In ancient Chinese, 挟 can be used as 夹.

  挟（挾）jiā ㄐㄧㄚˉ ◎ 古同“夹”，从物体两边钳住。

And in Taiwan, 挾 has a pronunciation jiá (note that it's not jiā). So, the lyrics/pronunciation cannot be considered wrong.

PS Thanks for NS.X.'s pointing out that you cannot freely choose the pronunciation of a polyphonic character, it should depend on the context. That is correct, and I am sorry if I had misled anyone for my unclear statement.

That I said such pronunciation jiádài (Taiwanese) cannot be considered wrong, is because the persons who use jiádài may argue like this

  (Possible Argument for jiádài) The 挾 is an interchangeable character of 夾, though it's in ancient Chinese, I can use 挾帶 as 夾帶 without being wrong because modern dictionaries still list 挾jiá(note that again in mainland China it is 挟jiā) as one entry. And, 夾帶 has meaning 夾雜(be mixed up with), so

    the lyric 夢想夾帶眼淚 can be interpreted as a metaphor "dreams are mixed up with tears".

  And

    in the news, 颱風夾帶暴雨前進 can be interpreted as "the typhoon mixed up with rainstorms is moving forward".

  They both make sense.

Thus, it would be a little indiscreet to say it's wrong.

EDIT

Thanks for QuestionOverflow's brilliant question! I study the pronunciation of 挟带(挾帶) for a while, and here's my conclusion:

  In Taiwan, the pronunciations of 挾 are xié, xiá, or jiá. The formal pronunciation of 挾帶 should be xiédài, or xiádài (preferred). However, the not-so-formal pronunciation jiádài can be commonly heard in TV weather reports.
  In mainland China, the pronunciations of 挟 are xié or jiā. The formal pronunciation of 挟带 should be only xiédài.

Literature Evidence

For Case 2, the answer can be easily found in the authoritative dictionaries 《现代汉语词典》 or 《新华字典》.

However, Case 1 is much more complex, because there are many dictionaries in Taiwan and it's difficult to tell which one is the most authoritative. Here, I would consider the 中華民國教育部 重編國語辭典修訂本 (online) as the most authoritative one. In that dictionary, the entries for 挾 and 挾帶 are

Pronunciation xié.

  挾 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10

    注音一式① ㄒ｜ㄝˊ

    漢語拼音① xié

  【動】

  夾在腋下、懷夾。國語˙齊語：「時雨既至，挾其槍、刈、耨、鎛，以旦暮從事於田野。」孟子˙梁惠王上：「挾太山以超北海。」
  從旁箝夾。文選˙王粲˙登樓賦：「挾清漳之通浦兮，倚曲沮之長洲。」
  脅持。如：「要挾」。三國志˙卷三十五˙蜀書˙諸葛亮傳：「挾天子而令諸侯。」水滸傳˙第三十六回：「若是如此來挾我，只是逼宋江性命，我自不如死了。」
  持握、持有。戰國策˙趙策四：「位尊而無功，奉厚而無勞，而挾重器多也。」楚辭˙屈原˙九歌˙國殤：「帶長劍兮挾秦弓，首身離兮心不懲。」
  倚仗、倚持。如：「挾恃」。孟子˙萬章下：「不挾長，不挾貴。」清˙洪昇˙長生殿˙第三十齣：「況且弟兄姊妹挾勢弄權，罪惡滔天。」
  夾帶、夾雜。宋˙辛棄疾˙浣溪沙˙梅子熟時到幾回詞：「晚雲挾雨喚歸來。」
  懷藏、隱藏。如：「挾怨」。漢書˙卷五十六˙董仲舒傳：「秦繼其後，獨不能改，又益甚之，重禁文學，不得挾書。」元˙關漢卿˙望江亭˙第二折：「挾這讎氣，朦朧奏過聖人，要標取我的首級。」

Pronunciation xiá. ①之又音 means it is another acceptable formal pronunciation under the usage of case ①.

  挾 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10

    注音一式② （又音）ㄒ｜ㄚˊ

    漢語拼音② （又音）xiá

  ①之又音。

Pronunciation jiá.

  挾 部首　手　部首外筆畫　7　總筆畫　10

    注音一式③ ㄐ｜ㄚˊ

    漢語拼音③ jiá

  【動】

  通達。詩經˙大雅˙大明：「天位殷適，使不挾四方。」
  夾取。通「夾」。莊子˙駢拇：「問臧奚事，則挾策讀書。」舊五代史˙卷一二七˙周書˙盧文紀傳：「旭旦以箸挾之，首得文紀之名。」

  【形】 周匝、周遍。荀子˙禮論：「於是其中焉方皇周挾，曲得其次序，是聖人也。」楊倞˙注：「浹，匝也。」

挾帶 xié dài with the meaning "carry".

  夾持攜帶。如：「歹徒挾帶毒品闖關，被海關緝查人員當場查獲。」

攜挾帶 xī jiá dài with the meaning "cheating in an examination".

  考試作弊。

Thus, consider the meaning of 挾帶 in the context of weather report, formally, it should be pronounced as xiédài or xiádài(preferred) in Taiwan.

Why xiádài is preferred in Taiwan

I find an article written by Prof. Pei-Jung Huang (Dept. of Chinese language and literature, National Taiwan University) on this website. It mentions:

  根據臺灣《國語一字多音審定表》（教育部出版）及大陸《普通話四讀詞審音表釋例》，兩岸的字音差異頗多，茲舉十例如下：[...]

    二、聲母、韻母或聲調不同的：（前面是臺灣讀音，後面是大陸讀音）[...]

    21．挾持、挾制、挾帶（ㄒㄧㄚˊ／ㄒㄧㄝˊ）

That is to say, xiádài is preferred in Taiwan, according to the official document 臺灣《國語一字多音審定表》. And in the 國語小字典, 挾 is only given the pronunciation xiá.

  【挾】手-7-10

  注音    ㄒ｜ㄚˊ

  (1)   用手臂夾在腋下。如：「挾帶」。
  (2) 以威勢壓迫。如：「挾持」、「挾制」、「要挾」、「挾天子以令諸侯」。
  (3) 暗藏於心。如：「挾怨」、「挾嫌」、「挾恨」、「挾隙」。

Distinction between 挟带(挾帶) and 携带(攜帶)

挟带

  携带；混杂在他物中秘密携带。 宋 梅尧臣 《和王仲仪咏瘿二十韵》：“挟带岁月深，冒犯风霜冷；厌恶虽自知，剖割且谁肯。” 清 富察敦崇 《燕京岁时记·黄花鱼》：“京师三月有黄花鱼，即石首鱼。初次到京时，由 崇文门 监督照例呈进，否则为私货。虽有挟带而来者，不敢卖也。”
  谓以强力带着。 王愿坚 《普通劳动者》：“一阵疾风挟带着沙土扑过，大白点子雨急骤地撒落下来，打在沙土上。”
  犹夹杂，带有。 鲁迅 《坟·从胡须说到牙齿》：“其中大半是因为他们耽误了我的父亲的病的缘故罢，但怕也很挟带些切肤之痛的自己的私怨。”

携带

  [carry;bring;take along]
  随身带着

    携带行李

  经受或容许以特定方式带

    易于携带的负载

  [pack]∶作为部分经常装备佩带
  [wear]∶手里拿着

    携带一根手杖

Thus, though they have similar meanings, 携带 can be only used to describe such an action or a status of humans, or, of something that is compared to humans in a metaphor. 挟带 emphasizes more about the action than the status, and can be used for anything/anybody. The phrase 挟带暴雨 is Case 2 of 挟带 in the explanations above, meaning "carrying (the rainstorm) with strong force".

Video Material Evidence for the Formal Pronunciation xiádài in Taiwan

One official introductory video about typhoon made by the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan. 挾帶 is pronounced as xiádài at 0:05-0:06.

  颱風是源自於熱帶海洋上的劇烈天氣系統，會挾帶(xiádài)著狂風及豪雨前進 ...

A piece of weather news made by New Tang Dynasty Asia Pacific TV. 挾帶 is pronounced as xiádài at around 0:05.
A piece of Apple Daily news in Taiwan. 挾(帶) is pronounced as xiá at 0:00.

  挾1500毫米暴雨 ...

The Not-So-Formal Examples of jiádài

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONcmt4TIalc

  Around 0:05. 明天起將挾帶暴雨侵台

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iREbExawzeQ

  0:08-0:12 其中，西半部依然挾帶豐沛水汽進入台灣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03_2kam1MrY

  0:24-0:28 天秤颱風從東部登陸台灣，挾帶著強風豪雨


Some examples would be:

全国人民代表大会 is shortened as "人大"
超級女聲 is shortened as "超女"
中央電視台 is shorten as "央視"


According to 六書
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification)

There are two kinds of this
1. 轉注：
Basically this mean the multiple characters may map in the same mapping if
1) They are in same radical (category).
2) They sound similar
Example: 老 (old) 考 (Originally meant old; deconstructed as 耂 derivative (老字头) of 老 lǎo "old" + 丂 qiǎo (phonetic). Later evolved to mean "deceased father". Modern meanings of to exam. (From http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%80%83)

假借：
Basically this mean the a character is assigned to more than one senses.
Example: 蘇 (/su1/ 'revive') ＝ 更生('live again') → 甦
     云 (Originally Cloud, then become "say") →  雲 (Cloud)

Or you can search "通同字" or "通假字"


Are there any sentences where if you skip one (or more) characters from the beginning, it's correct but has entirely different meaning?

How about these:

"(美國人)對大麻合化意見不一" -- "(Americans) have different opinions on the legalization of marijuana"

"(國人)對大麻合化意見不 一" -- "(Citizens of this country) have different opinions on the legalization of marijuana"

~

"(德意志)崩潰" -- "(German) collapse"

"(意志)崩潰" -- "(will/ spirit) collapse"

~

"(從)[馬上]下來" -- "come down (from) [the horse back]"

"[馬上] 下來" -- "come down [immediately]"

~

"(從來就)有免費飯" -- "There's (always been) free meal"

"(來)[就]有免費飯" -- "There's free meal [whenever] you (come)"


努力 can be a noun for 'great effort' or a verb for 'to strive/ to work hard'
努力地 (in a hard working manner) is 努力's adverb form

The sentence "他努力工作"  omitted '地' in  "他努力(地)工作" (he works in a hard working manner)

用功 is also a verb for 'work hard'
用功地 (in a hard working manner) is 用功's adverb form

The sentence "他应该用功学习"  omitted '地' in "他应该用功(地)学习" (he should study in a hard working manner)

Examples of 努力; 用功 as verb:

"他在努力" - "He is working hard"

"不要阻他用功" - "Don't stop him from working/ study hard"

Most common usage of 用功 is  "to study hard"

Edit:

  can you omit anytime with any adjective you use as an adverb?

It depend on the context

強烈 (strong)
強烈地 (strongly)

Look at the following two sentences:

"強烈反對" = [強烈(adj)+反對(n)] = "strong objection"
"強烈地反對" = [強烈地(adv)+反對(v)] =  "strongly object"

If you omit 地 in sentence #2, it would become the same as sentence #1 . We would not know "強力反對" mean "strong objection" or  "strongly object".

But with enough context, we can tell which is which.

"(他)強烈反對" = "(He) strongly objects" - With the subject "he", we know 強烈反對 must be [adverb +verb] . Therefore, we can omit the adverb marker '地' in "(他)強烈(地)反對"

"(他的)強烈反對" = "(his) strong objection" - With the possessive pronoun "his" , we know 強烈反對 must be [adj + noun]


Translation of "Please tell me how to get to your house."?

In a less westernised way, you may say,

"請問你的家怎麼走?"

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%90%E5%8C%96%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87


According to the Chinese language wiki, the word 华夏 is just an Ancient word for 夏人, or the people of the Xia dynasty.

夏朝在上古為中央大國[2]，但“夏人”一般是指夏朝遺民[3]。而“華夏”僅為漢朝之前的代名詞[4]

In Early Old Chinese, the Xia dynasty was the central power, but "夏人" was generally used to refer to the descendants of the Xia dynasty. "華夏" is simply a synonym that was used before the Han dynasty.

The text goes on to explain that in the early Qin dynasty it was used to also classify people in the Zhou dynasty. It looks like this is an example of using the word to affirm political legitimacy-- they used this terminology to affirm that anyone who followed Zhou Li of the Zhou dynasty was a descendant of the even older (and therefore more legitimate?) Xia dynasty by saying they were 華夏, but that people who did not follow Zhou Li were barbarians, even if they belonged to the Zhou family.

