糖，多油, 多洋葱，多泡菜

If the ingredient you asking for more will be charged money, like main topping (meat, seafood) or staple food (noodle, rice)  Then you can say "加 ~" :

Some western restaurant offer free bread.

  加鱼肉， 加牛肉， 加猪肉， 加面条， 加饭

Some restaurant have set price for extra ingredient and some don't, so you should ask how much it costs to have extra something.

To get a larger size dish, you can say 加大码, again, Some restaurant have set price for extra large size dishes and some don't, you have to ask for the the price.

I  often order 例半 (one and a half order) if there are a lot of people in the party. Since 例半 is one and a half order, I would expect it would be one and a half price.

Here are some examples of how you order extra

牛肉炒麵，多洋蔥 (beef stir fry boodle, more onion)
牛肉炒麵，加牛肉 (beef stir fry boodle, extra beef) - ask the price or state how much more money you want to pay for it e.g. "加十元牛肉" (add ten dollar beef)
牛肉炒麵，加大码 (beef stir fry boodle, large size) ask the price
牛肉炒麵，例半 (beef stir fry boodle, one and a half order) pay 50% more
馄饨面，加底 (wonton noodle soup, extra noodle) - 加底 means add only extra staple food when the dish is made up of main toppings on stable food base, For example 馄饨面 (wonton noodle soup)


Why add 左右 ("approximately") to the precisely stated time 25日17时15分左右?

It just means "around".
In this case 左右 applies to the preceding "17时15分", to express that the time is not exact. The writer notes that there is a margin of error or uncertainty.

当时时间25日17时15分左右
Today around 17:15 local time

The English translation also conveys the same meaning. You state a time, 5:15 PM, but also warn readers that it may be imprecise up to a certain degree.


他游了一个小时的泳. What is the grammar rule for separating 游 and 泳

It's because grammatically 游泳 is 离合词, which means it's separatable.
Baidu also gives other examples there, such as 睡觉, 吃饭，etc.
So, we can say 睡一个小时觉，吃个便饭，etc.
的 is 助词(auxiliary word) used after an attributive phrase.  一个小时的 is an attributive phrase modifying the noun 泳.  的 is omissible in your example.
PS.  泳 intrinsically is a verb, and here it's used as a noun.


How can one determine the radical for a given character?

A rule of thumb is to look for the radical that seems to be more prominent. For those characters, it's pretty easy:

In 烋, notice how 灬 spans the entire character horizontally: it is the radical (火)
Same thing applies to 想 : 心 is the radical.
As a bonus, in 强 which you have in your name, 弓 is the radical: notice how it spans the entire character vertically

The next best strategy is to identify and memorize common radicals and where they are commonly positioned, eg:

In 很 the radical is 彳. This is a radical that mostly appears on the left.
In 责  the radical is 贝. This is a radical that mostly appears on the bottom
In 军  the radical is 冖. When in doubt, pick the one on top (and/or the one with the fewest strokes).
In 明 the radical is 日. When in doubt, pick the one on the left.

A lot of this will come with practice.

There are some tools that will allow you to look up word and it will give you the radical, like this:
http://mandarintools.com/


Outlier

PY xián (or jiān, jiàn)
FORM
閒 originally depicted a door (門), such that the moon (月) could be seen through a crack in the door, indicating the original meaning “crack, split.”
COMPONENTS
門
In 閒, 門 “a double-sided door; door, gate; opening” is a form component, pointing to the original meaning “crack, split.”
月
In 閒, 月 “the moon” is a form component.
MEANINGS
xián
1 (orig.) crack, split
2 ○ leisure, free time
jiān
1 → room, space (same as 間)
2 ⇒ duration of time
jiàn
1 → space in between (same as 間)
2 ⇒ separate

The reference they give:

p. 837
季旭昇，2004《說文新證》，台北：藝文印書館印行，2014年9月第二版。

It looks like the entry in Xinzheng actually begins on page 836. Here is the combined original

The idea of free time is another phonetic loan again. Seems a bit climatic, I know.

Here is p. 1043《字源》talking about 閑

The last sentence is quite interesting.

