When writing pin yin, should you use a question mark in sentences using "ma"?

For correctness, question marks are always required.

Are they redundant? Perhaps. If so, they are probably also redundant in English. (eg. "how are you." is clearly intended as a question even without the question mark)

"Ma" turns statements into questions. Think about "ma?" as being similar to "correct?" in English. (eg. "you like coffee, correct?")


Is it essential to highlight the use of a metaphor with 像...那样 or something to this effect?

如果别人不想接电话，不用像一个审问那样问他

一个审问 (an interrogation) is a noun, but your sentence suggests 审问 is a verb with the object "犯人" omitted

The problem of your sentence is 像(审问)犯人那样(问)他 is an incorrect form of shorten "审问"

The correct form is 如果别人不想接电话，不用像(审问)犯人那样(审)他 (if someone doesn't want to take your phone call, there's no need to interrogate him like interrogate a criminal suspect)

You can reduce "像(审问犯人)那样" to "像(审犯)那样" . 审犯 (interrogate criminal suspect) is a common Chinese term

You can even shorten the sentence further by removing "如果" and "像... 那样" and write: "别人不想接电话，也不用(审犯)般(审)他"

也 implies 如果; 般 means 那样


Those are 六十四卦 symbols, which is extension of 八卦

They are not characters but symbols.

Each symbol has a corresponding Chinese character and representative meaning as the figures indicated

  For example, the symbol of the first 卦 is three solid lines. It is read as '乾' /quān/ and it represents '天'(heaven)

八卦

六十四卦


譬如为山未成一篑 is talking about making a mountain rather than moving a mountain. It tells about the importance of perseverance.

Another Confucian classic, 《荀子》 has 积土成山风雨兴焉 in the article 劝学 meaning you accumulate earth and make a mountain then the local climate will change. Again, the same moral, but not told by Confucius himself.

Yet another classic but is about Taoism, 《列子》, has an article talking about a silly old ram thought he could punch a hole in a dam -- A silly old man thought he could move a mountain with a 1000 year plan, and eventually he did in his life span, because the Sky God helped his clan. This is, again, all about the same thing, perseverance.

So yes, it is probably fake. At least we can tell it's not from the Analects.

About the meanings of these quotes, you can find the Chinese translation of 论语 here. For more detailed explanations of each quote, google is your friend. Search one of the quotes and you'll get plenty of answers.


From http://wiki.mbalib.com/wiki/%E6%8A%80%E6%9C%AF%E6%8A%80%E8%83%BD , "技術技能" means "technical skill" (.... a typical example of piecemeal translation ....).  "技術" is commonly used as an attributive noun, e.g. "技術人員" (technical staff) and "技術支援" (technical support)

On the other hand, "技術" is seldom used as an attributive noun.

Hence, there are two possibilities:

1) "技能技術" is "技能和技術" with "和" omitted.  Thus, we can translate it as "techniques and skills".

2) It is a typo of "技術技能".  In such case, we should translate it as "technical skills".


我昨天去的图书馆: "The library I went to yesterday" or "I went to the library yesterday"?

我昨天去图书馆的 sounds unnatural. I'd say 我昨天去了图书馆 or 我昨天去图书馆了, which means I went to the library yesterday.

我昨天去的图书馆 means the library I went to yesterday. You might have gone to several libraries or just one, because the sentence doesn't imply how many libraries you went. As you said 的 marking that relative clause.

If you say 我昨天去的那个图书馆, that means you are emphasizing that particular library you went.


Is there a chengyu to mean "walk with one's own legs"

I collect the following phrases that have the meaning of "independent".

出道
出师
自立
自立门户
自作门户
独当一面
独立自主
自食其力

self-reliant
self-supporting
support oneself
support oneself by one's own labor
earn one's salt
earn one's own living
live by the sweat of one's brow
live by one's own labor
live on one's toil
live on the earnings of one's own work
stand on one's own feet

I think 自食其力 is closest to "to walk with one's own legs".


Phrase to describe "wow" or "amazing" (sounds like 'pang')

Know nothing at all of Sichuanese, but maybe you mean 棒 bang in it's sense of 'great, wonderful'

linedict: 我认为这部电影非常棒！

iciba:wow might be 哇：我想：“哇，多好的主意呀。”


减/減 (Reduce/Subtract/Decrease/Diminish): What's it got to do with water?

I think both "減" and "咸" exists in the ancient times, but for certain reasons scholars like to use "咸" in place of "減".

損也,從水,咸聲 == It has the same meaning as '損', water as glyph component, and the same pronunciation as '咸'.

In 管子·宙合, which was written before the early Han Dynasty, it says "左操五音，右執五味，懷繩與准鉤，多備規軸，減 溜大成，是唯時德之節。 .... 減，盡也。溜，發也。 ...."


When is it appropriate to address a lady as 先生？

The gender neutral form of the term 先生 is an antiquated Chinese title used for addressing a knowledgeable person who is your senior. This person could be a teacher, a principal, a scholar, a professor or a doctor.

This term, which literally means "born (生) before (先)", has been in use for a very long time. Somebody who is born before you would be your senior, and is deemed to have more experience and knowledge, and therefore should command your respect.