在先秦時代，華夏僅為周王朝的代稱[8]，同時凡遵周禮、守义之諸侯國人，也稱為華人、夏人，通稱為諸華、諸夏，不遵守周禮、不尊重周天子、非周「王母弟甥舅」的諸侯國則被視為「蠻夷戎狄」[9][10]，縱使是周王族的吳國，不守周禮[11]及稱王的舉動，一樣被視為「蠻夷戎狄」。

This article does note that some historians believe that in Early Old Chinese "Hua" and "Xia" were pronounced the same, and originally just one character. They also give an example in the Zuo Zhuan where the two are interchangeable.

一些歷史學家認為華、夏兩字上古同音，本一字。《左傳》“裔不謀夏，夷不亂華”一語，華、夏同義反復，華即是夏。

Tl;DR If the paper you are using predates the Han dynasty, it's possible that it is saying this word with purpose, to intentionally claim a longer and more honorable lineage for the group of people it is referring to, but if it was written after the Han dynasty the word choice was probably just for style as at that point the word is interchangeable with 华人.


Where can I find a graded reader with pinyin alongside the simplified characters?

If you don't mind, you might want Mandarin textbooks for lower grade elementary school used in China.
And some storybooks also have Pinyin on every character.
You might search jd.com or taobao.com to find some examples using keywords like "识字 拼音", "小学 课本".

If you want get pinyin when reading on screen, you might try Lingoes Translator (offical website) with Chinese Dictionary installed.  This software can pick up the character under your cursor and perform a query automatically (and you get pinyin)(this may require an option to be enabled).


As what you said, Television also helps you that have all been in your seen post:

CCTV 4 (mms://8.3.230.132/cctv-4/cctvNews01.wmv)
NJTV 1 - Nanjing TV (mms://218.94.122.203/njtvxw)
XZTV1* (mms://218.3.205.21/xwzhpd)
XZTV2* (mms://218.3.205.21/jjshpd)
XZTV3* (mms://218.3.205.21/shzfpd)
NYTV - Nanyang TV (mms://61.136.113.41/nytv_1)

Besides, you can also see this:

快乐汉语

跟我学汉语


How to type Chinese vertically from the right to the left?

In MS Word select Text Direction and change it to vertical.

Word needs to have East Asian language features enabled to do this.

Word for Mac looks slightly different:


A few classifiers:

束 shù: bundle, bouquet; 一束花
袋 dài: bag
包 bāo: package; 一包烟
副 fù: set
套 tào: set
堆 duī: pile
坨 tuó: lump
群 qún: group
组 zǔ: group, set, lineage
碗 wǎn: bowl
罐 guàn: can, jug, bottle
壶 hú: pot
家 jiā: certain group of people
管 guǎn: tube
类 lèi: collection of objects
笔 bǐ: sum of money; 一笔钱
团 tuán: ball, spherical collection
股 gǔ: gaseous or liquid flow


Interesting question. I never think that 人口多(少) should be said as 人口大(小) in English way. As you said, 人口 seems meaning people more in Chinese sense. So we should say 人口多/人口少.

  Can I say "中国是世界上人口最大的国家"?

No, it's quite weird.

  俄罗斯是世界上国土最大的国家. I put 大 here. Is it correct? Would 多 be correct?

Yes, 大 is correct, 多 is not. 国土 usually refer to the area, i.e. the antional territory area, then we should say 大(小), not 多(少).

As a supplementary, 规模 (scope/scale) could be described with 大/小, so you can say "中国是世界上人口规模最大的国家".

Another supplementary, 人口 belongs to a kind of usage that combines a noun and quantifier to make a 集合名词 (collective noun). E.g. 车辆, 人口, 纸张, 船只, 布匹, 马匹.


How do I avoid repetitions when combining two sentences with the same subject and verb?

Use 同时 (at the same time) if you just want to state that the two are equally true.

  这首歌在「Website 1」上被称为「Name 1」，同时在「Website 2」上被称为「Name 2」。

Use 反而 (instead) or 而 (and/but) if you want to stress the opposition between the two.

  这首歌在「Website 1」上被称为「Name 1」，而在「Website 2」上被称为「Name 2」。

You can avoid further repetitions by simplifying the second verb or using a synonym. I think you can also omit the location verb after the second 在:

  而在 [ Website 1 ] （上）（它）叫 / 是 / 被称 [ Name 2 ]


Do many Taiwanese self identify as Mandarin speakers and if not, why?

Mandarin originally refers to the official language of Qing

By the end of the last dynasty in 19th century, the government KMT released some standard of 国语(national language), which is based on the 官话(mandarin) of the Qing dynasty.
When KMT went to Taiwan, they took the standard there. On the other side, PRC made the standard 普通话(common language), which is based on the KMT's 国语.

So when you talk about the mandarin of Taiwan, it is 国语, in mainland, it is 普通话, however, 国语 and 普通话 are almost same, they are both based on mandarin of Qing and the dialect around Beijing.

Before I visited the English sites, I don't know mandarin too, I remember when I got the explaining from dictionaries, I was like wtf, 清朝官话? So what we speak is called the official language of Qing, fk me.  I don't like the word, it always reminds me of the Manchu barbarians.

edit:

Some rumors say mandarin is from 满大人(man da ren), some other proofs show that it is used before the Qing dynasty.

This is written by Matteo Ricci in the Ming dynasty in Latin, which means high-ranking official used by Portuguese.


Why such a bizarre placement of 关于 in 请问关于解释《里》和《内》的区别?

请问解释关于《里》和《内》的区别 (would you please tell/answer me about explaining the difference between《里》and《内》)

This sentence is awkward because 请问 (would you please tell me) is a set phrase that should followed by a question instead of a demand/ request "解释关于" (explain about).

The better phrasing would be:

请解释关于 《里》和《内》的区别 (Please explain about the difference between 《里》and《内》)

关于(about) can be omitted

or

请问《里》和《内》有什麼区别? (would you please tell/ answer me what is the difference between 《里》and《内》?)

  请问关于解释《里》和《内》的区别 (would you please tell/ answer me about explaining the difference between《里》and《内》)

Even worse! Not only 请问 is followed by a demand/ request '解释' instead of a question, the order of 关于 and 解释 is also wrong. It is not "关于解释" (about explain) but  "解释关于" (explain about)

"请问关于解释《里》和《内》的区别" is just a badly constructed sentence.


Among the time when boys call each other 兄台, which should be around 唐宋年间, you can call girls 娘子/姑娘 in the same conversation context.

Another term similar is to call girls 小姐, which refers to young girls who usually have been properly educated and have a decent family. However, the corresponding word for 小姐 for males is 公子.


Is there a gender neutral pronoun in mandarin?

Nowadays, it's common for authors use the English letters "TA" to avoid indicating a gender.  For example:

  TA是什么性格的人[src]
  Literal translation: They are what personality person?
  Translation: What is their personality?

Many more examples are found in Baidu News by searching for "TA".

See also: What would a non-binary tā （他／她） look like?


Whom did this happen to? 发生 and friends in sentence

Is the second translation more accurate?

Yes, it is.

Does 发生 really take location complements? I only know of phrases like 发生了事故, where there is no location complement.

The entire phrase: '发生在...的' is an adjectival phrase for the noun '事故'. '在' is the location complement. '的' is the adjectival suffix. (not possessive particle in this context)
(发生 is a verb, so it does take location complement 在)

Is the following reasoning correct?
在我公司发生了事故 is ambiguous as it can mean either "an accident has happened at my company" or "an accident that has happened at my company"

It can only mean "an accident has happened at my company"; to mean "an accident that has happened at my company" you need to write "在我公司发生的事故" (了 is optional)

The ambiguity is there because of a lack of a classifier 一件 or possessive particle 的.

There is no ambiguity, without adjectival suffix 的, "在我公司发生了事故" can only mean "an accident has happened at my company"

Clarity can be achieved by adding them, like so
在我公司发生了一件事故 - an accident has happened at my company
一件在我公司发生了的事故 - an accident that has happened at my company

It is correct

的 in the second sentence is optional.

In the second sentence, '的' cannot be omitted: only '了' is optional

If (2) is true, can I move 在我公司 after 发生了 in (3) without changing the meaning?

Yes, you can. The following are both correct as long as the adjectival suffix 的 is present at the end to indicate '[在我公司][发生]'or '[发生][在我公司]' is an adjectival phrase
一件在我公司发生的事故 = 一件发生在我公司的事故


I think a little more context is necessary to answer this question.

  The theme of the Congress is: Remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind, hold high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics ... and work tirelessly to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

Ah. So it's not a literal flag we are talking about here, but rather a symbol of socialism.

If we take a look at definition 1.2 of the word "banner" given by OED, we will see that it means:

  Used in reference to support for a belief or principle.
  ‘the government is flying the free trade banner’

Using this definition, the term banner definitely seems appropriate in this context.

"But isn't there already a flag for socialism? Why complicate things by calling it a banner?

As others have pointed out, the phrase “高举 ～ 旗帜” can't be taken literally here. Xi is not asking everyone to physically wave a red flag around, but rather to carry high and proud a representation of one's beliefs. If we pull out the prescriptivist bible OED again, we can see that the english word "flag" is less commonly used to represent an ideology, but rather a physical landmass or position marker.

This isn't to say that the word "flag" doesn't make sense in this context. Sure, most people would understand the metaphor anyway. However, since the word "banner" has stronger connections to "symbol for one's beliefs/ideologies" than the word "flag", I believe that the word choice they have made is more suitable in a pragmatic, if not literal sense.


清水 clear water; 淡水 fresh water (contrast to salt water); 自来水 Tap water,  30 years ago most of the chinese people had to fetch water from nearby rivers, lakes or wells by using buckets (挑水). Tap water goes through pipes to homes, people think these water go to their home automatically (without 挑水), they created the word 自来水


Do Chinese speaking different languages use written Chinese to communicate?

However, all three use more or less the same writing system. So, I was wondering if Chinese who speak different languages use writing to communicate.

I'll start off by quoting a Wikipedia section on Vulgar Latin:

  By its nature, Vulgar Latin varied greatly by region and by time period, though several major divisions can be seen. Vulgar Latin dialects began to significantly diverge from Classical Latin by the third century during the classical period of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, throughout the sixth century, the most widely spoken dialects were still similar to and mostly mutually intelligible with Classical Latin. In terms of regional differences for the whole Latin period, "we can only glimpse a tiny amount of divergence with the actual written data. In texts of all kinds, literary, technical, and all others, the written Latin of the first five or six centuries A.D. looks as if it were territorially homogeneous, even in its 'vulgar' register. It is only in the later texts, of the seventh and eighth centuries, that we are able to see in the texts geographical differences that seem to be the precursors of similar differences in the subsequent Romance languages."

If you imagine an alternate universe where speakers of French, Spanish, Italian, etc. never wrote their own languages up until even now, but all wrote in Latin instead, then suddenly Italian culture became dominant in a politically unified Europe, subsequently basing a modern written standard on Italian, this provides a kind of analogy to China of today.

Yes, Chinese languages are traditionally written with the same writing system. However, the de-facto written standard was not in the different languages' vernacular; prior to the May Fourth Movement, written communication was done in Classical Chinese, while afterwards the national standard, called Standard Chinese, became based on a bunch of Mandarin languages.

To be clear, people who speak Hokkien, Cantonese, and Mandarin all write in the national standard as a Chinese lingua franca. Communication is not done by speakers of different languages writing in their own vernaculars such as Written Cantonese, Written Wu (Wikipedia site here), Written Gan (Wikipedia site here), etc, although in principle these vernaculars are highly readable with a minimal amount of training by non-speakers.


Does Chinese have an adage saying “It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure”?

Not sure if this is directly translated from the English or not but:

  撞死比撞伤强

And

  宁撞死毋撞伤

Or

  宁撞死 勿撞伤

I would go with the last one.

There's this Sina article from '06

交通肇事潜规则：宁撞死毋撞伤？
http://news.sina.com.cn/s/2006-12-24/123010849978s.shtml?from=wap

Talking all about it.

As for context, like the title of the article says above its really just a "unwritten" traffic "rule". I haven't seen it used in other contexts but I'm sure you could draw an illustration, especially just by tacking a -般 on the end.


Questions with multi-syllable verbs, e.g. 你认识不认识他？ vs. 你认不认识他？

Basically they have the same meaning, but the former is a little more formal. And in spoken language the latter is often used because the former twists the tongue a little bit.


What are the common ice-breaker sentences in Chinese?

Here are a few ice-breaker sentences:

最近怎么样？（Literally "recently how"? = How've you been recently?）

最近好吗？（Literally recently good?）

最近忙什么？(Literally recently busy what? = What have you been busy for?)