如今“閒”废止不用，“閒”的空间义由“间”表示，閒的空暇义由“闲”表示。

閑 was originally a character that meant, "fencing around a door."
閒 was orignally a character that meant, "crack/split."
閑 was borrowed for it's sound to indicate, "free time."
間 has derivative meanings of "room/space" from the idea of "crack/split."


良好, 令人满意；好。should be translated as good or well without the "be," then it can be used anywhere good or well are used. I never heard it being used as a closing remark, but under some circumstances, such use is possible.

祝你的程序运行良好.--Wish your application runs well.

Source: http://baike.baidu.com/view/96755.htm


Would it be appropriate to translate a Chinese New Year Greeting(s)

Why translate? It's a Chinese new year. Leaving it untranslated adds the Chinese "taste" of this event.
However, translating this is not inappropriate. It depends on the choice of the event host.


How does reduplication change the meaning of adjectives?

Reduplication of adjective put emphasis on it

Same as English: "big" in "He has big big eyes" is more emphasized than the simple "big" in "He has big eyes"

他有大大的眼睛 = he has very big eyes

它的眼睛大大的 = his eyes are very big

Notice, not all adjective can be reduplicated, for example we do not reduplicate 巨 because 巨 is already a higher superlative of 大

Also, we don't reduplicated adjectives that are made up of two same characters, For example, 茫茫 is a compound word, not a reduplication of 茫; 忽忽 is a compound word, not a reduplication of 忽


"可" is a morpheme, while "可以" is a word.

With the meaning of "be able to", "可" and "可以" are interchangeable in most cases.

When we answer a question, we should say "可以", which means "fine", or "OK". When coming to popular culture, some of us would just answer "可", which is not literally supposed to. Say, if you answer like this, we could still understand.

Here are the situations I could come up with, only "可" is used as emphatic adverb (just like "very"), sometimes used to throw a question.
See definition #2 here

For example, "这本书可贵了", which means "this book is very expensive". This is the morpheme "可" used for emphasis.
Another example, "近来可好？", which means "How have you been recently?". This is the morpheme "可" used to throw a question.


"to slice or cut (a finger)" in Traditional Chinese / Spoken Cantonese?

I would say that "開面" as "to slice open" in cantodict is wrong. Have a look at 國語辭典, these two terms are listed:

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000076573

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000099591

About "I sliced my finger", you may consider:  (u+20779). I guess that your computer / tablet needs to have a suitable font in order to display it.

Usage:
Your colleague asked "What happened to your finger?"

Answer: "比張紙親" (Click each character for its sound file :)

Roughly, "比張紙" is "by a piece of paper"; "親" is "sliced".

Be careful :)

Edited.

Of course you can :)

"比" (u+6bd4), or "俾" (u+4ffe) are equal in this context, you can use either one, I quoted "比" just because it's simpler, has fewer strokes.

Now, here's another one: "畀" (u+7540), which is the ancestor of the above two. It existed since oracle bone script, used commonly in literatures of yore. Unfortunately, nowadays this original character is not well recognised; that's why people are using "比" or "俾" most of the time.


differences between 非常好 and 特别棒 ALSO if I know someone's name, do I 认识 them?

The first question is very confusing. I do not agree that the answer has to be C or D. With only the information you gave us, I can only rule out answer E 天津队的水平比沈阳对高得多. Since Shenyang beat Tianjin 5:1, then Shenyang has to be playing at a much higher level than Tianjin. Other than that, we don't know how good Team Shenyang really is, unless we know how good, or bad a team Team Tianjin is. It is possible that Tianjin is a really, really bad team, and any mediocre team can beat them 5:1. Without further context, all four answers A B C D are possible.
The second question is much better. 认识 is to know personally. Knowing just the name doesn't count. I know the names of a lot of celebrities, but I know very few personally. I cannot say 我認識他們，only 我知道他們的名字。
Having said that, the second question is also a little bit confusing. A says：“我不太了解她”。 This means A doesn't know her well. But does that necessarily mean he does not know her at all? Personally, I would never say “我不太了解她” about someone I do not know at all.
Sorry if I managed to confuse the OP further. Without more context, these questions are just not clear and fair for the learner.


Informed sources for videos of Chinese movies

You see, I want to hear actual Chinese spoken at normal speed for the length of a movie or tv show. So 学说中国话 is run to hear but not really what I want.