According to 汉典:

  先生 xiānsheng - 年长有学问的人。《孟子·告子下》：“ 宋牼 将之 楚 ， 孟子 遇於 石丘 ，曰：‘先生将何之？’” 赵岐
  注：“学士年长者，故谓之先生。”《战国策·齐策三》：“ 孟尝君 讌坐，谓三先生曰：‘愿闻先生有以补之闕者。’” 姚宏
  注：“先生，长老，先己以生者也。” 宋 叶适 《宋故孟夫人墓志铭》：“精义择语，类先生长者之法言。”

This means that the term has been around for more than two centuries since the warring states period (475–221 BC).

Today, the gender neutral form of the term 先生 has been replaced by other equivalent titles (老師, 校長, 教授, 博士, 醫生, etc). However, it is still very much in use (pronounced as sensei) in Japan.


欲 －－ willing, want

速 －－ speedy, quick

则 －－ then, but

不 －－ not, negative

达 －－ arrive, done

If you want to finish it quicker, then you probably can't get it done (correctly).


In the article 论国名与国号 it is mentioned that 英国 stems from 英格兰.

On Wikipedia they mention that it comes from 英吉利 (English) and 英格兰 (England):

  The written form of Yīngguó in Chinese is made up of two characters: 英国. The first 英 (yīng) as an adjective means "outstanding" and "fine", and as a noun means "flower"; the second is 国 (guó) which means "country", "state" or "kingdom". Originally the adjective word was written as 英吉利 Yīngjílì as an approximation of the adjective word English, and is still used to mean English in the Chinese word for the English Channel 英吉利海峡 Yīng jí lì hǎi xiá. The noun word was written as 英格兰 Ying ge lan for the noun England, also 苏格兰 Su ge lan for Scotland, 爱尔兰 Ai er lan for Ireland and 威尔士 Wei er shi for Wales. Also in history books Great Britain is written 大不列颠 da bu lie dian, from 大 (Great) and the sounds of the words 不列颠 similar to the sound interpretation.

I couldn't find any older (and better) references explaining the origin of 英.


Does anyone know of a good prescriptive mandarin writing style guide

About the usage of punctuations, choice of words, basic principles of writing, my best recommendation is 语文/国文 serial textbooks for primary and middle school students.

On developing an elegant style of writing, there is no simple rules such as "use advanced words", "construct concise sentences", etc. A very important criteria is “文气通达”, which is, roughly speaking, sticking to invariant impact of your writing on the reader, instead of vacillating among styles thus making your writing inconsistent. There is a book I konw, however, discussing the craft of writing, in a more precise way, enriching the knowlege of Chinese language and literature. The title is 《文心》. written by famous educationist 夏丏尊 and 叶圣陶, the book targets on middle school students and teachers, so, it consists of lively stories about two middle schoolboys learning literature, devoid of boredom of listing rules. And the passages the mentions are worth reading as well.(/ω＼)

May it helps.


條 can be a measure word for huge things. For example, 一条河, 一条烟囱, 一条船(all long and thin but huge) - you can't use 根 for huge things
条 can be a measure word for living things. For example, 一条蚯蚓, 一条蛇, 一条狗 (all long and thin and alive) - Don't use 根 for living things
条 can be a measure word for thin and long  things with flat surface, For example, 一条手帕. 一条毛巾 (both long and thin and have a flat surface) - You can't use 根 for things that have a flat surface
条 can be a measure word for abstract concepts. For example, 一条规矩, 一条题目
根 is more common when used as a measure word for tiny things. For example, 一根绣花针, 一根火柴, 一根松针, 一根头发, 一根汗毛, (all long, thin and tiny)
条 can also replace 根 when used as a measure word for tiny things especially objects from living things. For example, 一根头发,  一根汗毛; 一条头发,  一条汗毛

For things that are not huge, tiny, alive or have a flat surface 條 and 根 are often interchangeable. For example, 一条长棍, 一根长棍, 一条短棒, 一根短棒


In my bullet list, is ...是个... [something]的 problematic, and do I need an "and"?

I have read the comments and reply, then I would like to give a demo in my way. We can discuss it.

  首先给出结论 （This indicate that we will prove it in later slides...）

  对于给定的m（即为确定的元素数量），多项式m! #PLR(r,s,n;m)具有以下特点：

  是三元多项式，
  是对称多项式(即#PLR(r,s,n;m)=#PLR(s,r,n;m)等)， （I'm just curious, what do you mean by 等 here? Does it mean #PLR(r,s,n;m)=#PLR(r,n,s;m) and so on?）
  是整数系数多项式，
  是3m次多项式。


Unusual Seal reading (Characters identified: 胸有方心身無媚骨)

Your character identification is correct. The sentence can be translated as “With a right consciousness, without any sycophancy.”


Learn to type in Pinyin for a Zhuyin user

There is an (almost) one-to-one mapping from Zhuyin to Pinyin, replacing symbols with letters. In my humble opinion, Pinyin only save one from remembering symbols.
Neither Pinyin nor Zhuyin is perfect. Better learn both of them.