The sound represented by the ü sound in Chinese is the same as the German ü; this sound is a close front rounded vowel, the IPA is [y]; you can hear a sample in the link.

As you see in the table below in that wikipedia article, which lists the languages that possess this sound, we see both Mandarin (which uses green as the example) and German. So the sound is the same.

The best way to teach this is:

Pronounce an "ee" sound, in English, like for "feel".
Keep pronouncing the sound, but start rounding your lips as if you had to pronounce a "oo" sound, which is [u], a close back rounded vowel.
The final sound you should get is the one of a close front rounded vowel, also written as [y].

Basically, you have the same lips position for U and Ü, but a different tongue position, the one for the [i] sound.

Look at the image below. The tongue position is different in [i] (upper-left) and [u] (upper-right).

 (Source)


How to Interpret 認不真 in 須認真. 若認不真. 便都成了假的?

「認真」is a common two characters compound word. It means 'serious' (adj.)
Since it is an adjective, we can add the negative function word 「不」(not ) before it, and form an negative phrase  「不認真」(not serious)

However, 「認」on it's own can be the verb 'identify' or ' 'recognize' as in 「認人」(identify a person)，「認路」(recognize the way);  while 「真」on it's own can be the adjective 'true' or 'accurate' ; or the adverb 'truly' or 'accurately'

As a simple grammatical rule, an adverb can modify a verb.
Which mean 「認真」 can be treated as a [verb+ adverb] structure instead of a compound that we are familiar with.

In the case of 「認不真」，「不」being a negative function word that modifies the adverb 「真」make it clear that the term we are looking at, is in fact [verb+ 不 + adverb] structure (認+不+真).

If 「不」 is placed before 「認真」, that would make it an [不 + adjective] structure (不+認真).

「不認真」means 'not serious'
「認不真」means 'cannot identify accurately' or 'not identify accurately'

As I mentioned before, 「認真」is a very common 'word' , to avoid confusion, it is better use 「認不清」 instead of 「認不真」.

I believe if the phrase in question was 「認不真確」instead of the shortened 「認不真」, you would not be so confused.

Since the common word 「認真」is widely used, putting 認 and 真 in a [verb + adverb] structure would certainly cause confusion. It is not recommended.

  須認真.若認不真. 便都成了假的.

In this context 須認真 means " Need to identify accurately.

  " Need to identify accurately. If not identify accurately, then everything will become (be treated as) fake"

I would suggest phrasing it as 「須認(得)真(確), 若認不真(確),  便都成了假的」 to make it more clear.


How to say "giving someone the benefit of the doubt" in Chinese?

I think "寧縱勿枉" best fits the description.
It literally means not enforcing justice ("縱" as in "縱容") for fear of accusing someone wrongly ("枉" as in "冤枉"). The opposite phrase is "寧枉勿縱". Note that the sayer does not necessarily forgive the suspect here.

沒有實質證據證明銀包是小明偷的，寧縱勿枉，此事就算了吧。 (There's no direct evidence proving Ming stole the wallet, giving him the benefit of doubt, let's be done with this.)

I think "無心之失" is applicable for the second description.
It means one is not intended for the mistake made.

雖然他這樣做是不對，但我相信只是 無心之失，你不要責怪他吧。 (It's not right for him to have done that, but I beleive he doesn't mean it, don't blame him, okay?)

EDIT: added examples, sorry that the English translation may not be the best.
The OP also updated the question so I think the answer here is more appropriate.


Proper translations on manager titles on business cards

I will go over your list one by one. Please note I am talking about the mainland and not sure it is true for HK or Taiwan.

1) President • 总统

It is true only if this president is managing a country, otherwise don't call him/her 总统.
Depends on the type of organization, a president could be:

总统 if he/she is the top governor of a country
主席 if he/she is the leader of a club
董事长 if he/she is the chairman of a board
校长 if he/she is the leader of a school

So this one could be tricky and you really need to bring the context in.

2) FOUNDER • 创办人

This translation is fine, or you can say 创始人.

3) CEO • 主席

Most cases this will be translated to 总裁, but it can also be left as is and no translation required... It has been kind of a fashion to print CXO in the business card or title.

4) CMO • 营销总监

This is fine.


毁灭 is the general term for 'to destroy'

销毁 also means destroy, but it is more specific.

To 销毁 something, you have to have possession of it. If you delete the data in your computer, you can claim it is 销毁数据 (or 毁灭数据), but if you hack in someone else's computer and delete data there, you can only say you are 毁灭数据.
To 销毁 something, you have to have legitimate right to do it. Destroying the opium in China's standpoint was a legal act of 销毁違法商品 (destroy illegal goods); but in the British's eyes. it was an act of 非法毁灭私有財物 (illegal destruction of private property)
To 销毁 something, that something must have physical form. You cannot 销毁 a dream, an ideal or a reputation.
销毁 has to be a human's act. We can say a natural fire  毁灭了一万棵树 (destroyed ten thousand trees) , but not 销毁了一万棵树

You can 毁灭 something that you do not have possession of. The object doesn't need to have physical form, for example: ideal, dream or enemy, and the act need not to be legal; Of course you can also legal or legally destroy (毁灭) physical things like city or building

烧毁 is the verb 烧(to burn) plus its result complement 毁 (destroy), it means "burn and destroy" or "destroy with fire"


Do I use “扔掉” or “倒掉” to expressing getting rid of 死水？

死水 usually refers to the water size of a pond or lake. You probably want to use 积水 instead. Then you can say 清除积水, for example 清除房屋和院子里各处的积水.


Translation of 我想会吗? - I thought, is it possible?

B: 嗯。我想，会吗？他可能已经在暗中做安排了吧。

First, this is a transcription of colloquial dialog, which means the lines can be fragmented and is not entirely grammatical.

Second, I can see how it can be ambiguous and misleading due to the punctuation. Actually, 他可能已经在暗中做安排了吧 is also a part of the 'thinking'. It could have been clearer if it had been punctuated this way:

  B: 嗯。我想：“会吗？他可能已经在暗中做安排了吧。”

Which makes the meaning obvious:

  B: Yes. I was thinking, is it possible that some arrangements had been done by him already, in secret.


The absence of specifying when something happens in Chinese

In Chinese sometimes a sentense may lack a time, which is quite different from English, which has a specific tense. In this case the tense depends on the text and the language environment but not always means a same way.

For example, imagine that if you were buying a ticket and saw some people who hold tickets, "他们都拿着票" would mean progressive tense. If it is a narrative, it may means past tense.

As for "了"，"了" can be used in many tense.
See this Tense and use of 了


The Chinese of "Browse Teachers" : 访问老师？

I think "师资介绍" is better. As a Chinese native speaker, It's very intertesting for me to got this site. :D hahaha


《說文》：「此，止也。从止从匕。匕，相比次也。凡此之屬皆从此。」

甲金文從「止」從「人」，左右結構與上下結構無別。象人所止步之處，即此處之意，與「彼」相對。

陳初生以為「以腳趾與一側身人形會腳步到此停止之意。」何琳儀以為會以足蹋人之意，「跐」之初文。姑備一說。

此 is a compound ideogram comprising 止 and 人 (匕 is a crouching man). One always infers the combined meaning of the two simpler, juxtaposed pictograms.
Multi-function Chinese Character Database adopts the explanation of the scholar Chen Chusheng: With 止 being a pictogram for 'foot' at first and later a phonetic loan for 'to stop', the explanation for the meaning of 此 is believed to be that a man (人) arrives 'here' when he stops (phonetic loan 止) his pace (pictogram 止). 'This' and 'these' are derived meanings of 'here', which is understandably figurative.
Shuowen Jiezi however argues 'to stop' comes from the character 匕. Being one of the two 'rotated' men in 比, a man stops to compare (meaning of 比) himself with another. This is in accordance to Duan Yucai's annotation 相比次而止也.


How to ask "anybody/anyone/somebody/someone" questions in Chinese?

Basically you want '有人‘ or ’谁‘。

Does anybody know the answer?
有人知道答案吗？
谁知道答案吗？

Someone must know the answer！
肯定有人知道答案！

Does anybody/anyone in the dorm have a vacuum I could use?
我们宿舍有人可以借给我一台吸尘机吗？

"Can I borrow somebody's/someone's shoes?"
我能借一下别人的鞋子吗？
我能不能借一下谁的鞋子？

May I borrow someone's jacket?
我可以借别人的夹克吗？
我可否向别人借一下夹克？

Who can lend me a jacket?
谁能借我一件夹克衫？

Who can lend me a vacuum cleaner?
谁能借我一台吸尘器？有人可以借我一台吸尘器吗？

（Don't borrow other people's shoes, you might get a foot infection!)


In Mandarin Chinese, what is the correct pronunciation for three or more third tones in a row?

只有我想了解你  Zhíyóu wó xiǎng liáojié nǐ

我很好 wǒ hén hǎo

我也很好 wó yě hén hǎo

我也很想你 wó yě hén xiáng nǐ

我很想买水果 wǒ hén xiáng mǎi shuíguǒ

我也很想买水果 wó yě hén xiáng mǎi shuí guǒ

等你好久 déng nǐ háo jiǔ

九九九九 jiújiújiújiǔ


What is the difference between 投诉 and 抱怨?

投诉=complain (to a department)

抱怨=grumble (usually talking to a friend)

If you look at the character, 诉=suit, 怨=grudge


Haha, in China, at home, the woman is the absolute ruler, so try 老婆!

老板 is very commonly heard for boss.

现在我是老板！

To be polite, you may address someone as 师傅, which is a kind of boss

Every 单位 will have a 领导, leader, boss

'boss people around' 对某人呼来唤去


Are characters divided into meaning part and phonetic part, with no overlapping?

According to 六書 : six categories of Chinese Characters (象形,指事,形聲,會意,轉注,假借)

四、形聲 phonogram
a. [meaning + phonic] combination character (with original forms of both components intact)
b. 形聲 (Phonogram) express both meaning and phonic. Different from 會意 (associative compounds) which can only express meaning.

~

三、會意 (associative compounds)：
c. associative compounds including phonic component：
Example: '婢' = '女'(female)+ '卑'(humble); '卑' is also the phonic component

The character 婢 belong to one type of 會意字, which both components contribute meanings to the character, and one of the components is also the phonic component.
My conclusion is, phonic part in 形聲字 (Phonogram) may or may not contribute meaning. For example: 江(river) =(river + 工 phonic); 聞 (listen) = (ear on the door with 門 phonic)
If one of the two meaningful parts in  會意字 (associative compounds) does contribute phonic element to the character, then it is a type c 會意字='會意形聲字'(associative compounds including phonic component)


How is the quality of Google's automatic "translation" for single words?

Do not use google translate to translate a single word.  The translation can be adjusted by users of that service (and make some translation wrong intentionally).  And I have seen many examples of wrong (and funny) translation made using Google translate service on Chinese social media.

An example of bad translation can be "物极必反" to "Extremely polar" (link to google translate).


白字 http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/14500/
wrong character of phonetic equivalent

Examples of 白字詞句 (words or phrases contain wrong character of phonetic equivalent):

'白撞'(to trespass under a false pretext) --> 白狀 (狀 is a wrong character that sounds the same as 撞 in Cantonese; 白狀 literally means 'baseless account')

'脾氣' (temperament)--> '皮氣' (皮 is a wrong character that sounds the same as  脾;'皮氣' literally means 'skin and Chi' implies 'outside and inside')

漫長競賽 (long long competition) --> '萬場競賽' (countless competition) (萬場 and 漫長 sound similar in Cantonese)

'量少非君子, 無度不丈夫' -->  '量少非君子, 無毒不丈夫' (道 was misheard as 毒)

The phrase '無度不丈夫' (true man cannot be without magnanimity) from the original idiom was misheard as  '無毒不丈夫' (true man cannot be without venom) and the wrong one got spread so far and wide, it became a common phrase on its own. Nowadays, when someone is about to do evil thing, this phrase would be used for an excuse


Is there one complete list showing Traditional characters in Simplified?


The compound 不起 is not just limited to this particular construction. It's a bit like a suffix that succeeds a verb, meaning 'not within one's power' or 'can't afford to due to the possibility of dire consequences'.

Some examples of compounds that use 不起 include:

吃不起 (Can't afford to eat - either due to financial constraint or social constraint)
住不起 (Can't afford to live in - in a similar vein to the previous example)
受不起 (Dare not accept - probably in fear of its consequences)
伤不起 (Can't afford to suffer injury).