Oh, it seems that you can find more and more Chinese news played in CCTV4 (Chinese International Channel), this is now standard Chinese news for you to listen to:
http://cctv4asia.cntv.cn/

And what's more, you can watch FREE Chinese movie here：http://list.iqiyi.com/www/2/15------------5-1-1----.html


How to say "damage control" (to minimize damage to reputation)

In the navies and the maritime industry, damage control is the emergency control of situations that may cause the sinking of a watercraft. It is translated as 损害控制 (damage control).
损害控制 can also be used metaphorically for "preventing damages to become more severe"
Example:
The White House staffers have to do damage control for the president's deranged tweets almost every day --> 白宫人员几乎每天都要对总统失控的推文进行损害控制. Metaphorically compare the damage caused by the president's tweets to ship-sinking damage (the damage is done, all you can do is not letting the ship sinks).
It would be easier in Cantonese -- 白宫人员几乎日日都要帮总统失控嘅推文补镬.

(to minimize damage to reputation)

The term 公关补救 (PR remedy) seems to fit
We can use a Cantonese slang 解畫 for that -- a metaphor for "to spin; to explain away the problem" I am not sure it is used in Mandarin or not


亚洲 is short for 亚细亚洲 while 非洲 is short for 阿非利加洲.

See the article "各大洲名称由来".


An unknown Traditional Chinese character on a decorative piece for Lunar New Year

It's not likely you'll find this in any dictionary because it's a conglomeration of four characters: 招財進寶 "attracting money and treasure". See if you can find them. Hint: there is one part that is shared by two of the characters.


Short answer: yes. Skip to the last paragraph for a few examples.
Long answer: it depends.
Firstly, the Chinese language is:

isolating (low morpheme per word ratio)
written with characters

As you said, words used in English text speak are acronyms, i.e. made up from initial letters of some other words:

  brb = be right back

In Chinese, characters are morphemes which are also words, therefore if text speak = acronyms (like imho, wrt), then there's very little room for it.

You do have sort of acronyms, or abbreviations, in Chinese. The most common occurrence is in lengthy names, for instance those of institutions, which comprise several two-character words. These are most of the times abbreviated using the most significant character from each distinct word. Example:

  (食品)药品监督管理局 (food &) drug administration
  becomes: 药监局

If text speak = word contraction, then yes, there are some forms commonly used in colloquial speech that eliminate bound morphemes:

  什么 > 啥
  怎么 > 咋

Finally you can find some slang words used in written language that resemble more closely those you are talking about. Not real acronyms for the reasons stated above, but roman letters used in place of characters with the same pronunciation, which we can construe as examples of slang text speak in Chinese:

  p了 （bullshit!) -> letter p instead of 屁 (pi4)
  sb (idiot) -> first pinyin letters of 傻逼 sha bi
  wp (outsider) -> first pinyin letters of 外屁 wai pi, a distortion of 外地(人) used as a slur for non Shanghainese people in Shanghai.
  ooxx (having sex) -> letters o (read oh) and x (read cha as 叉 cross, same pronunciation as 插, insert/stick）


How do form this sentence "I want (object) to (verb/be) that..." in Chinese?

我想要(object)(verb/be)……

e.g.

我想要你知道你不再孤独
我想要她成为我的妻子
我想要我哥哥帮我做作业
我想要你成为我的


亲你一口 and 亲你一下 mean the same, kiss one time. 口 and 下 are both valid measure words for 亲. So, 亲一口 == 亲一下.

You should note that 一下 doesn't ALWAYS mean 'a bit'. It can mean 'one time'. For example, 打三下（hit three times）， 亲两下(kiss two times).


“杞人憂天”新解

  從前在杞國，有一個膽子很小，而且有點神經質的人，他常會想到一些奇怪的問題，而讓人覺得莫名其妙。

  有一天，他吃過晚飯以後，拿了一把大蒲扇，坐在門前乘涼，並且自言自語的說：

  “假如有一天，天塌了下來，那該怎麼辦呢？我們豈不是無路可逃，而將活活地被壓死，這不就太冤枉了嗎？”

我們豈不是無路可逃，而將活活地被壓死。
We will have no way to run away, but will be crushed to death alive.