Pinyin is the result of an attempt of romanization, everything is going well except that, after all, Chinese language is quite different from Latin family languages in many aspects, spelling, pronunciation, logic, or the way of thinking, so a perfectly matched mapping can be really hard to realize, if not impossible. So it's not surprising when the Pinyin transliteration is found to be a little strange to English pronunciation rules, e.g. in qi vs. chee, or gu vs. koo. A more intuitive transliteration is Wade-Giles. As a citizen of China, one had better learn and use Pinyin as Pinyin simplifies and boosts the learning or the input in digital devices in many situations. Chinese romanization is still in progress, and we all might contribute to it. Personally speaking, it is quite controversial to put Pinyin into the position of official representation of Chinese language pronunciation, say, for the lacking of cultural heritage, abrupt as a centaur. When it comes to input method, I prefer the faster heuristic Pinyin (such as Google's, QQ's and Sogou's) than Zhuyin.

Zhuyin, based on a system invented by the late philosopher 章太炎 in 1910's. Zhuyin symbols presents a concise representation, which implies a simplification of pronunciation patterns, in other words, a standardized Mandarin would prevail and dialects or variations had to fend for themselves. Zhuyin is still officially in use among Taiwanese people, some of which feel it hard to move to Pinyin, for many reasons, such as personal habit or belief. Say it practically, Zhuyin has some advantage: some vowel Zhuyin symbols may give less keyboard hits than Pinyin, e.g. ㄠ (L) vs. ao (AO).


Which Mandarin learning textbooks have the largest amount of practical exercises?

You can find some bookstores near the Elementary Schools (小學).
If you see some signs like 國小參考書, go to find 參考書 (references) or 評量題 (examinations) for the first or second grade (一、二年級). 參考書 include the teachings in the textbooks and some Q&A. 評量題 have only Q&A.

You should know that all of them are totally in Chinese, no English.

(Ask your Taiwanese friends to go with you.)

You can find many Q&A on 全國中小學題庫網.


Meaning of 我知道的就这么多了

就 has many meanings, but here it means "only".
Definition + examples from 《现代汉语规范词典》:

限定范围，相当于"只"，"仅"
屋里就剩下我一个人
这次聚会就他没有来

Definition + example from《现代汉语词典》:

仅仅；只：以前就他一个人知道，现在大家都知道了）.

So it is used for a restricted scope and have the same meaning as 只 and 仅仅 (both meaning only).
Some examples where 就 has the same meaning:

家里就是他一个人 (jia1 li3 jiu4 shi4 ta1 yi2 ge ren2): In his family there was only him
三本书我看完了两本，就一本书没看了 (san1 ben3 shu1 wo3 kan4 wan2 le liang3 ben3, jiu4 yi4 ben3 shu1 mei2 kan4 le): I have read two of the three books. There is only one left that I haven't finished reading.
就去过一次 (jiu4 qu4 guo yi2 ci): only been there once
昨天就他没有来，别的人都来了 (zuo2 tian1 jiu4 ta1 mei2 you3 lai2, bie2 de ren2 dou1 lai2 le): yesterday only he didn't come, the others all came

So I would translate your sentence as
I only know this much


I need help translating >how< a word would be spoken

I can help you with this.  This process is called "transliteration".

For example.  "Hola" would be "哦啦"


Why is "连忙" wrong in the following sentence?

连忙 and 赶忙 cannot be used in the imperative, although 立刻, 马上 (and also 赶快 and 赶紧) can.

Technically, 连忙, 赶忙 denote something that happens fast (now), while 立刻, 马上 denote something that is about to happen (soon).

See 连忙 as present tense, and 马上 as the future tense, if you will. Imperatives then belong to future actions.


打颤 is ok. Other translations include 颤抖, 哆嗦. I've never seen 打战 used in the Mainland, but 打寒战 (also 打寒颤) is ok (literally it means to shiver because of feeling cold, but it can also be used for someone shivering when experiencing a fright).

If you say 打战 in the Mainland probably it's gonna be interpreted as "go to war".


What percentage of Chinese words are 1-character ? ... 2-character?

an unscientific approach: the 國語辭典
, of taiwan, has about 164489 entries, using grep + wildcards, one may find:

12540⋯7.62% are 1 character entry (^.$) e.g. 八, 扒
87516⋯53.20% are 2 characters entry (^..$) e.g. 八伯, 八拜
21836⋯13.28% are 3 characters entry (^...$) e.g. 八拜交, 八敗命
35781⋯21.75% are 4 characters entry (^....$) e.g. 八百羅漢, 八百壯士
2562⋯1.56% are 5 characters entry (^.....$) e.g. 八分休止符, 八風吹不倒

how to define / interpret "word" in the finding, well, it's beyond my knowledge :(


What is the common word used among programmers for a bug?

Among Chinese users, especially programmers, it's common to informally use the English word "Bug". Often capitalised as "BUG".

See for example this blog post: 软件 Bug 引发的十次严重后果

See also: https://baike.baidu.com/item/bug/32708


How do Chinese spell English words over the phone?

Even for educated Chinese people who know English fairly well, they do not use the same method that native English speakers use (the one mentioned in your question).
The common methods Chinese use include:
1 - Read a small sequence of letters from the alphabet that contains the letter in question.