对 here means to face or to confront. So combining the two, you have 对不起, which literally means 'not having the capacity to face or confront'. The verb usage of 对不起 can also be explained in a similar fashion, which can be translated into 'to wrong' or 'to let down'. 对得起 would be a perfect antonym for the verb definition.

Reference: See definition 6 here.


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

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

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

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

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

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


名副其实 is similar to "live up to one's name" in English.
And below is the mapping character by character.
名：fame
副：matches
其：its
实：reality

Alternatively, you could say 名不符实 to say the exact the opposite.


I'm writing a self-introduction and need help with some translation

I would like to look around China.
我想到中国四处转转。

It would be fun to explore China.
探索中国肯定会很好玩。

I enjoy people-watching and am looking forward to learning more about Chinese culture.
我乐于观察人们做事，并且期待学到更多的中国文化。

I'm shy but I enjoy getting to know people and I want to make friends.
我害羞，但是我乐于与不同的人接触，而且我想要交到更多的朋友。

I'm half Chinese.
我有一半中国血统。

为什么你的父母不帮你写？他们当中应该有一个人会讲中文吧！


Zhuyin is commonly encountered in Taiwan and Taiwan-centric overseas communities.  Not sure about its prevalence in other overseas communities a la Singapore, but I've found zhuyin easier to use with vertical text Chinese as is printed commonly in Taiwan and elsewhere, and suspect Zhuyin/bopomofo/bpmf would be more popular in those regions due to the better compatibility with vertical text.  If you want to use the many excellent classical chinese training materials printed in Taiwan you'll need to be able to read bpmf.

I also suspect you'd find that typing bpmf is slightly faster than Pinyin because it uses single symbols for sounds like "eng" that require multiple keystrokes in the Pinyin case. And I personally find Zhuyin aesthetically less disruptive ;)


Six dots.

It is called 刪節號 in Taiwan, and 省略号 in China. Both use 6 dots.


bkrs： 顺顺溜溜 smoothly and obediently 顺利不受阻挠。
红楼梦．第三十六回：「先时在外头关，那个月不打饥荒，何曾顺顺溜溜的得过一遭儿。」no frequency rank, 1 usage example at https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/example?query=%E9%A1%BA%E9%A1%BA%E6%BA%9C%E6%BA%9C

bkrs: 顺顺当当#35152 by a happy chance; win in a canter; smoothly; easily，smooth and easy (of tasks/etc.)顺顺当当过日子 many more example phrases at bkrs, 10 usage examples at https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/example?query=%E9%A1%BA%E9%A1%BA%E5%BD%93%E5%BD%93 users can draw their own conclusions which is the more common more modern term


List of Chinese characters not used in Mandarin/putonghua

The only online dictionary database I can find is 《新华字典》. It is a Microsoft Access database containing 20823 characters. You can run a query on the database and search for "方言" in the "xiangjie"(详解) column. There are shortcomings however, 20823 characters may not be comprehensive enough, and it usually doesn't tell you which dialect the character is used in.

You can download the dictionary database file here.

For Cantonese, there is a convenient list circulating around called 粤语字打法大全. Wikibooks also has a character list but there is no definition of meanings. You can find more if you search 粤语字 online.


香江

ABC Canto:

  PLACE WORD
  another name for Hong Kong; refers to especially to Victoria Harbor which resembles a river separating Hong Kong Island from the Kowloon Peninsula

  是次畫展於香江舉辦
  si6 ci3 waa2 zin2 jyu1 hoeng1 gong1 geoi2 baan6
  This time the exhibition of paintings is held in Hong Kong

  Notes: elegant

  See also 本港 bun2 gong2 香港地 hoeng1 gong2 dei2 太平山下 taai3 ping4 saan1 haa6 幻彩詠香江 waan6 coi2 wing6 hoeng1 gong1

Some additions from the above notes:

本港

  NOUN
  another name for Hong Kong

  呢隻藥喺本港冇註冊,間舖頭唔應該賣俾人
  ni1 zek3 joek6 hai2 bun2 gong2 mou5 zyu3 caak3, gaan1 pou3 tau2 m4 jing1 goi1 maai6 bei2 jan4
  This medicine isn't registered in Hong Kong, so the shop shouldn't sell it to people

  本港冇自己嘅空軍,根本冇呢方面嘅人材,結果係航空公司需要請外籍機師
  bun2 gong2 mou5 zi6 gei2 ge3 hung1 gwan1, gan1 bun2 mou5 ni1 fong1 min6 ge3 jan4 coi4, git3 gwo2 hai6 hong4 hung1 gung1 si1 seoi1 jiu3 ceng2 ngoi6 zik6 gei1 si1
  Hong Kong doesn't have its own air force, and basically has no talented people in this area, the result is that airline companies need to hire foreign pilots

  Notes: literally this harbor; figurative

太平山下

  PLACE WORD
  another name for Hong Kong

  NOTES: literally below Victoria Peak which is located on Hong Kong island


Translating 2 subtitles (TV drama 03:31 and 03:39)

拿手，
means good at， skillful.

literally means i am very familiar with doing so (just like using my hand).

不对，你还有一手。
You are better than that.

Alternative, 江东 is expecting 江南 think outside the box. 江南 didn't realize that and show confusing expression.


Are there any phonetic pangrams for Mandarin and other Chinese languages?

but chinese languages would presumably have much more

well, the cantonese has 1800+ syllables. the short answer to your question is: no.

the long answer:

cantonese has 19 initial, 56 final and 9 tone. though 19 * 56 * 9 = 9576, fortunately, there’re limited combinations of initial, final and tone. nowadays, only 1800+ syllables exist, for 8000 - 50,000 chinese characters.

an example: the initial “s” combined with the final “e”, it become “se”, this “sound” has 6 tones. that, each syllable represent several characters:

se1 | 些奓奢畬賒

se2 | 寫捨瀉灺舍

se3 | 赦卌卸厙庫涻瀉灺猞舍騇

se4 | 蛇佘畬輋闍

se5 | 社舍

se6 | 射社麝

cantonese syllable, sound: e

tone is very important in cantonese, without the proper tone, one cannot get the correct character from hearing.

a text with 1800+ characters is extremely long, for the purpose of practising pronunciation, that i don’t think such thing would exist.


Why is 英语和汉语我都会说 correct and 我会说都英语和汉语 incorrect?

Yes, without 都, you can say "我会说英语和汉语" The reason is unlike the English word "both" which is placed before the objects,  "都" must be placed after the objects

I can speak [English and Chinese]
I can speak [both] [English and Chinese]
我会说[英语和汉语]
[英语和汉语]我[都]会说
我[英语和汉语][都]会说

Notice in #4 and #5 the object [英语和汉语] is placed before 都

"我会[都]说 [英语和汉语]" and "我会说[都][英语和汉语]" violated this rule.

Note:

"都" in "我都会说英语和汉语" (I too, can speak English and Chinese) means "also" or "too". It is different usage of "都"


Can someone translate whats on this pendant? (Character identified: 醒)

MDBG

  醒
  xǐng
  to wake up / to be awake / to become aware / to sober up / to come to

How to find your answer:

You could use a site like: mdbg (click the handwriting button next to "Go") or qhanzi to write in your character and then copy and paste into a dictionary.


How to estimate your score for an HSK practice exam?

Brief Answer
To pass any level of the new HSK, you have to beat 74.75% of the total.
That is to say, for this case

I had 11/20 correct answers in the listening part and 19/20 in the reading part.

if 74.75% of the total had done worse than that (i.e. as the weights of listening and reading are 1:1, such many people had correctly answered less than 30 questions), you will pass the exam.
For "Is there at least some sort of heuristic, like: if you answer X percent correctly, you'll probably pass?", the answer is maybe. There may be some historical data that you can refer to. They serve as important references, but you cannot 100% trust them, if the HSK exam you take is specially more difficult or easier than former ones.
Why 74.75%?
From the official website of the HSK, we know
+------------------+--------------------+---------+
| HSK Score(Total) | HSK Score(Section) | Percent |
+------------------+--------------------+---------+
|              400 |                100 |      99 |
|              277 |                 69 |      90 |
|              250 |                 63 |      80 |
|              231 |                 58 |      70 |
|              215 |                 54 |      60 |
|              200 |                 50 |      50 |
|              185 |                 46 |      40 |
|              169 |                 42 |      30 |
|              150 |                 37 |      20 |
|              123 |                 31 |      10 |
+------------------+--------------------+---------+

And from its description:

A section score of HSK (Elementary-Intermediate) is a scale score with 50 as the score mean and 15 as the standard deviation, while the total score is a scale score with 200 as the score mean and 60 the standard deviation ... The right column indicates the percentage occupied by those whose scores are lower than the corresponding scores in the standard HSK reference group.

It is easy to verify via the table that a section score meets the normal distribution (with with 50 as the score mean and 15 as the standard deviation), so is the total score (with 200 as the score mean and 60 the standard deviation).
Besides, this page introduces a calculation method. In brief, it is

HSK=50+15×Z

Where Z can be considered as a Gaussian variate with 0 as the mean and 1 as the standard deviation, and then the HSK for a section is a N(50, 15^2) Gaussian variate. By observation, we can find that, there're some regular patterns for the setting of the total score. If an exam has 4 section, the setting for total score is a N(200, 60^2) variate. Consider these passing scores

HSK level 1-2: listening (100), reading (100). Total (200). Passing: total score >= 120.
HSK level 3-6: listening (100), reading (100), writing (100). Total (300). Passing: total score >= 180.

We can conclude that at level 1-2, the total score is a N(100,30^2) variate, and at level 3-6, N(150, 45^2). Thus we can see that in the standard Gaussian cumulative distribution function:

Φ[ (120-100)/30 ] = 0.7475
Φ[ (180-150)/45 ] = 0.7475

PS: it seems in the old HSK, the weights of listening, grammar, reading, and comprehensive sections are with this ratio 1:0.6:1:0.8. However if we try the weighting formula for the old HSK total score

HSK = [ (Z1+0.6×Z2+Z3+0.8×Z4) / 3.4 ] ×60 +200

where Z1,Z2,Z3,Z4 i.i.d. ~ N(50,15^2), the final HSK will be a N(200, 30.566^2) variate, which is a contradiction to another definition N(200, 60^2). Anyway, as the math model hasn't been rigorously stated, my answer considers N(200, 60^2) as the correct one because its CDF value examples are well listed.


人家 has many different meanings. Regarding the meaning in question,

The literal meaning is "that person" or "someone", indirectly referring to oneself like "guess who" in English. This might be the reason you find something passive about it.
It's used by young girls/ladies to address themselves in a cute, innocent or flirtatious tone.
It is informal and only used in colloquial language.
It's inappropriate for a male to use it in any occasion, even not for little boys, otherwise it's considered extremely feminine in a bad way.
Even among young girls/ladies, not everyone is comfortable with using them. Some only use it in front of their lovers; some find this usage skittish (not in a bad way but uncomfortable to say it herself) and almost never use it.
There is also regional difference. In Southern China it's more common to see usage between normal friends. In Northern China it's mainly within family (like daughter to parents) or between lovers.
In #3 in your question, the purpose is not to avoid direct conflict, but to play innocent/show weakness in order to gain advantage (in this case, excuse).


Can someone please help me translate this chop/seal/stamp?

the character is 莉 (u+8389), sound file; it’s the transliteration of “lynne”.
“莉” originally means grass (艸); later used for white jasmine as in “茉莉”.
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=莉
imo, it’s quite good, for female name


What semantic notions underlie "righteousness, uprightness" (義) with "appearance; apparatus" (儀)?

CUHK does give you an answer in the entry of 義 .
儀 is a derivative character of 義. When there are too many meanings derived for a character, people would like to make a new character by putting an indicator for specific meaning. Here they put 人 to 義 and it is 儀.
Actually, “righteousness, uprightness” of 義 is a derivative meaning. The original meaning of “appearance” is transferred to 儀. In the very ancient only 義 exists.
義 is composed of 我 and 羊. 我 is a kind of weapon and make the symbol of an army. Character adding 羊 is an indicator of good thing, such as 祥, 善 and 美. 義, the combination of 羊 and 我, demonstrates the meaning of the good appearance of an army and it is well-disciplined. It gives the meaning of 威儀. (For definition 1)
With good appearance of an army, ceremony and etiquette comes. (For definition 2) With ceremony and etiquette, they make use of some instruments as the symbol of power and mightiness. (For definition 4) It is the symbol of the common ruler of tribe rulers. The common ruler has the right to punish those tribes that do something bad.
From this point they associates it with the righteousness of army. The meaning of righteousness and uprightness in 義 hence derived.
The school of Confucius and Mencius speaks a lot about 仁 and 義. 仁 is soft and on the peaceful side, and it is benevolence. On the contrary 義 is the hard way and on the forceful side. 義 permits of the use of force to correct the injustice.
Giving others presents and gifts is part of ceremony and etiquette eventually. (For definition 3)


Actually there are three of these words: 赤道, 黄道, 白道, where '赤' means 'red', '黄' means 'yellow', and '白' means 'white'.