(而)(將)(活活地)(被壓死)
(but) (will) (be crushed to death) (alive)

而 but
將 will
活活地 alive
被壓死 be crushed to death


继兄弟 = stepbrothers.  Two unrelated people became brothers when their parents married each other
Stepbrothers are a result of a second marriage
同父异母兄弟 (同父兄弟/ 异母兄弟) = half brothers. When two brothers have the same father but different mothers (A man had a son with one woman and then had another son with a different woman.)
同母异父兄弟 (同母兄弟/ 异父兄弟) = half brothers. When two brothers have the same mother but different fathers (A woman had a son with one man and then had another son with a different man.)
Half brothers are mostly a result of a second marriage (but not always)

what does 继 mean?

继 = 继任 - to succeed (a position)
继父, 继母 = stepfather, stepmother (继父 succeeds the previous father, 继母 succeeds the previous mother)
继兄弟 doesn't mean a brother succeeds a previous brother. It means the brother's relationship is through a 继父, 继母's marriage


How did 背后 come to mean "behind one's back" both literally and figuratively, like in English?

背后(behind) is a compound word made up of [背 = back/ back side (n)] + [后 = behind (preposition)]

背 in 背后 can refer to "the back" (背脊) of a person
e.g. 在你背后批评你
背 here refers to your back (背脊)
Although 背 here literally mean one's back, it is used as a metaphor for "place you cannot see = instances unknown to you "

~

背 in 背后 can also refer to "the back side"(背面) of an object
e.g. 在门背后
背 here refers to the back side of the door (门背面)
In this case, the meaning of "背" (the back side) is completely literal


必／会， 这个句子为什么用”必“？必 vs 会？ Why does this sentence use "必“？

必 emphasises and reinforces much more the idea of definitive, firmness.
我会帮助你 means I will help you
我必会帮助你 means I will definitely help you

You would say 我必会帮助你 when you are 100% sure you will commit to help the person.
You feel much more secure about the other person's commitment if the person tell you 我必会帮助你.

必 also emphasises on the idea of success as in when you say 我必会帮助你, you are also quite sure that you can help the person successfully.

You could say 我一定会帮你 to mean I will definitely help you. But you feel less secure about if the person can actually help successfully.

God is all-powerful, hence he can use 必. You feel secure and confident in his presence and in this question, you feel secure and confident from his words when he tells you that he will help you.


You need to know about First Set of Variant Characters To Be Standardized:

  In October of 1955 the Ministry of Education and the Committee for the Reform held two important conferences in Beijing, the National Conference on Script Reform (Quanguo Wenzi Gaige Huiyi) and the Symposium on the Standardization of Modern Chinese (Xiandai Hanyu Guifanhua Xueshu Huiyi) , the first focusing on Chinese character simplification and second on the definition of Putonghua. The first meeting resulted in the passing of the Revised Draft of the Scheme for the Simplification of Chinese characters (Hanzi Jianhua Fang’an Xiuzheng Cao’an) as well as the Draft of the List of the First Set of Variant Characters to be Standardized (Di Yi Pi Yitzi Zhengli Biao Cao’an), both of which were given full propaganda support by the CCP, the government, the People’s Daily, etc.

The original looked something like this:

In Chinese it is now called 第一批异体字整理表 and is explained like this:

  《第一批异体字整理表》，是1955年中华人民共和国文化部和中国文字改革委员会发布的正体字选字表，原来有810组，淘汰异体字1,055个（但“妳”、“粇”二字分别出现两次），于1956年2月1日开始实施。

The list contains:

There you have it:

  叫［呌］

These regulations seem to have come into place on February 1st of 1956.


Is "华彧" an acceptable name for males? Any other boy names with "华"?