“Theodore怎么拼？”
“T-H-...”
“等一下，是T还是P”
“T，R-S-T的T"

2 -  Prefix the letter with its ordinal number in the alphabet. This is borrowed from school as it's how teachers and students read answers of choice questions. It is commonly used for A-D but not very common for letters after D.

“最后一个字母是二B还是四D？”
“四D。”

(Make sure when you read “2B", B is in prominent falling tone, to distinguish from the swearing word "二逼" where the second character reads bi1. Of course students often make joke out of these homonyms.)
3 - Describe the shape or some other distinctive properties of the letter.

“G还是J？” (It's very common for Chinese people to confuse the pronunciations of these two letters.)
“J，勾儿。” (It's referring to the shape of the letter AND also it's the urban name of the letter in poker games.)

If you do need to spell some English word over the phone with a Chinese, chances are the person is a service personnel, receptionist or secretary, with whom these methods work quite well, as per my personal experience.


is there a way to know which words are grouped?

在这个项目的研究上

If you treat 目的 as a noun, then 项 has to be a classifier. But there's already a classifier 个 before it, (项 is not the right classifier for 目的 anyway), therefore, we can eliminate the possibility of "目的" in this sentence being a noun. Which mean 项 is not a classifier but a part of the compound word 项目 (item)

It  all make sense, because we know "个" is a classifier for "项目" (item)

"项" itself is a classifier, but it doesn't work with "目的"(goal) (the classifier of 目的 is 个)

  在这个项目(的)研究上 = about the study on this item

的 is an adjective marker that turn 这个项目 into an adjective phrase "这个项目的" for the noun 研究 (study) - what study? this item's study

Lenny wrote:

  is there a more ambiguous kind of sentence? surely there must be, that's more of what I'm trying to get at

Yes, for example, the following sentence can be interpreted differently depend on where you slight pause between words

"是個 人用的 工具" = "是個 (is a)  人用的 (for human use) 工具 (tool)" = "is a tool for human use"

"是 個人用的 工具" = "是" (is) 個人用的 (for personal use) 工具 (tool)" = "is a personal used tool"

Both examples are grammatically correct,  you have to listen to how it is read to determine it is "是個 . 人用的" or "是 . 個人用的"

Or you can look for hints in the context to determine the correct interpretation

One fun one, but it has to do with punctuation marks:

  下雨天留客天留人不留

1. 下雨天留客, 天留人不留 (It is raining as if the heaven wanted to keep the guest here, but the host doesn't keep the guest even the heaven does)

2. 下雨天, 留客天, 留人不? 留! ("It is a rainy day, it is a day to keep the guest, do you keep the guest?" "Yes I do!"


Comparison of tools for converting traditional to simplified Chinese

Tools followed the following rules to convert different language with their database.

idiom. e.g.心想事成
famous people and things. e.g.乾隆
there are the same pronunciation of adjective. e.g.乾燥
one by one characters.

Traditional and simplified Chinese are special, they have the same pronunciation of characters.

But some words and expressions are different, and tools won't translate for that. e.g. Traditional:計程車 = Simplified:出租车or的士,but you won't get the result.

So followed the following rules.

famous people and things. e.g.乾隆 <-> 乾隆,周杰倫 <-> 周杰伦
there are the same pronunciation of adjective. e.g.乾燥 <-> 干燥
one by one characters.

The above are my experience, i am a programer and i am taiwanese.


Why is 跟 in 陈叶可以直接拿跟胡灵阳的钥匙?

陈叶可以直接拿跟胡灵阳的钥匙

The 跟 doesn't look quite right in the sentence.  It implies that 陈叶 and 胡灵阳 share the keys. That's not what you intended to mean according to your English sentence.  On the other hand, it's not a good sentence.

So, it should be removed:

  陈叶可以直接拿胡灵阳的钥匙


連A帶B is not equivalent to A着B.

A着B limits both A and B to verbs, but 連A帶B does not (they can be verbs, nouns, or adjectives).

Part of speech
Example sentence1
Translation

Verbs
眼下很多旅店為了拉客住宿都是連蒙帶騙。（1994年《人民日報》）
Many hostels nowadays (lit. 'blind' and) deceive customers for their stay.

Nouns
滅絕師太不除下劍鞘，連劍帶鞘，便向金花婆婆胸口點來。（金庸《倚天屠龍記》）
With the sword and its sheath intact, Madam Kill-All came for Golden Flower Granny's chest.

Adjectives
大夥也都連累帶餓快要頂不住勁兒了。（劉流《烈火金剛》）
Everyone was both tired and hungry and could not stand any longer.

連A帶B sometimes parts a compound verb (e.g., 連蒙帶騙–蒙騙, 連比帶劃–比劃, 連諷帶刺–諷刺), whereas parting them with 着 is nonsensical (i.e., it is wrong to say *蒙着騙, *比着劃, *諷着刺).

Swapping A and B in A着B is not always permissible.

There is 哭着說, but usually not *說着哭. We are modifying the main action (the second verb) with an adverb of manner (made from the first verb), so you can only say, 'He said something in the manner of crying', but he couldn't have cried in the manner of saying something. 說着笑 is not an appropriate example (by that, I mean the verbs in 笑着說 are not swappable, but 說着笑 does exist with a different meaning), because it can be the stative form of the compound verb 說笑 (to joke), which is something completely different and irrelevant to our discussion.