赤道 is the equator. 黄道 is the sun's track in the sky. 白道 is the moon's track in the sky. As for why they are named so - they are named using "the five colors corresponding to five directions", according to 《汉书·天文志》. If you know Chinese, you can refer to this question on 知乎: https://www.zhihu.com/question/21376627


"A pair of mandarin oranges" as a homophone of "the gold"

Actually 金 and 柑 are both pronounced gam1 in Cantonese, according to Rita Mei-Wah Choy’s ‘Read and Write Chinese’.

While it may be better to refer to Shantou as Chaozhou (潮州), I think CA55CE37 is onto something here.  Indeed, in chaozhouhua 大橘/桔 (orange) and 大吉 (great luck) are apparently near homophones.  A Thai source I have mentions this as well and asserts that oranges are given out at weddings for this reason.  In Thailand, people from the Chaozhou region are dominant in the Chinese community, as you probably know.  And oranges are given for the New Year holiday too (we live in Bangkok and received two oranges from our Thai-Chinese neighbors just yesterday, as it happens.)  It may be simply that two is an even number and thus auspicious.

So, there are various words for orange/tangerine (there is also 橙) and various rationalizations for giving people fruit during holidays, depending on local dialect and local tradition.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of more wordplay of this nature, for instance the link between pomelos and ‘to have’.


蕴 means accumulate.
蕴 is merely a phonetic-semantic character comprising plants 艸 and 缊 which provides sound. 缊 is an obsolete character that means "tangled strings". 缊 itself is silk and sound component  meaning kindness (giving a bowl 皿 of food to a prisoner 囚). None of these characters contribute any meaning to the definition of 蕴.
If you want a sort of mnemonic, I'd use 蕰 instead. 蕰 is one of a variant forms for 蕴. Mnemonics are more difficult to think of if the sound component 缊 isn't a common character. But with 温 (warm) being a more common character, you can think of it as gathering/accumulating vegetables 艸 to keep them warm before eating. Just remember that the standard form is 蕴 and not 蕰.
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E8%95%B4


Translation of "you either speak too quickly or too slowly." without repeating 说

Is there another conjunction that can be used instead of或者

[不是(A)就是(B)] = [If not (A) would then (B)] = [Either (A) or (B)]

"不是(A: 說得太快),就是(B: 說得太慢)"

"你不是說得太快, 就是說得太慢"  = "you either speaking too fast or speaking too slow"

"你不是說得太快, 就是太慢" = "you either speaking too fast or too slow"
(omit the repeating verb)

~

[有時(A),有時(B)] = [sometimes (A), sometimes (B)]

"有時(A:說得太快), 有時 (B:說得太慢)

"你有時說得太快, 有時說得太慢" = "you sometimes speaking too fast, something speaking too slow"

The final particle 了 is optional


Can I use a verb+的 construction to imply an item/noun?

I think most of these verb+的 noun are all following a law that the verb must be a transitive verb.

吃的 喝的
means something can be eaten or drunk

However for intransitive verbs, they are not able to construct verb+的 nouns, for the reason that there are no passive structures.

洗澡的 is a really strange usage. Though it can be used as a transitive verb, the passive structures for bathe is not common to used in daily life.

Besides, verb+的 is a very informal usage that they are mostly only used in oral Chinese. For more formal ways, there are some other words that can be used, like 食物 饮品 for food and drinks.


Character 瞓: where did the pronunciations come from?

How was it pronounced in older times (i.e. Middle Chinese)?

I haven't found a record of 瞓 in classical Chinese, but since 瞓 and 训 are both read as fan in Cantonese, I'll take 训 instead. It is read qhuns in reconstructed Old Chinese that is before the 1st century B.C.  In Middle Chinese it is pronounced as hyonh.

  How did the pronunciations come into being?

If you mean 瞓, it is obvious that it's created after 训 as a phono-semantic character or 形声字. the x in Mandarin xun comes from qh, then to hy, then to x. The f in Cantonese fan might have come into being along the qh -> hy -> h -> f route.

  Which is the correct Mandarin sound?

瞓 isn't a Mandarin word. The dictionaries say it's fèn and it comes from Hokkien or Cantonese. fèn is an approximation of the sound in the dialects.

  If there are more, how did they come into being? Were there semantic loans at any point?

If you mean more of "dialectic words" that don't exist in Mandarin such as 瞓, there are quite a few. They exist because there are no counterparts in Mandarin or rather classical Chinese, so people have to make new characters for these words. I don't think semantic loan happened here, but it does involve borrowing existing characters to make new ones.

  Could xùn be a misspelling of kùn?

It's not misspelling. See answers to question #1 and #2. k to x shift is possible. Similar is the case in western languages where the hard c (read k) shifts to a soft c which sounds similar to the Chinese x.

  Could mén, mèn be distortions of fèn?

Not impossible: m -> w -> v -> f, For example, in Chinese we have 没(m) 无(w) 否(f) all mean no. But regarding to your question, we need to know who uses the sound men and when it is used. In most online Chinese dictionaries 瞓 is pronounced as fèn, I didn't found any references to men.


What are the characters in this seal? (Characters identified: 拏雲心事人不知)

the characters are “拏雲心事人不知”, read from top to bottom, right to left.
the “script” is slightly distorted from standard
“拏” (to grasp, to reach) + “雲” (cloud) is a metaphor of “shoot for the moon” / “have lofty aspirations” (比喻志向遠大)
http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000056063
so, 拏雲心事人不知 would be:
the lofty aspirations (拏雲) in my heart (心事), nobody know (人不知)
it’s from the poem “去歲君逺㳺送仲梁出山” by 元好問, of 金 dynasty

去歲君遠㳺今年客它州青天萬古一明月只與行人生暮愁問君㳺何許情多地遐兮偏處處金鞭㫁折騏驥死萬里長鴻思一舉憶識子梁王臺清風入座無纎埃華嶽峯尖見秋凖金眸玉瓜不凡材西園日晴花滿烟五雲樓閣三山巔玉樹瑶林照春色青錢白璧買芳年・三年一夣南陽道・汴水迢迢入秋草・拏雲心事人不知 ・千首新詩怨枯槁・破屋仰見星踈衾風露清匣中有長劒爲君鳴不平泥途乆辱思一濯去去舉足皆清冷鄧州大師材望雄愛客不减竒章公軍中宴酣笳皷競銀燭吐熖如長虹幕中多士君又徃談咲巳覺南夷空東州春迴十月後梅華分香入春酒平生得意欽與京青眼高歌望君乆浙江南下青沄沄石門細路蒼烟屯五松平頭白日静千山萬山如亂雲菊源不逐時事改芝嶺自與啇顔鄰他日想思一廻首漁舟時問武陵人

or, derived from the poem “致酒行” by 李賀 of 唐 dynasty

零落棲遲一杯酒・主人奉觴客長夀・主父西逰困不歸・家人折斷門前栁・吾聞馬周昔作新豐客・天荒地老無人識・空將牋上兩行書・直犯龍顔請恩澤・我有迷魂招不得・雄雞一聲天下白・少年心事當拏雲・誰念幽寒坐嗚呃


How to state fractions with units of measurement? (e.g. 0.75 lb, 1.5 lbs, 1.75 lbs, etc.)

在中文里他们正确的读法是下面这样：

3/4 lb = 四分之三磅
1.5 lbs = 一点五磅
1.75 lbs = 一点七五磅


How do Chinese people say it when they are proud of someone?

The simplest sentence would be something like:
我为[insert person]骄傲。
So in your case：我为爸爸骄傲。
Slightly more sophisticated:
我为你感到自豪。
@Ha Hae's 我以你为荣 would also work but would translate to something like “You are in my place of honour."


What does this Cantonese sentence "冧哥覆咗你未?" mean in English?

冧哥 (the subject) roughly means "Mr. Sweet talk" (冧 has the meaning of "sweet talk" or "coax"; adding 哥 to the end of a noun is a common way to nickname someone. )

覆咗 = replied (覆 is short for 答覆; 咗 is a word particle that indicates the verb is completed, It functions the same as 了 in Mandarin)

你 = you (the object)

未 = has not/ not yet

"冧哥覆咗你未?" = "Mr. Sweet talk replied you? (or he) has not?" = "Has Mr. Sweet talk replied you yet?"


What are the connotations of the word 拳拳?

When I first saw it, I thought it meant fist fist. By the way, I think the same word appearing twice in name usually is only appropriate in girls' names; it makes the name cute. If you are a guy, you probably don't want that.

But there is a 成语（4 word idiom with well known meanings) that says 拳拳之心 (heart of 拳拳) which is an adjective that means forever remembering in heart.


Whats the difference between the usage of 个, 只, 张, and 条

Roughly speaking, the "role" of the quantifiers such as "個" or "張" in Chinese resembles that of the prepositions in English. Therefore, like learning prepositions in English requires one to naturalize oneself to all the variants, to properly manipulating Chinese quantifiers requires no more than developing a "feeling", possibly by listening and speaking with careful observation.

In general, "個" can be regarded as a generic quantifier, which means that you need not worry about that saying "個" will lead to any confusion. Saying "個" would just sound unnatural to a native ear. Thus, if you are unsure of which quantifier is a correct one, then you may just happily use "個".

We use "隻" in a context such as "一隻牛 (a cow)" or "一隻狗 (a dog)". And yes, "隻" is usually followed by the name of a certain sort of animals.

We use "張" in a context such as "一張紙 (a piece of paper)" or "一張餅 (a pancake)". This quantifier is for most of the time followed by the name of a thin object.

We use "條" in a context such as "一條定理 (a theorem)" or "一條蟲 (a worm)". It is usually reserved for describing an object of a thin, long form.


Chinese expression for "go out early and return early"

早去早回 means exactly what you want as "go out early and return early" or "the sooner you leave, the sooner you can come back".
早出晚归 means "go out early and return late" which is always used to describe a person work hard and busy.


What is the difference between 原则 and 原理？

原则 is principle of personal conduct

Example:

做人要有(原则) = A man has to have (principle)

工作至上是我的(原则) = My (principle) is works always come first

  原理 is principle of physics

Example:

利用槓桿(原理) = Using the (principle) of leverage

利用虹吸(原理) = Using the (principle) of siphon

"I know the 原理 of something" means I know the reason why something works
"I know someone's 原则" means I know what someone would or would not do base on his principle (personal believe and conviction)

The 原则 (principle) of insurance companies is "to try their hardest to avoid paying their customers" (that's what they do as an unwritten rule)


包餃子 just means to make (wrap) dumplings - it is not a three character word. Consider the similar phrase

包傷口
To dress wounds (wrap wounds in bandages)

To say to stuff, you can use the verb 塡 (to fill).

把餡料塡進火鷄裏
Put the stuffing in the turkey


眷
(1) family dependent
(2) care for, have tender feeling for, take interest in

~

顧
(2) [v] look after; attend to

~

眷顧
(divine) protection and care; to take care of

Both 眷顧 and 照顾 mean "to take care of/ to look after". But 眷 carries the meaning of 'family dependent' therefore 眷顧 also carries the meaning of " to take care of someone like family dependent" or " to protect and care for someone like family dependent"

You can 照顾 a garden, but you cannot 眷顧 it.

When you say you 照顾家人, that means you look after your family. ( with or without emotional attachment)

When you say you 眷顾家人, that means you love, protect and look after your family dependent.(with emotional attachment)

神的眷顾 = God's protection and care (All man are God's children)


You are right, it means 'choose', and the difference of pronunciation, (as a Taiwanese I think it) is due to the song. (The elongation of that note.)

So both suán-ti̍k or sng-tia are fine.


What is the difference between 缩减 and 削减？

缩 = shrink; 缩减 = shrink / reduce
削 = cut; 削减 = cut / reduce

缩减預算 you can shrink the a budget to reduce it's size. (budget as a whole shrinks )
削减預算 you can cut the budget to reduce it's size (sum of money or items in the budget being cut away)

~

缩减開支 you can shrink expenditures to reduce it's amount (expenditures as a whole shrinks )
削减開支 you can cut the expenditures to reduce it's amount. (sum of money or items in the expenditures be cut away)

~

削减僱員 you can cut employees to reduce your company size. (individual employees being cut away)
缩减僱員 you cannot shrink employees  ;  you can only 缩减僱員人數 (shrink the number of employees)


Is it permissible to use 个 in any nouns as a measure word?