The most famous person with 彧 in his name was 'Xun Yu (荀彧)' in the Three Kingdoms period, so 彧 was a legit name, but it is rarely used in modern time.
If you do decide to name yourself 华彧, people will inevitably associate your name with 荀彧 and get the impression that you are proclaiming yourself a wise and capable advisor ... Are you one?
Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮) was the more famous advisor than 荀彧 in the Three Kingdoms period, but the character 亮 is a common character, so no one would associate it with 諸葛亮 specifically, but the character 彧 is so rare, everyone who read the novel Romance of Three Kingdoms would think of him immediately upon seeing 彧 in a name

彧 《广韵》有文章也,《广雅》文也

彧 means "literary talent" or "literary"

If you want a common character that has a similar meaning to 彧, 文 should be the best choice, but 华文 would mean "Chinese text" or "Chinese language"
黎文华 would be a decent name. Both 文 and 华 are popular characters in names
If you want a common character that sounds like 彧 /yù/ and goes well with 华, you can consider 黎华禹，黎华鈺，黎华裕


This is discussed extensively in this thread:
http://forum.reviewingthehanzi.com/viewtopic.php?id=7698

A quote

  Because the "simplified" version of this character was made PRC
  standard when the new character lists were published. Even though
  nothing was actually simplified. There was a committee in China tasked
  with simplifying and standardizing written Chinese, when they came
  across this character they noticed there were two common versions of
  the hanzi being used so they had to pick which one will be in the
  official government approved lists. 够 won out.


Is Southwestern Mandarin different from Mandarin?

Southwestern Mandarin，西南官话，实则是西南方言

Mandarin，普通话，全国通用

你在任何地方说普通话都可以交流

Southwestern Mandarin只在西南部分地区交流
当然只是语调的部分不同


凉 (liáng) s.v. cool, chilly. 不想吃凉米饭. (liàng) v. make cool. 天气凉了. Opposite: 温

冷 (lěng) s.v. cold; 天气很冷. Opposite: 热

冻 (dòng) v. freeze; feel frosen. 湖泊冻成冰. Opposite: 融

冰 (bīng) n. ice. v. put on ice; feel cold. 湖泊冻成冰. Opposite: 汽


The position is called:

平板撑
ping2 ban3 cheng1

平板 meaning literally "plank", or "slab", and 撑 standing for 支撑 "to prop up".
The longer form 平板支撑 is also common.

About the verb "how to do" a plank, that would be simply 做 but also 完成 might be fine.

如何完成平板支撑 How to do/complete planks


I think the Chinese language has always been very consistent here. Consider the following:

我很对不起你。
我很讨厌你。
我很爱你。

The subject-verb-object sentence structure is very consistent. In English, the last two sentences can be translated directly with:

I hate you very much.
I love you very much.

The reason why the first sentence could not be translated directly is due to the lack of such a verb in English and not due to the peculiarity of the Chinese language.

The third meaning in the Wikitionary article you quoted captures more of the essence of this verb "对不起" than the first two:

  to do something to a person that would demand an apology later on

To elaborate, "我很对不起你" is not a statement of apology but a statement that you owe someone more than just an apology. This is logically so, because the subject would have easily apologised with a simple sorry (对不起) when speaking directly to the other party.

To extend this further, "你很对不起她" is another valid statement to mean you owe her more than just an apology. Example:

  她为了你付出了这么多，你却这样糟蹋她。你真的很对不起她。

  She has done so much for you, yet you treated her so badly. You really
  owe her more than just an apology.


How does "the copula 惟" distinguish the meanings of negation for 非 v. 不?

The English word "not" encompasses various meanings and usages too. For example, the following "not" words can all be interpreted as being different:

Do not enter.
He is not going to the market.
Not now.
This apple is not red yet.

In Mandarin Chinese then, 不 is used in front of verbs, and thus is the first negative adverb people learn. In normal speech then, only the first two sentences may use "不 = not"; in formal language, the first may be substituted.
Where does 非 fit in then? The uses in modern Standard Chinese are given above in the cited dictionary. However, in Classical Chinese, its use was more obviously related to its etymological roots as given by Wiktionary above. One source is Pulleyblank's seminal grammar, which states point blank:

Fēi 非, the negative particle used with nouns, is an early contraction of 不唯 bù wéi [...]

and note what it says about 唯:

[...] not in the classical sense of 'only' but in the preclassical sense of a copula and noun marker.