Swapping A and B in 連A帶B is not always permissible.

If there is no particular need for emphasis, no inherent logical order (邏輯順序), nor word order (e.g. existing compound words in point 2.), swapping is then permissible.

Example sentence1
Translation

母女倆用英文爭論，仁仁連手勢帶神色(=連神色帶手勢)都是美國式的。（嚴歌苓《花兒與少年》）
The mother and daughter argued in English; both Ren Ren's hand gesture and expression looked American.

Otherwise, swapping is not permissible.

Reason
Example sentence1
Translation

Emphasis on the first verb
「你沒走，這太好了，我都快急死了。」她連笑帶怨，發自內心的高興。（王朔《橡皮人》）
'Good, you didn't leave, you're driving me crazy!' She smiled with a tinge of complaint, her happiness from the bottom of her heart.

Logical order
某近視小姐，為同桌斟酒，竟連瓶帶蓋一起倒入杯中，⋯⋯（《市場報》1994 年）
A certain shortsighted lady was pouring wine for her table. She really poured into the cup all that was in the bottle, even the lid. (most of what was poured in was the wine in the bottle, not the lid)

Word order
所有的人聽到我叫喊都是連奔帶跑，只有羅非不肯動。（陸文夫《人之窩》）
All those who heard my shouting ran with all their might; only Luo Fei moved not an inch. (奔跑 is a set word; there is no 跑奔)

I think 連說帶笑 is more common than ?連笑帶說 for logical considerations: you first say something, and then laugh at what was said, not the other way round.

Reference:
1 肖奚強、余璐瑤（2017）〈“連/又/一邊A帶/又/一邊B”格式比較研究〉。南京師大學報(社會科學版)，6，137–146。


For "become + adjective" it would be "變得+ adjective"

「自高校開學以來，RE 就變得沈悶 」 - "Since high school started, RE became boring."
「如果你不運動，你就不會變得健美 」 - "If you don't exercise, you won't become fit."
「如果你繼續練習鋼琴，你將會變得更有技巧 」 - "If you keep practicing the piano, you'll become much more skilled."

For " become + noun" it would be "成為 + noun"

「我想成為一個醫生 」 - "I want to become a doctor."
「她想成為偶像歌手 」 - "she wants to become an idol singer."

Google Translate:
自高校开学以来，RE 就变得沉闷
如果你不运动，你就不会变得健美
如果你继续练习钢琴，你将会变得更有技巧
我想成为一个医生
她想成为偶像歌手


Difference between 能 and verb + 得了(de liao3)

I think the difference is mostly in formality. For the first 2 examples you've given, both would be acceptable grammatically, but 能 definitely sounds more formal.

However, I think there are examples where they can't completely be used interchangeably.

我吃不了了 can be used to indicate that one can't keep eating (because one is full/doesn't like the food). But to indicate the same with 能 you probably need to say, 我不能继续吃了。

This might fall in a general category of idioms where you can't use 能 instead of a construction involving 得. For example, 我看不起他 really can't be replaced easily with 能


Errors and Unnatural Language in a Translation Challenge

Overall both translations are fine and fluent, with some small issues below:

Grammatical/Syntactic issues:

I think there is only one issue, in (2) 我们想酒保因为要省钱的. Either use 要省钱 as verb (i.e. remove 的), or use 要省钱的 as adjective (i.e. add 是 before 要).

Semantic issues:

In (1), margarita mix is translated into 玛格丽特混合物. In Chinese, people don't refer food/drink mix as 混合物. You can either just say 玛格丽特, or use the uncommon but well-understood word 混饮.

In (2), "ended up in the hospital" is translated into 住院. 住院 means hospitalization (overnight), while "ended up in the hospital" might be just seeing the doctor. It's fine if 住院 is deduced from contexts not shown in the question.

In both sentences, 酒保因为要省钱，所以... sounds a little weird, because 因为..所以 not only states causality, but also has a weak implication that the reason is valid, as if "if the bartender is poor, it is right for him to adulterate the drink." Using 为了 is much more idiomatic, e.g. 奸商为了赚钱，良心都不要了。

Also "they" in the last sentence is referring to the bar as a whole, not just the bartender, so 酒吧 would be more accurate than 酒保.

Idiomatic/Naturalness issues:

In both translations, 我们认为酒保.../我们想酒保... 认为 sounds too formal; 想 sounds unnatural since 我们想 usually means "we want to...". 我们觉得 or 我们猜 are better options.