I would say somehow it's true in informal circumstances.

But I don't quite agree with the definition of 个化 above in which 个 as a classifier is going with nouns. When you say 一个车 or 一个房子 alone, it definitely sounds odd and ignorant.

My take to this, instead, is 个 goes with a verb, being the form of "verb+个". Then it becomes the casual way to express the action of verbs.
For example, 我去提个车， 我去打个水， 我去玩个电脑, 我去乘个车，我打个游戏， 我推个车， 我骑个马 ....... Those sentences sound definitely natural to a native ear. If you say 我去提一辆车，我去打一盆水......, it sounds more formal than the sentences above.

Almost everything can express like that. Again, the point is that it has to go with a verb, instead standing alone. 一个车，一个水，一个电脑，一个马，those terms alone sounds ignorant. 一个游戏 sounds ok because 个/款 are right classifiers for it.

I suggest you carefully use this rule in informal situations before you get the hang of it.


What is the morphology or etymology of the word 列车?

It's not a classifier here. From dictionary:

列车 lièchē
(1) [train]∶众多连续的车辆。一般指火车,尤指由牵引机车和运货或载客的车厢组成的连挂成列的火车

So you can see, 列 is short for 成列的 (lined up in a row), therefore it's put before 车 as an adj.


Does Chinese have a phrase equivalent to "For all I know"?

I can only give some possible translations based on your explanation of "For all I know":

  For all I know, he might have gone abroad.

  他说不准出国了呢。

  For all I know, she doesn't even work there anymore.

  她没准已经不在哪工作了呢。

  For all I know, the test hasn't even been written yet.

  测试题说不准还没出呢。

We would use "说不准" "没准" and things like that to express the uncertainty. I can't think of one phrase that would have the same meaning of "For all I know" as your explained.


I am a Chinese.

新 means new and 生 means unfamiliar.

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

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

Hope this helps.


Why do some overseas Chinese restaurants translate broccoli as "芥蘭"?

Apparently they categorise 芥蘭 and 西蘭花 as the same species… of different cultivar groups… although they do not at all taste in any way similar. For Chinese 芥蘭 and 西蘭花 are two completely different vegetables.

西蘭花 is broccoli, and I think it is okay to call 芥蘭 kailan.


Is 目 suitable for daily conversations, or should I use 眼睛 (and what about 口 and 嘴巴)?

In classical Chinese, most of the words only have one character, for example, "目", "口", "道" (道路, road), "卒" (士兵, soldier)...

One of the big differences between classical Chinese and modern Chinese is that in modern Chinese, most of the one-character words are replaced by words with lots of characters (usually 2).

So both "目" and "口" are not used in spoken language, and only in some special circumstances (explained below), they are used in written language. Attention: although "目" and "口" are not commonly used individually, they appear a lot in the words, for example, "口才", "目光", "港口", "目录"...

  目 is better as radical to explain other complex characters but 眼睛 is something you can talk with real Chinese person about

This means in daily conversation, you should use 眼睛 instead of 目, but the knowledge "目 means eyes" can help you to learn other complex things, for example, when you see "睁", or "盯", you should know they are related to eye. "睁" means open (eyes), and "盯" means stare.

Another thing: if you look at "睁" or "盯", you will find there is a typical way to construct the Chinese characters. Usually one part of the character shows its meaning, and the other part shows its (potential) pronunciation.
In "睁", the left part shows it is related to eyes, and the right part shows its pronunciation is zhēng.
In "盯", the left part shows it is related to eyes, and the right part shows its pronunciation is dīng.

  So both "目" and "口" are not used in spoken language, and only in some special circumstances, they are used in written language.

The situations to use "目" and "口" individually are extremely rare. Not only the beginners, even the common Chinese people don't use them in this way.

Usually when some writers want to make their works more comprehensive and variable, they will use "目" or "口". For example, 这时候她会有种奇怪的感觉,好像自己身上长满了嘴,张大着口,嗷嗷叫着要人喂. (Since 嘴 and 口 mean the same thing, the author uses both of them to avoid repetition.)

And also since "目" and "口" are words in classical Chinese, using these words can make the articles look more "classical".


How is "按揭" a Cantonese loanword of Mortgage from English?

Wiktionary [1] claims that among the explanations, none claims that 按 is a transcription for mort-. Seemingly there is a version that the original first character was 摸 /mo2/, which makes more sense, and it was replaced by 按 by meaning.

/mo2kit3/ is a MUCH better match than /on3kit3/, and with what other final could English [gɪdʒ] be approximated, if Cantonese allows only -p, -t, -k outside of nasals? [t̚] and [dʒ] are both approximately dental as opposed to labial or velar, and, as any Korean would confirm, when finally unreleased [tɕ~dʑ] defaults to [t̚], so transcription appears flawless. As soon as English card goes to /kaat1/ [2], the behaviour of [dʒ]should not be surprising.

References:

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%8C%89%E6%8F%AD

[2] https://wenlin.co/wow/Special:Wenlin/QQs%3Fs%3Dkaat1


I wasn't too happy with the English, so I changed it a little, hope you don't mind.
Which New Year are you talking about, the Chinese New Year or the Western New Year?
My friend invited me to spend New Year's Eve with her/him in Copenhagen.
我朋友邀请我和她/他一起在哥本哈根度过除夕/元旦前夜。
I'm going by train, so I should be there at 5 pm, all being well.
我要乘火车去，一切顺利的话, 我会下午5点到了。


What is the Chinese way to say "We had a lot of fun"?

Past tenths aren't as explicitly stated a lot of times in Chinese as they are in English.

For instance, your question We had a lot of fun could easily be translated as:

我们今天晚上玩得很开心

we + tonight + play + very + happy

and (assuming that you're not going to parties during the daytime) that would be a perfectly idiomatic, grammatical sentence.

Here 玩得很开心 would be the equivalent of the English had a lot of fun.

Note: 玩 here would sound a lot better er-ized: that is to say 玩儿 and not just 玩.


Can I share my thoughts after the OP has chosen the best answer?

I disagree with everyone here: 整块的时间 is correct, and I hear people say it all the time.

If you Google the phrase "整块时间" (commonly used without 的), you see a lot of test prep  websites suggesting that students use an entire block/period studying for one subject as opposed to spending ten minutes on history when you wait for the bus and another ten before they go to bed (i.e. 用整块时间学习). The opposite is 零碎时间, which means "fragments of time" (five minutes today, five minutes tomorrow).

For example,

  你今天得把文章写完！You have to finish your article today!

  根本不可能！我五分钟之后要开会，会结束之后十分钟又要参加开幕式！It's impossible! I have a meeting in five minutes and only a ten-minute break before the opening ceremony starts! (Here, if you combine the speaker's five- and ten-minute breaks, he could probably finish the article. But unfortunately he does not have 整块的时间 - only 零碎的时间.)

Similarly, 爬山 takes up 整块的时间 (can't be done during those five-minute breaks) because it's exhausting, not to mention the traffic and the mountain's location. The book is trying to illustrate that "一年中能悠闲地爬那么一两回，已经算是十分的心满意足了", as 爬山 usually takes a day or two.

P.S. Is there an English equivalent of 整块的时间? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

EDIT: Aelephant suggests "a relatively long period of uninterrupted time" - perfect!


娘炮 - how do you pronounce this word/phrase?

Oh, get you a Taiwanese news (at 0:18 by the anchor, 0:58 by a student and 1:24, 1:56 by himself) about that, where it's pronounced as "niáng pào". I can tell that we use this word in mainland China too, here is the proof.

It refers to a sissy (a boy that other boys dislike because he prefers doing things that girls enjoy).


What is "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" known as in Cantonese?

Bruce Lee was trying to create an original 'school' of martial art style of his own.

  What do Cantonese-speakers refer to it as?

We consider the 道 in 截拳道 (Jeet Kune Do) is the same ones in 跆拳道 (Tae Kwon Do) and 柔道(Judo).

道 in 截拳道 actually represents 'school of martial art style'. It has very little real connection with the other 道 (Tao /the way) - a school of Chinese philosophical thinking

截拳 - intercept fist

'fist' represents 'strikes/ movements'  in martial art

道 - School of martial art style
之道 - philosophy of

"截拳道之道" [zit6 kyun4 dou6 zi1 dou6] literally means "The way (philosophy) of movements interception style martial art"

Actually the concept of 截拳(intercept movements) was not an original concept Bruce Lee invented. It was very much borrowed from the 詠春拳 (Wing Chun style martial art) he had studied under the famous Wing Chun grandmaster 葉問 Yip Man in his youth.


Is it possible to write "I'm hungry and tired" (我饿了，我也累了) with a single change-of-state 了?

The only thing wrong with "我饿了，我也累了。" is the second 我 is redundant.

"我饿了，也累了。" is perfectly grammatical

You can also use  the [又 X 又 Y + 了] structure

Example: 我已經又累又饿了 (I am hungry and tired already)


What does "你舒服吗" mean in a relationship context?

歪了歪了…… I can see why 你舒服吗 will be easily interpreted as sexually comfortable.

Because without any context, we will not use 舒服 to describe relaxation of mind. And extremely structurally simple sentences are often uttered in sexual intercourse...(Think about it.)

Avoiding using words that have ambiguous meanings like 舒服, however, is an option.

The best choice is applying both: longer, specific sentence & proper words.

E.g.

我快要到了（I am about to arrive.）√

要来了（I'm coming...）x

你感到放松吗（Are you feeling relaxed?）√

你舒服吗？（emmm...）x

这椅子坐起来很安适呀（The armchair feels very comfortable to sit on）√

好舒服呀（Ah~Good~Yeah~）x


找 in this context means to contact/approach/seek/come to see. The whole sentence is very idiomatic and is a good pattern to remember. Roughly, we are asking Is there a particular reason/cause for coming to see me?, or Are you looking for me, because you have something to discuss?

You could also ask, 你来看我有事吗？ (Literally: "You come to see me because of some issue?")

Or even, 你给我打电话有什么事？ (Literally, What is the (particular) cause for calling me?)

You can use this pattern to express the goal/reason [e.g. to discuss something] of some action [e.g. to seek someone]. In Chinese, you don't need to express everything explicitely, e.g. a causative relation between to actions, as above, from the context this will be clear.


Can someone verify the meaning and age of these ancient Chinese characters?

Most characters are composed of a phonetic and a semantic component.
The phonetic component is a character with a similar pronunciation (...or at least the pronunciation was similar at the time the character was created). The semantic component (or signific) indicates the meaning, although usually very vaguely (again, meanings--like pronunciations--change over time). For more info, see the wiki article.
Classic example:

妈 (mā, mother) ＝ 女 (nǚ, woman) ＋ 马 (mǎ, horse)
The "horse" component is purely phonetic (and a relatively good phonetic too!), and the "woman" component hints as to the meaning.

The author of the linked article is obviously grossly mistaken as to the construction of Chinese characters, both in general, as well as in the specific cases he brings up. I'll offer non-ridiculous analyses for the characters listed, based mostly off of the very useful Chinese character etymology website. I give the pronunciations for the phonetics and the meanings of the semantics:

船 (chuan2, boat) =  舟 (older word for boat) + 㕣 (yan3)
婪 (lan2, covetous/greedy) =  林 (lin2) + 女 (woman... sorry ladies)
造 (zao4, create/cause) = 告 (report) + 辶 (foot, walk); original meaning in Old Chinese: "appear in court"
完 (wan2, complete) = 宀 (building/roof) + 元 (yuan2)
禁 (jin4, to forbid) = 林 (lin2) + 示 (omens)
園 (yuan2, garden) = 袁 (yuan2) + 囗 (enclosure)
魔 (mo2, wizard/magic/demon) = 麻 (ma2) + 鬼 (ghost/monster)

As you can see, almost all of the characters are semantic-phonetic compounds. Also, the forms of the characters shown in the article are modern ones, not oracle bones forms.
Addendum:
I chose not to give the meanings of the phonetic components in my analyses because I don't want to encourage the widely held (and incredibly wrong) perception that characters have no phonetic content and that every part of a character "means" something. Certainly some characters are pictograms (e.g., 马 = horse) or semantic-compunds (e.g., 焚), but the vast majority are semantic-phonetic compounds. I also chose not to repeat the analyses given in the article, since I think it would only increase the likelihood of people taking them seriously.
For the OP's benefit, I will do a more detailed analysis for "garden" which looks at the makeup of the phonetic character and compares it to the analysis given in the article:
The analysis given to us in the article is:

園 (garden) = 土 (dust) + 口 (breath literally "mouth") + ??? (two people) + 囗 (enclosure)

I think I made clear how the entire inner content of the box is a component used purely for its phonetic value (and therefore the article writer is mistaken in analyzing it for its meaning).
However, the article's analysis is flawed in several other ways as well:

It treats the character as being made up of 4 components. Even if it were a semantic-compound, it would be made up two parts: 袁 (???) + 囗 (enclosure). The former character survives in modern Chinese only as a surname, so it's unclear what in the hell they would mean put together. I think 袁 once meant graceful, so I guess "graceful wall".