Note 惟 and 唯 were orthographic variants during this period, performaing a role as the copula, which would "equate" two noun phrases. This is attested in the The Commentary of Zuo or 左傳 (Zuǒ zhuàn):

且要盟無質，神弗臨也，所臨唯信

In Classical Chinese, the difference between 不 as a negative and 非 as a negative becomes critical for intepretation. E.g. from the Analects:

信如君不君，臣不臣，父不父，子不子

The use of 非 would mean that the sentence reads "If indeed the ruler is not the ruler, the subject is not the subject" etc., as the end of each clause would be a noun. However, the use of 不 forces the end of each clause to be a verbal predicate, and so the reading is about "being X-like / acting as X".
Note 非 also has meaning as a 'true' verb in Classical Chinese, "to be wrong" / "to deny".
Of course, modern Standard Mandarin is different; the modern copula 是 takes the normal verbal negative adverb 不. But the use of 非 persists in important compounds, and thinking of it as closer to 不是 than 不 can be helpful for the learner.


The stroke order for the component 辶 (Chuo)

Do you talk about the method of writing 辶?

The difference is caused by the typeface or font.

明体

楷书


What does 土 mean in this sentence 这个名字有点土?

土 has serveral meanings, one of which is 不合潮流 (out of the swim, out of fashion, out of step, old-fashioned, etc.).

So in your example, 土 means old-fashioned.

I guess it is because the core meaning of 土 is earth or dirt, which we can't say is fancy.


Does 声 exist as a traditional character?

Yes,「声」represented the word now written as「磬」(stone chimes).

「声」was originally part of「殸」(stone chimes), and this character later became「磬」. Later on, people began cutting off the components from「聲」(sound) to use「声」as a shorthand for「聲」(sound), but「磬」and「聲」represented different words.

  「聲」(sound) is comprised of「殸」(stone chimes being struck) and「耳」(ear).

商甲前7.42.1合集8613春秋金鎛　篆說文解字　今楷

「声」depicts stone chimes「石」suspended with threads/string. In「殸」, a hand holding a striking implement「殳」was added to emphasise that the instrument is meant to be struck. Finally, another semantic「石」(rock, stone) was added on to「殸」, as a further emphasis that the instrument was made of stone.

In the modern form, the threads used for suspending the chimes is written as「士」.

  商甲乙3212合集13505商甲乙1277合集376西周金己侯貉子簋集成3977東漢隸景北海碑陰　今楷

  「石」was originally a depiction of stone chimes, and its original meaning is stone, rock. A distinguishing symbol「口」was added later to mark the name of an ancient region called「石」, and is inherited in the modern form. The stone chimes component was later simplified into「厂」, then the strokes were further altered slightly into「丆」, resulting in the modern shape.

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
黃德寬《古文字譜系疏證》
小學堂
中華語文知識庫・漢字源流
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》


Quotation Marks ("") and Angle Quotation Marks (《》)

In mainland:

Both are correct.

They are just two styles： ‘’ “” ,「」『』.

The former are borrowed from western countries, the usages in Chinese are identical with English.

The latter,「」 and 『』 are from Japanese. Although they are not so often used as the former, but they are definitely acceptable. In fact, Some people claims we should only use 「」『』 for quotation, because they are more suitable for Chinese character. They mean visual effects.

﹏﹏ is used in ancient texts acting likes 《》, they are for books, movies,songs and other specified names.

To 〖〗 ,don't know it.

The names of frequently used marks：

“” 引号，‘’ is 单引号，“” is 双引号。

「」 is called 直引号。

《》 书名号，专名号。

——  破折号。

；分号。

…… 省略号。

， 逗号。

。 句号。

？ 问号。

！ 感叹号 or 惊叹号。

You may find that in some technical writings, the 。 is  replaced by .


What etymology dictionaries are available?

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


Mandarin: when is it okay to use only 點 instead of 一點?

點 「吃點東西吧！」、「一點小事別在意！」

一點 「也少盡一點子心哪。」

一點點 「祇有一點點大。」

一點兒 「大意一點兒」

In most cases these are interchangeable.

We do not omit 一, if there is no verb, adjective or adverb in front of it.
For example, 一點小事別在意！


It comes from a net slang "给你跪下了"(I'm kneeling down to you) or "给跪" for short, to show one's admiration when something is far beyond his ability.