My version:

你最好别去那个酒吧。我朋友以前去过一次，喝了一杯酒就去医院了。我们觉得酒吧为了赚钱，在酒里掺了化肥。

Notes on word choices:

最好 is optional. With it the tone is softer and more suggestive.
别 vs 不要: people tend to use 别 in Northern China and 不要 in Southern China. Both are correct and natural.
省钱 vs 节约成本 vs 降低成本 vs 赚钱: 省钱 is fine but a bit strange (what money is being saved and why, the ultimate goal is actually 赚钱 not 省钱); 节约成本 is a commendatory word so inappropriate (not a problem if you say it automatically in colloquial language); 降低成本 is clear but too neutral to condemn the misbehavior; 赚钱 is the best fit and indeed the most common word to describe a profiteer's motivation.
酒 vs 玛格丽特/玛格丽特酒: 玛格丽特 seems redundant because it is irrelevant to the point. The line sounds more fluent without it.
把A放进B vs 在B里掺了A: former seems to imply intentional poisoning; latter is a common phrase to describe adulterated product especially food/drink.
肥料 vs 化肥: they are essentially the same, but when put side by side, 肥料 focuses on nutrition value while 化肥 focuses on chemical ingredients, hence 化肥 sounds more inedible and toxic.


What are the differences between 违犯 and 违反?

Longman Advanced Chinese Dictionary has a footnote on their entry for 違背 which explains the differences:

  【違背•違反•違犯】
  wéi bèi / wéi fǎn / wéi fàn
  都是動詞﹐都有不合﹑不遵守的意思。區別在：「違背」側重於背離﹐不遵守﹐能用於自己的心意﹑情感等﹐語意較輕；「違反」和「違犯」語意比「違背」重；「違反」側重於不符合﹐如「違反紀律」﹑「違反操作規程」等；「違犯」側重於觸犯﹐適用範圍比「違反」小﹐如「違犯國法」﹑「違犯制度」等。

All three are verbs. They all basically carry the same meaning but「違反」and「違犯」are stronger.「違反」emphasizes the idea of falling short of, while 「違犯」emphasizes the action of going against.「違犯」is more specific and its scope of usage is more limited in comparison to「違反」.

You might also notice that 犯 is used in instances like breaking the law, where as 反 is just doing the opposite of something and is often used as the prefix: counter-.

Longman also provides some examples of usages:

違犯法紀

[To] break the law.

違反原則

[To] go against [one's] principles.


"我学中文" - "I learn Chinese"
"我学了中文" - "I've learned Chinese" [了 after a verb is a verb particle that indicates the verb is completed]
"我学中文了" - Depend on context, it can Imply "我(開始)学中文了" (I have started to learn Chinese) or "我(肯)学中文了" (I am willing to learn Chinese now).  了 after a verb phrase is a verb particle that indicates a change of situation. (change from not learning Chinese to learning Chinese or from unwilling to willing)
In "我学了中文了" (I've learned Chinese), the first 了 is a verb particle and the second 了 is a final particle.
A final particle is a particle placed at the end of a sentence to (a) indicate the sentence has ended (b) soften the tone of speech (c) to stress the sentence itself or add emotional tone to it.
"我学了中文了" is a valid sentence


Does 一个 mean *exactly* one? Or can it mean *at least* one?

As I understand, 我有一辆汽车, if it comes on its own, would mean "I have one car".

Adding 而已 (i.e. 我有一辆汽车而已) would make it something like: "I have one car and that's it".

Adding 只 （i.e. 我只有一辆汽车) would make it: "I only have one car". The difference here would be similar to the difference between "I have one car" and "I only have one car". In both cases the speaker has a single car, but in the latter version - the speaker stresses the "only".

If I'm in a group of people, and someone asks: "Who has a car?" (谁有车？) - then I would respond: 我有车 (literally: "I have car(s)"; it would be understood as "I have one or more cars". It cannot be determined from that sentence whether it's one car or more).

If I'm then asked, "How many cars do you have?" (你有多少辆车？) - then I would respond: 我有一辆车 ("I have one car").

If, then, the other person says: "Really? I thought you had three cars" (真的吗？我以为你有三辆车) - then I would respond: 不。我只有一辆车 ("No. I only have one car").


Reduplication of the noun 小时 in 走了半个多小时小时

It is a typo. We never use reduplication of noun 小时.

There is another typo in this sentence. 我到水就好 should be 找到水就好.


Is 'Tamen "shi" zai ying guo ma?' a grammatically correct way to express "Are they in Britain?"

No, unlike the English language which needs "to be" to express this, you don't need the copula shi 是 to describe the location of someone or something.

You just use zai 在 (or, for example, 位于) to express this.

Saying 他们是在英国吗 is possible, but the shi in that sentence has a different function: it adds emphasis.


Should the temporal indicators be in a certain order?

The time specification should be before the verb, but you can choose whether you put it before or after the subject. There is (a little bit) more emphasis on the first word.

So you can either say 今天你吃什么了？  or 你今天吃什么了？

In case you have both a time description, a place description and explained how you did something (manner), the time should be first, then the manner and finally the place.

An example: 我   昨天  在北京     看到他 （I saw him yesterday in Beijing)

See the Chinese Grammar Wiki for more details and some more examples.

Also, in Chinese you normally specify something from broad to narrow, general to concrete. So the year comes before the month, the month comes before the day, and so on. For example, you could say 去年八月21号上午九点. For places it is similar (first the country, then the city, than the street, ...).

In your example 午饭 can be seen as the topic of the sentence. See Wikipedia for more information about topic prominence.

With commas, your first sentence would be 今天，午饭，你吃什么了？ (I'll put the 了 at the end. Before 什么 is done a lot, but not really correct. I won't go into details about this, since it is a completely different topic). 今天，午饭 is the topic of the sentence.