The phonetic part (袁) is itself a pictogram of a pendant over the character for clothing; not 土 + 口 + ???. The fact that the modern form (which doesn't look like the Seal script form) appears to contain a 土 and a 口 isn't really relevant.

Even assuming it made sense to analyze 袁 into sub-components, and even assuming the seal-script components were the same as the modern ones, the author has done it wrong. The "two people" fragment given is not even a character. You could write "two people" as the character for person twice 人人 (doesn't look like it), use the "two people radical" 彳 (also doesn't look it), use the word "from" 从 (still doesn't look like it). What the fragment the article author wrote down as "two people" is actually the bottom part of 衣. It's a pictogram that originally depicted fabric.

You commented "I just need a clear answer: do the characters mean that or not?". I hope this answer has elucidated how the article's author was wrong on pretty much every level you can be wrong on. If you want that in yes/no format, I'm pretty sure it's "no no no no no...".


Alternate translations of "why are you asking me this question"

There are several ways to translate "Why are you asking me this question?".
Your first sentence is a correct way of expression.
In China we never use any of options A, B, C, D, or E.
The following are several otehr ways to express this in Chinese, but we rarely use it in daily expression in China:

你为何问我这个问题？
你问我这个问题的原因是什么？
你问我这个问题的理由是什么？


When did the words 麻醉 and 麻药 first appear?

I assume you're looking for how Chinese translated the technical terms, which according to the OED were invented by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1846.

Chinese has early claims for anesthetic compounds a couple of thousand years before this, going back to the hoary Hua Tuo.  Wikipedia's article on the history of general anesthesia has a few things about him. There is more in the article on the Japanese doctor Hanaoka Seishū, reputedly the first person to perform an operation using general anesthesia.

Both of these articles represent Wikipedia at its least reliable (look at the references), and in any case are not about the medical practices which Holmes christened in the 19th century.

As the comment from 倪阔乐 above mentions, the word ma-yao appears in Shui-hu-chuan (late 16th cent.) as a name for a general type of drug that is probably something like knock-out drops.

Shui-hu-chuan calls the ma-yao in question 蒙汗藥 meng-han-yao, a drug which also appears in plays from the Yuan dynasty (13th cent). People who get dosed with 蒙汗藥 usually wind up as steamed meat buns in shops run by people you would not like to meet in a dark alley. Despite the claims of various dictionaries, I would not call this an anesthetic.

I would say that this is a difficult question, not an easy one. You will have to hunt around in early accounts for yourself, and this could be tough. The book Anesthesia: Essays on its history has a chapter by S. Yong called "History of Modern Anesthesia in China". Alas, it's only 3 pages long.  Clearly there's a lot to be done.


lan gou in Chongqingese should be:

  啷个
  lang3 go4
  [Ĩaŋ⁴¹ ko²¹³]
  (代) 怎么

or with er-hua:

  啷个儿
  lang3 ger4
  [Ĩaŋ⁴¹ kər²¹³]
  (代) 怎么

the second one lei si should be:

  勒是
  le2 si4
  [Ĩe²¹ sɿ²¹³]
  (代) 这是。

Here's Bridge saying 勒是雾都, Chongqingese for 这是重庆:

In Sichuanese and Chongqingese me is more likely to be 没 or 莫, but Hunan might be a whole other tiger all together.

最土、最闷骚的方言：怀化话 does say this though:

  毛晓得------------------- 不知道


The usage here is like 'would' in English. 'Would' can be either past tense, or present tense with subjunctive mood. 会 can be either future tense, or present tense with subjunctive mood.

I believe this usage is influenced by Taiwanese Mandarin where there's a common pattern to turn simple V+O structure into 有没有/会不会 + (V+O as O) to soften the tone. This is considered redundant and borderline ungrammatical in the schools in mainland China, but in daily spoken language it's very common.


If it is possible to figure out pronunciation of Chinese text

"If you have a Chinese text, i.e. just the characters and no Pinyin or anything, I'm wondering if it's possible to figure out the meaning of the text."

You would have some problem in there, because the translation of the characters alone aren't exactly the same as those when they appear together. A simple example:

  他姐妹是中国人。

If you just pick each character from a dictionary, you would get a translation like:

  He [elder sister] [younger sister] be middle country person.

What meaning could you extract from that? I don't think nothing much close from the original one, which should be:

  His sister is Chinese.

Since Chinese has no blank space in between words, it's hard to know when you are a beginer where the words start and finish. To start trying to understand the sentence above, you should first know that the words are:

  [他][姐妹][是][中国][人]。

Another problem is that many characters have more than one meaning. Taking my first example, if you didn't know that 中国 was a word itself and tried to find 中 alone, you could find 中 with the meanings "middle, to hit, China, etc.", making it more difficult to choose the correct one.

So, the answer to your question is: yes, it is possible, but you will have a hard time with it.


I believe it is 我鐘意你 /ngoh5 jung1 yi3 nei5/ (I like/love you). Some people drop the initial /ng/ and it becomes /oh5 jung1 yi3 nei5/


Both of them refer to the same thing, "dog". “狗” is used much more in oral speaking, and “犬” is a formal word that you would see in books.

For words expressed in a classical (formal) way, you won't see "狗" but "犬".

  An idiom: 一人得道，鸡犬升天

When a man becomes an Immortal(God), even his pets like chickens and dogs go to heaven. An analogy that when someone becomes powerful, his associates would somehow become powerful too. We use it in a critical and negative way.

  犬子(literally: dog's son)

It's a word you will use to refer to your son in a humble way. In a few cases, you will hear this word nowadays. You would say "犬子今年20岁" (my son is 20 years old this year), to show your respect to the listener. (Of course, this expression is old-fashioned.)

  鹰犬 (literally: hawk and dog)

When you hunt in the field, you would take advantage of a hawk (falcon) or a dog (hound) to chase the game for you, so this word is an analogy to say "hired thugs", somone that implements your order [to commit crimes]. We use it in a negative way too.

  犬只 (=dog).

Usually, you will see it in the newspaper or the bulletins and  announcements from the government.

  小犬座 (Canis Minor, a small constellation) Here we don't use 小狗座

狗 is a vulgar (informal) word (in Chinese culture, a dog is not a good thing), so you will see it more in ordinary life, in oral speaking.

  狗腿子 (literally: dog's feet). With the same meaning as “鹰犬".
  狗崽子 (literally: a puppy). A curse word to refer to someone that you hate.
  you would ask your neighbour:"how old is your dog?" "你的狗多大了？" here, you wouldn't say "犬".

Note: There are few idioms with "狗" instead of "犬". For example, “狗尾续貂", but this word came from a popular oral proverb in its times, so this doesn't violate the viewpoint that “犬" is used formally.

When would you use "狗" or "犬"? Well, these words are fixed, so you have to memorize them. It's good to enlarge your vocabulary to avoid misuse. In most cases, you would use "狗".


Which characters typically occur only within names?

Chih-Hao Tsai's Technology Page is an excellent resource (with the caveat that the corpuses it uses are Taiwanese). On this page you can find frequencies of the most common characters used in surnames and given names.

Most common surnames (2012):

陳
林
黃
李
張
王
吳
劉
蔡
楊
許
鄭
謝
郭
洪
邱
曾
賴
廖
徐
周
葉
蘇
莊
呂

It's clear that this is from a Taiwanese source since 陳 is most common; if this were the mainland you'd expect 王 to be the most common.

Here's the list of most common characters in given names (2012); if you cross reference this with the list of most common characters, you get this:

庭 (rank 1447)
婷 (rank 2410)
宇 (rank 1159)
文 (rank 33)
佳 (rank 739)
雅 (rank 1112)
怡 (rank 1651)
家 (rank 66)
柏 (rank 1585)
冠 (rank 1023)
子 (rank 66)
廷 (rank 1834)
安 (rank 360)
翔 (rank 1503)
嘉 (rank 1056)
彥 (rank 1677)
宜 (rank 719)
瑋 (rank 2246)
軒 (rank 1698)
瑜 (rank 1854)
欣 (rank 943)
凱 (rank 1413)
君 (rank 767)
育 (rank 585)
萱 (rank 3029)

So you can see that apart from a few very common characters (like 文, 家 and 子), most of these characters are relatively uncommon outside of names. Keep in mind that characters that are common in given names also obviously show up in the list of most common characters, so anything above say rank 2000 may qualify as "name" characters. I'd say it's very hard to encounter the characters 婷, 瑋 or 萱 outside of names.

You can download the entire corpus and run your own analysis if you wish.

And here's the list of most common given names (note that most of these are two-characters long):

雅婷
雅筑
冠宇
冠廷
怡君
宗翰
佳穎
彥廷
家豪
柏翰
宜庭
郁婷
承翰
詩涵
宇軒
佳蓉
鈺婷
家瑜
怡婷
怡萱
詩婷
怡安
家瑋
郁雯
冠霖

So I wonder how many (thousands) of 陳雅婷 are in the world? :)


I would like someone to translate the writing on this plate in to english please

According to the rule here, I cannot translate the text for you as it is.

Here is the sorted out version. You can use Google Translate to try to translate it. You can go line by line first. If the outcome seems wrong, then refine your search and look at individual words that do not seem right.

After you get the rough translation that somewhat makes sense, but not completely, then you can ask specific questions on items that are difficult to understand.

  The original poem, 尋故人 written by 元代 黃清老 is: 適興一尋君，君家在白雲。幽花秋後見，落葉夜深聞。 隨意坐苔石，呼童煮澗芹。不須談世事，詩思正紛紛。 There are three different words. 適興一尋君，君家在白雲。幽花秋後見，落葉夜深聞。 隨喜坐台石，呼童煮澗芹。不須談世事，詩意正紛紛。 The other one is: 言易招尤，對朋友少說幾句。 書能益智，勸兒孫多讀數行。 (I only show the Chinese words here so that other users can use it. I have no time to translate it.) – user-487

適興一尋君, 君家在白雲.

幽花秋後見, 落葉夜深聞.

隨意坐苔石, 呼童煮澗芹.

不須談世事, 詩意正紛紛.

~~

言易招尤, 對朋友少說幾句.

書能益智, 勸兒孫多讀幾行.

Edit:

Since you write that many comments and consider Google Translate is not very good at translating text written in classical style, I would give you the rough meaning of this text.

適興一尋君 (I have a sudden urge to seek you), 君家在白雲 (your home is in the cloud). somewhere remote

幽花秋後見 (Pale flowers are seen after fall arrived, ), 落葉夜深聞 (Falling leaves are heard at late night).

隨意坐苔石(Sit on the mossed rock at will), 呼童煮澗芹 (call the kid to cook some Jian qin). a kind of vegetable

不須談世事 (No need to talk about the world's affair"  , 詩意正紛紛 (One after another, the poetry feelings is coming).

~~

言易招尤 (Spoken words easily cause trouble) , 對朋友少說幾句(speak a few words less to friends).

書能益智 (Books can benefit minds), 勸兒孫多讀幾行 (advise your children and grandchildren to read a few lines more).


Why is 挺 used as measure word for machine guns?

挺，表数量，用于条状物。

As a measure word, 挺 refers to something that is long.

In《太平御览》卷八三五，it says 壶中大钱一千，以通九泉之路，蜡烛一挺，以照七尺之尸。

In modern Chinese, 一挺蜡烛 is no longer commonly used.


When is a degree required? or: hai6 vs hou2 vs gei

ngo5 hai6 baau2

--> 我係飽 is "unnatural", hmmm, non-native way to express.

  ngo5 hou2 baau2

--> 我好飽

native way to say it :)

just like the english "being", in other language, the verb changes:

i'm 70 years old

(being is used to describe age), which is translated to:

j'ai 70 ans

(avoir [to have], is used, not être [to be]; then, in cantonese, it should be:

我七十歲

technically, the verb is omitted

  gei(unsure of tone or meaning)

it is 嘅(u+5605), roughly "my, his, her, their"; ask you friend how to pronounce it ;-)

last, i would suggest learning cantonese from dramas, videos, and news, forget grammar books.

have fun :)


希望你的书能顺利出版。
希望能早日在书店等候你签名售书。。


How to say "tricks" in Chinese? As in "Snowboarding Tricks"?