你能吃六碗饭？我给你跪下了！
你微积分考试得了满分？给跪了。

And this has variants like "献上我的膝盖", "给你我的膝盖" or "膝盖给你", where "give you my knees" just means "kneel to you". So basically you can take 膝盖 as a metaphor for admiration, e.g.请收下我的膝盖


I think the answers so far are from people who have never done construction work.  I have.  I take the same story from Baidu as cited by Drunken Master and kxxoling.

The process of smoothing (磨) the bricks does not only take a lot of time.  More importantly, it is easy for workers to relax and stretch out the time by simply not pushing very hard as they do it. That way they all get paid more for doing easier work.

The boss whether foreign or Chinese can immediately see how many bricks someone is carrying, or how many they lay.  And he knows what to expect for such routine work.  He cannot as well see how hard people are trying as they grind bricks smooth -- or tell how quickly a given wall should be ground smooth.  Especially a foreign contractor or top boss will not know what to expect for this novel process.

The story concerns workers on a well-funded foreign construction project (洋工), in Beijing, and the funders were willing to spend lots of money to get it "一丝不苟" perfect, as http://ybkk.blog.sohu.com/301356259.html expresses it. That blog has pictures and adds other details of the building.

I take the point to be that "polishing bricks on the foreign building" became proverbial for taking it easy on the job.


I'm not sure if you are familiar with 的时候 but this translates approximately to 'while'.

So the sentence reads:

While I was eating I read a book.

You can see the English use "I" twice, so it may make more sense to you if you read it like this:

我吃饭的时候(我)看了一本书


Like many Chinese words, 学 and 学习 differ primarily not in meaning but in length; in many cases, 学习 is chosen over 学 because the sentence calls for a disyllabic verb for reasons of prosody.

Your example number 2 is a good one. We say 我在大学学习 not because 学习 can be used intransitively but 学 cannot be, but because the sentence *我在大学学 sounds "incomplete." (You may have already learned that many disyllabic verbs cannot be used with monosyllabic objects; this is just one example of how prosody often governs the formation of Chinese sentences.)

Many (most? all?) Chinese words come in "short" and "long" forms. Native speakers switch back and forth between these forms effortlessly as the situation requires. In many cases, fixed expressions can take one form but not the other. Just another thing we students of Chinese have to learn. :)

By the way, there is one "grammatical" difference between 学 and 学习 that I can think of off the top of my head. 学习 can be used as a noun to mean "studies" or "academic skill", e.g.

我学习很好. -> "I am good in my studies." or "I do well in school."

(I'm not sure if this is technically a noun. I think most people would gloss it as a nested topic-comment structure: 我//学习//很好.)

P.S. Most of my knowledge about this topic comes from the excellent "Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar" published by Routledge.


My interpretation:

  明微推遠，憭若蓍蔡

  [his words are] clear (明), precise (微), incredibly profound (推遠), as wise (憭) as that of (若) the most renowned and famous (蓍蔡)

As for the reference definition for「蓍蔡」:

  漢語大詞典

  比喻德高望重的人。

  明　張居正　《少師存齋徐相公七十壽序》：＂天下方以公為蓍蔡，何可一日無也。＂
  明　陸深　《溪山餘話》：＂公和易，不事邊幅，喜為後生輩談論講說，終日不倦……所謂國家之蓍蔡，若人是已。＂
  清　褚人穫　《堅瓠秘集・守龜》：＂古人目老成人，則曰國之蓍蔡。＂


Chinese equivalent of "a bad apple spoils the barrel"

Chinese has an idiom: 害群之马, it refers to the bad apple which spoils the barrel. Literally, it says : a horse that brings trouble to its herd.

“a bad apple spoils the barrel” also has a Chinese counterpart: 一个老鼠屎坏了一锅汤, but it is kinds of rude, maybe.


Which expressions should I choose to say “thanks for your help”?

In my opinion, 帮忙 and 帮助 are different.

  帮忙: [verb]to help some do something .This word itself has declared its object[忙] already. I think the phrase "do sb a favor" is a more appropriate equivalent in English.

  帮助: [verb]to help. [noun]help. This word needs an object

You would say,

  你可以来帮忙吗？ Could you come and help?

  你可以帮助*我*一下吗？Could you help me?