You can also say this as 今天的午饭，你吃什么了？

The second sentence is not really something you can use in written language, but people might say it in oral language, but they would say it like this 你午饭，今天吃什么了？  (added a comma). It still sounds quite awkward to me and certainly isn't standard usage, but I'm pretty sure some people would say it like this and others wouldn't look strange hearing this.

(I currently have no time, I'll extend this later).


Are the Asian girls in this music video Chinese or Malaysian, and are they singing in Chinese?

Quote:- "So, are they Malaysian or Chinese? And if they are Malaysian, why are they singing a Chinese song in Chinese?"

The girls are, in terms of nationality, Malaysians.

"...why are they singing a Chinese song in Chinese?"

To understand why this is so, you need to know a bit of history, otherwise you'll be quite confused as you are now.

Malaysia, (i.e. Peninsular Malaysia) was a former British colony which became an independent nation in 1957, and joined later by Singapore, Sabah & Sarawak, (i.e. British North Borneo), in the early-1960s to form Federation of Malaysia (Singapore left the Federation and became an independent city state in the mid-60s)

When Malaysia was a British colony, the British administrators imported, (the technical term was "indentured"), thousands of workers for their rubber plantations, tin mines, factories from China and colonial India. My Hakka grandfather, from Guangdong Province, was among them.

These early 18th, 19th Century wretchedly poor illiterate Chinese and Indian workers had to build Chinese and Indian vernacular schools and imported Chinese and Indian teachers from China and India to teach their children in order not to lose their "Chineseness and Indianness" A small number of these Chinese vernacular schools, (which gives Chinese medium education for the first 6 years), still exist today alongside the "National Type" schools where the medium of instruction is the Malay language.

So, the ethnic Chinese girls in the video obviously attended these vernacular schools for 6 years and "switched over" to the National Type schools for their "High School" education to learn more Malay and some English.

Here's a biodata of one of the girls.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=https://baike.baidu.com/item/%25E7%258E%258B%25E9%259B%25AA%25E6%2599%25B6&prev=search

Because of the country's colonial history, and the mass importation of Chinese workers principally from Guangdong and Fujian Provinces, the ethnic chinese population, numbering at present about 10% of the total population, (in a total population of about 32 odd million), could speak at least one Chinese dialect, mandarin, Malay and English. I myself in my old household had to speak Cantonese with my mother, Hakka with my grandfather and my English educated father in English.

The video is obviously shot on location somewhere in China and judging from the "deserted" streets and buildings in the background, it was obviously a purpose-built movie set to film period movies.

The "中国上海东海影视乐团" was merely the name of the orchestra. (it wouldn't make economic sense to bring a whole orchestra from Malaysia to China to shoot a music video.


What is the difference sound between zi and ze?

Adding to Colins's answer, in IPA, zi is /t͡sz̩/ (basically tszzz), and ze is /t͡sɤ/ (tse).


Can anyone read Seal Script? I'm completely stuck

The characters in the following transcriptions are given at their original positions in the images. Please be aware of the directionality when reading these characters, which is generally from top to bottom, right to left.

  庭植, artist's self-styled pseudonym.

  Artist's real name. Three characters only:

  Right hand character is 「呉」 re-interpreted into a (non-standard?) seal script shape.「呉」is a variant of「吳」.
  Top left is 「東」.
  Bottom left is too hard to see, although the two seals are probably identical to

  in which case the character is 「槐」.

  Thanks to @水巷孑蠻 who found these seals here, which record the name of a Qing Dynasty artist 吳東槐.

  水青三冠徑

  中山成㬜（＝天，㬜＝晉）

  分外半古代

  白二落丠衣（丠＝丘）

  Note that I would consider this a non-standard way of writing「白」(bottom left-hand corner). This is equivalent to writing「自」and omitting one of the horizontal lines, but「白」and「自」are from completely different glyph origins.

  Calligrapher:

  伊

  索

  涭

  (uncertain; corrections welcome)

This is part of the Tang Dynasty poem by Li Bai, given below:

  唐・李白《登金陵鳳凰臺》

  鳳凰臺上鳳凰遊，

  鳳去臺空江自流。

  吳宮花草埋幽徑，

  晉代衣冠成古丘。

  三山半落青天外，

  二水中分白鷺洲。

  總爲浮雲能蔽日，

  長安不見使人愁。


Woo6-yi5
户珥

From this pdf pg. 14 户珥 is pronounced Woo6-yi5 (Jyutping should be something like: Wu6-ji5).


Is Cantonese a better choice in studying classic of poetry (詩經)?

Cantonese might preserve more sound distinctions than Mandarin, but they're both derived (as are most, though not all, modern dialects) from Middle Chinese.

The current consensus, arrived at slowly over decades, appears to be that Old Chinese was toneless; this doesn't mean that predecessors of the entering "tone" didn't exist, but there were more endings than the -p, -t, -k that are currently retained by various dialects.  It had many more consonant distinctions, which over time were replaced by tone contour in Middle Chinese and all subsequent dialects (including the Min dialects, which are not derived directly from Middle Chinese).