Question Overflow made a good point.

招式 is often used for 'tricks' in sports like skateboarding - so in theory it should work with snowboarding just the same. You can even shorten it to just 招 if you'd like -- might sound a bit kung-foo-y though...

edit: some extra info:

see this article

the article talks, mainly, about ski + snowboard tricks the article features the word 招式 a lot：
等你熟练起跳跟着陆之后，可以开始最基本的招式。

在雪地上尝试招式前，你可以先在干地上练习。

etc etc


Why can 地 sometimes be omitted when placed after adjectives?

Is this because 大声 is originally an adverb (loudly) instead of an adjective (loud)?

Yes, you are correct.

In that case, if a word can act as either an ADJ or ADV, should I generally drop the 地?

If the word is primarily an adverb, you can drop the 地. For example, words composed with the typical adverbial suffix 然 don't require 地:

我们欣然欢迎朱大军同事加入我们公司 We cheerfully welcome the colleague Zhu Dajun to join our company

We can examine some cases where the adverbial phrase must have the verbal modifier 地. In these cases, the modifier is indeed an adjective:

他很清楚地阐述了那个故事 He told that story very clearly (清楚 clear -> 清楚地 clearly)
我娘每天开开心心地做饭 My mum gladly/happily cooks every day (开心 happy -> 开心地 happily)
飞机安全地到达了目的地 The plane safely arrived at destination (安全 safe -> 安全地 safely)

Other phrases that are not exactly adjectives, but also not inherently adverbs, still require 地 to form an adverbial phrase, e.g. chengyu's:

学生们都翘足引领地看着考试结果 All the students are standing on tiptoes and craning their necks looking at the exam results
大楼鳞次栉比地挤在市中心 The big buildings are squeezed in the city center row upon row


What input method is easier to learn for a someone who can speak Chinese?

Writing with a stylus would certainly be far easier than learning any input methods, especially for the aged, barring, of course, that they can’t already write. It is the same with smartphones and tablets at the moment. Many people in and above their fifties would rather write out the characters than type pinyin because of the unfamiliarity with Roman characters and pinyin in general.


Stepping in for my Chinese to Australian translations:
Also a couple of other phrases that are good to keep in your toolkit

Thank you

谢谢 Xièxiè

Is the most basic and common way of saying thank you
Australian Translation:
Cheers
Thanks

谢谢你 Xièxiè nǐ

This is a more sincere or formal way of saying thank you
Australian Translation:
Thank you
Thanks Heaps

多谢 Duōxiè

Translates to many thanks, Where 谢谢你 Xièxiè nǐ is used to more formally express a greater amount of thanks 多谢 Duōxiè is a slightly more casual way of saying the same.
Australian Translation:
Cheers mate this helped a ton
Thanks, I really appreciate this

我很感谢 Wǒ hěn gǎnxiè

Translates to I am very thankful/Grateful. This term I'm less familiar with but to me it would be to a way of expressing a large amount of gratitude in a formal manner. Same sort of situations 您 Nín is used over 你 Nǐ
Australian Translation:
Thank you sir, I appreciate this.

Responses

不客气 Bù kèqì

The best translation for this is No politeness necessary or more commonly You're welcome
Australian Translation:
You're welcome

不用谢 Bùyòng xiè

It literately means "No need thanks"
Australian Translation:
Don't worry about it mate

没事 Méishì

It literally translates to "Nothing Thing" but a more natural translation would be it's nothing / never mind
Australian Translation:
It was nothing mate (As in it was no trouble)

Post thoughts

Responding to 谢谢 (xièxiè) with 谢谢你 (xièxiè nǐ) although would be understood it isn't a way I have heard before. I think it would work well if someone who you were in a position to thank thanked you before you said thank you. An example would be purchasing something from someone as you're both equally profiting from the interaction but if the thanks are one sided I wouldn't use 谢谢你

I mean if you helped a lady up after she tripped and then thanked her for letting you help her she would scream 变态 (biàntài) and slap you across the face assuming you took some sick joy in it

Bonus way of saying thanks

note: this is not about the Chinese language but the Chinese culture

When someone pours you a cup of tea rather then vocalizing your thanks you can tap 2 fingers on the table.

  This custom is said to have originated in the Qing Dynasty when Emperor Qian Long would travel in disguise through the empire. Servants were told not to reveal their master's identity. One day in a restaurant, the emperor, after pouring himself a cup of tea, filled a servant's cup as well. To that servant it was a huge honour to have the emperor pour him a cup of tea. Out of reflex he wanted to kneel and express his thanks. He could not kneel and kowtow to the emperor since that would reveal the emperor's identity so he bent his fingers on the table to express his gratitude and respect to the emperor.

-Partial Extract from Wikipedia


Is the following correct ? (sign in Chinese seen in Thailand)

Actually, I don't think that's good enough. From Chinese slogans' use condition it's better to be“请勿自带餐品（食品）和饮料入内” or “禁止外带餐品饮料”


Can anybody identify these chop markings or calligraphy please (Characters identified: 季康長壽 寧復畫記)

the text is, my best guess:
每為惜花無曉夜・教人甚處不銷魂
two verses of a poem of 宋 dynasty
己亥 (1959 +-60i, i is integer)
季康 (the name of the author) 寫 (written)


Correct use of 惹人心烦: is 然而我不要惹人心烦 a suitable way to say you don't want to be a pain in the neck?

Looks fine to me.  But you could say 不好意思麻烦你 = sorry for bothering you.  To me 麻烦你 sounds like a more colloquial way of talking about bothering someone or being a trouble for someone.


What is the difference between "博览会", "交易会" and "展销会"?

博览会, 交易会 and 展销会 can be used interchangeablely. All of them mean "exhibition". They are synonyms, different only in literal meanings.

The literal meanings are:

  博览会 broad viewing party

  交易会 trade party

  展销会 display and sales party


有啥推荐没? （有啥推荐吗?）
Are there any suggestions, or not?
I would say it's a kind of short-speak for:
关于这个问题，有没有什么推荐吗？
Concerning this problem, are there any suggestions?


"Aren't you both also Americans" in Chinese?

你们（都）也不是美国人吗？你们也（都）不是美国人吗？

  Nǐmén (dōu) yě búshì měiguórén ma? Nǐmén yě (dōu) búshì měiguórén ma?

  Are (both/all of) you also not Americans?

In this case, you're inquiring your targets whether they are also not Americans, just like you or some other people.

  你们不也（都）是美国人吗？

  Nǐmén bu/bú/bù yě (dōu) shì měiguórén ma?

  Aren't you (both/all) also Americans?

This is a rhetorical question to make a point that you're under the impression that both/all your targets are also Americans, like you or some other people.  There are three possible ways to pronounce the 不 with bu being the most casual tone and bù being the most serious.

Gist: 也 is "also", 都 is "both/all".  不也都 signals that the question is rhetorical.  Depending on the exact sentence you wish to construct, you should omit 也 ("also") or 都 ("both/all").

As per the comments by user6065, it's also correct to use the following rhetorical questions if you're addressing exactly two people.

  你俩不也都是美国人吗？
    Nǐliǎ ...

  你们俩不也都是美国人吗？
    Nǐménliǎ ...

  你们两个不也都是美国人吗？
    Nǐmén liǎng'ge ...

  你们两人不也都是美国人吗？
    Nǐmén liǎngrén ...

  你们两个人不也都是美国人吗？
    Nǐmén liǎng'gè rén ...

These five rhetorical questions all share the meaning of "Aren't you two also both Americans?"


筛选 is the correct filter for 'search filter'?

http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/%E7%AD%9B%E9%80%89

It's a more sophisticated word than 过滤, which we usually use for filter.

过滤 mean filtering out unwanted substances, like filtering coffee.
筛选 is more for computer filtering.


Is there a word to describe "more demand than offer"?

供不應求 - literally 'supply/not/satisfied/demand'

僧多粥少 - idiom, not enough congee for the monks


i'm Chinese. these words are the same word, means exactly the same thing. It's just when we use QQ, some people use 噢 instead of 哦。kind of a personal preference. For example, I always use 哦, never 噢。in chinese, 其实没有什么区别，只不过是个人打字的习惯而已，呵呵。


As a 老外 saying this, maybe: 我希望从小就开始学中文了。 Using 希望 is good.


Meaning of 事情并没有想家的那么糟糕

事情并没有想家的那么糟糕。

The sentence you quote has a typo. It should be:

事情并没有想像的那么糟糕。

想像的 is nominalization, meaning what one thinks of. The whole sentence means things don't go as bad as what we think of.


Can you omit the 的 after 举办 in 北京奥运会是2008年举办的？

北京奥运会是2008年举办的。

"北京奥运会是2008年举办的" is a [topic + comment/opinion] sentence

Topic: 北京奥运会 (Beijing Olympics)

Comment: 是 2008年 举办的 (is hosted by 2008)

(It is obviously wrong, it makes 2008年 the subject. I will state the correct sentence later in this post)
The '的' here is a [possessive marker]. It marks the omitted object to be possessed by [2008年]

2008年 举办的(项目)
2008年 is the subject; 项目 (or other noun refers to 北京奥运会) is the omitted object

The correct sentence should be:

"北京奥运会是在 2008年 举办的" (Beijing Olympics is hosted in 2008)
the subject '北京' is omitted, "北京奥运会是(北京)在 2008年 举办的"

In this sentence,  '的' is an [adjective marker]. It turns "在 2008年举办" into an adjective phrase "在 2008年 举办的"
This adjective phrase describes 北京奥运会 (Beijing Olympics that is hosted in 2008)
'的' cannot be omitted in this sentence.
To avoid using 的, you can change this [topic + comment/opinion] sentence into a [SVO] sentence and write "(北京)在 2008年 举办北京奥运会" - "(Beijing) held the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008"
Since we do not omit the subject '北京' here, we can omit the '北京' in '北京奥运会' instead -- "北京在 2008年 举办(北京)奥运会"


How do we distinguish a bopomofo symbol from a similar character?

You are right, but in which context you have the need to distinguish them? In most places, Zhuyin is clearly marked to be so. In case sinograms and Zhuyin are mixed, they usually follow a pattern: according to the writing direction, Zhuyin can be written above sinograms or on the right side.

In my opinion, there is practically no occasion to guess whether a single handwritten character is a Zhuyin or a sinogram. Otherwise, please give details of such a situation!


When expressing locations, I don't think there is a difference between 哪儿 and 哪里. Both of them mean(to express locations),

where, (in, at)what place
(in, at)every place, everywhere

Your examples show the first meaning. I would like to write a sentence to show the second meaning.

  他在哪儿都很出色。
  他在哪里都很出色。

  He is outstanding everywhere.

However, 哪里 can mean something else.

Used in a sentence pattern called “反义疑问句"(sorry, I don't know the grammar jargon in English, but I could show you an example about it. Can someone tell me this jargon?) to emphasize your mood of doubt, that you don't believe it. Here, you could also use "哪". Example:

  他已经睡着了，哪里会知道我们说了什么？
  他已经睡着了，哪会知道我们说了什么？

  Meaning: He has been in sleep already. How could he know what we said. (I don't think he would know)

As an answer to the praises from others, to show your humbleness. For example, I find that you speak Chinese well, so I say:

  Alenanno, 你中文说得挺好的。

and you answer

  哪里，哪里。

Literally it means "where, where", actually means "No, I am not so good as you say. I still need improvements". We Chinese usually would answer in this way to show the humbleness.


Is「天佑美國」the correct translation for "God Bless America"?

According to Wiktionary, 保祐 is a variant of 保佑. Google Ngram Viewer also consider 天祐 to be the same as 天佑: Ngram

Actually, here in mainland China, I think 佑 is much more prevalent than 祐 (I have not been to other Chinese-speaking areas so I cannot give you a definitive answer). You can witness it from the Wikipedia translation of similar subjects, all of them use 佑 instead of 祐:

God Bless America - 天佑美國
God Save the Queen/King - 天佑女皇/女王、天佑吾皇/国王
Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser - 上帝保佑吾皇弗朗茨/天佑吾皇弗朗茨

So if you have to choose between them, I'd say 佑 is actually a safer choice.


What is the verb for "hacking" (as in computing) in Chinese?

黑 is the verb you are looking for.
被黑了 is the common phrase form of "been hacked".
If you feel 黑 is too ambiguous you can add an object behind it to turn it into a VO (verb object) phrase: 黑电脑, etc.
Alternatively Oxford suggests:

5 COMPUTING, COLLOQUIAL
窃取
to hack secret data from computers
从计算机里窃取机密资料

Personally I would just go with 黑 in this day and age.