  我帮不上忙。 I am not able to help.

  我无法帮助*你*。(Actually, 我帮不了你 is more common) I am not able to help.

Imagine that you are going to prepare a meal in your house,to entertain your friends, but you have a lot of work(buying, washing, cutting, cooking...) to do
, so you ask me for help. You would say,

  Huang,明早你可以来帮忙吗？Could you please come and help(do me a favor) tomorrow morning?  By using 帮忙, you should not express its object, and that doesn't matter, because in the context, I understand what I can help you. I say,

  没问题。我能帮助你什么呢？=没问题，我能帮什么忙呢？No problem! What can I help you?

  你可以帮助我去超市买菜。 You can help me buy the foods in the supermarket. Here, you won't say 帮忙, because you have to express the object explicitly.

Now, for your question, I think the 2nd sentence is more common, though the first one could be understood. I guess you would not say "Thanks for your doing me a favor" in English, would you?

You can also say other words to express this meaning,

  谢谢(or 谢了 if you are familiar with the interlocutor)
  辛苦你了
  辛苦了
  麻烦你了
  麻烦了


The Sacred Edict 《聖諭》was first published by order of the Kangxi Emperor in 1670 (there were earlier works, but this was the first with this title). It was published in a revised and expanded version in 1724 by the Yongzheng Emperor called 《聖諭廣訓》There is an article on this in the Chinese Wikipedia.  There is also an article in the English Wikipedia under Sacred Edict of the Kangxi Emperor.

The Sacred Edict was a 'hortatory' work, meaning it 'urged people to do good' (勸善). There was a whole category of such books called 善書; you can still pick these up at Buddhist or Taoist temples in Taiwan.  I wouldn't call these books of fables, though.


How do I write "One can ..." / "You can ..." (general personal pronoun) in Chinese?

Which personal pronouns can I use in an instruction in Chinese to replace the English "one"

user3306356's answer did not answer this question. Yes, the subject (or it's pronouns) can be omitted if the meaning is clear.
But in Chinese grammar, the[ one can + main clause] structure does exist, it is [你可以 + main clause]
你 is not restricted to mean 'you' only, it can be a general pronoun that mean 'anyone'-- And it is usually omitted just as user3306356's answer suggested.
Example:

in '你可以在这里抽烟' (you/one can smoke here)
你 here refers to you and everyone else

One more example:

在这家工厂，你只有25分钟的午餐时间 (In this factory, you/one only have 25 minutes lunch time)
你 here refers to you and everyone else

'你可以在这里抽烟' can be rephrase to '这里可以抽烟' omit '你' and '在' because we know who we are speaking to and 这里 strongly implies 在这里
'在这家工厂，你只有25分钟的午餐时间' can be rephrase to '这工厂只有25分钟午餐时间' (We know who only get 25 minutes)
I said it many times, "it is considered good form to omit everything you can omit, as long as the meaning is clear."


A word that means "earn" without the "money" connotation?

There are a few substitutes I can think of:

信任是要靠努力得来的 (trust is obtained through hard work)
信任是要争取的 (trust must be fought for)
信任是要赢得的 (trust must be won)
信任是要经营的 (trust needs to be maintained)
信任是要用时间去积累的 (trust is acquired over a period of time)

If you are looking for a word, I think 争取[zhēngqǔ] is a good replacement for 赚 because it means to put in effort to achieve a goal and has no monetary connotation in it:

  争夺；力求获得; 力求实现


The character 祿 has two meanings:

Good fortunes.
Government salary (in the imperial Chinese government).

Which one you'd want to translate it to depends on the context.


Why does Mandarin differentiate 发[發/髮] fa1/fa4 when most topolects don't?

We might never know the real reason. All those rime books indicate that 發 (out) and 髮 (hair) are always the same pronunciation, and both are entering tone (入聲). This means there is a terminal -t in pronunciation on 發 and 髮. We know that when -t was lost in Mandarin and the tones became unstable. In Chinese phonology it is named 派入三聲. The entering tone (入聲) was gone and all characters in entering tone go to the rest three tones, namely the flat tone (平聲), the rising tone (上聲) and the leaving tone (去聲). In this way, it is possible that 發 and 髮 develops different tones in Mandarin.