It is certainly the case that if you read 詩經 in Mandarin, you will lose many of the rhymes and other phonetic consonances.  Probably, if you read it in Cantonese, you will lose fewer, though not all.  But in neither case will you hear it the way it was originally pronounced.  None of Old Chinese is directly attested, not even in the fanqie way that Middle Chinese was, so we don't even know for sure what the phonetic realizations were (although we have a generally good idea of what the phonemic distinctions were).  But it almost surely had initial and final consonant clusters that no modern dialect retains.

Some good references in this area are Axel Schuessler's ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, and William Baxter and Laurent Sagart's Old Chinese.  The latter even has a discussion of the effects of phonetic evolution on the pronunciation and rhymes of old poetry, and the authors are of course responsible for one of the prominent reconstructions of Old Chinese in recent memory.


What is the subtle difference between 志愿, 意愿, and 心愿?

Consider, in English, a single word can have more than one meaning, and two different words may have a function overlapped.
For example:

'Goal' can be replaced by 'wish' in some instances - e.g. "My Goal(wish) is to become a doctor"

'Dream' can be replaced by 'wish' in some instances - e.g. " My Dream(wish) is to become a doctor"

'Will' can be replaced by 'wish' in some instances - e.g. " To become a doctor is my will(wish)"

As for the difference between 志愿, 意愿 and 心愿

志愿 mainly mean: Goal; Dream

意愿 mainly mean: Will; Desire

心愿 mainly mean: Desire; Wish

All three above can mean 'Wish'

我的志愿（愿望）是成为一名医生 - My goal (wish) is to become a doctor
我的意愿（愿望）是成为一名医生 - My will (wish) is to become a doctor
我的心愿（愿望）是成为一名医生 - My desire (wish) is to become a doctor

The important thing is, it all depends on the context.
The best term for "Wish" in "What is your birthday wish?" is '愿望'  As in "你的生日愿望是什么"
Yes, 愿望 mainly mean 'wish' (n) but in some instances, you can translate it to 'desire, hope or dream'
Some more tips:

Use 志愿 if the wish is also an achievable goal (志 means goal, 志愿 = a wish you aim to achieve)
Use 意愿 if the wish is a determined one (意 means mind, 意愿 = a wish you have made up your mind to fulfill)
Use 心愿 if the wish is also a deep desire or a life long dream (心 means heart, 心愿 = a wish comes from your heart)


形式，样式 and 方式 - appearance, style, form, shape...?

According to dictionary owned by Ministry of Education in Taiwan.

形式 can mean:

  文學作品上指作品外在的體式。

(Format of literature.)

  抽象或具體的事物，其形態的直接表現或組成。

(The way of how abstract or concrete things show directly or constitution.)

樣式 can mean:

  樣子、形式。

(How does things look like, The way it show directly or constitution.)

方式 can mean:

  說話或做事時所採行的一定方法、模式。

(The way of how to do things.)


What software can check for grammar mistakes?

There is NO software that can check Chinese grammar mistakes with satisfactory results.

Automatic grammar analysis is hard. We cannot even get satisfactory result in word segmentation. (Well, this is the story in research field)

Microsoft Word has the functionality of spelling and grammar check for Chinese (it may not be installed by default in non-Chinese versions). In my opinion, the result can be far from satisfactory though.

I don't know if there is any software developed for Language Study that has this functionality.


http://www.zdic.net/z/1a/xs/6240.htm

  ◎ 所 suǒ

  〈助〉

  (1) 表示结构 [used before a verb or a V-C construction together with 被 or
  为 to indicate the passive voice]

For translation, you could just ignore it:

In the end covered up by dirty things again.


yes, there is a way to tell the two apart.

惊讶 is mostly used as an adjective, like 惊讶的表情 which means 'a surprising face look'.
吃惊 is used as the same as 'be surprised', for example 我吃了一惊 which means 'I was surprised'.


There is no 「虫」 (venomous snake; insect) in the character, that is an abbreviation used in Simplified Chinese. The orthodox character is 「獨」.

「獨」 is made up of semantic 「犬・犭」 (dog > beast) and phonetic 「蜀」 (Mandarin Pinyin: shǔ, Li Fang-Kuei OC: /*djuk/), originally representing the name of a mythical beast. From the Classic of Mountains and Seas: Classic of the Mountains: North:

《山海經・北山經・北次二經》
……曰北嚻之山，無石，其陽多碧，其陰多玉。有獸焉，其狀如虎，而白身犬首，馬尾彘鬛，名曰獨。……
...It is called the Mountain of 北嚻. This mountain is without boulders; its southern side is abundant with green jade, and its northern side is abundant with nephrite. There is a beast in this mountain, shaped like a tiger with a white body; it has the head of a dog, tail of a horse, and neck-bristles of a boar. Its name is 「獨」...

「獨」 were two characters created specifically to represent the name of this beast (Mandarin Pinyin: dú gǔ, Li Fang-Kuei OC: /*duk kuk/), which consists of two reduplicated syllables.

The meaning alone, solitary for the character 「獨」 is a rebus borrowing for this word; there were other borrowed characters for this word in the pre-Qín era, most prominently

「蜀」 itself;
「鹿」

References:

《王力古漢語字典》
先秦甲骨金文簡牘詞彙資料庫
小學堂上古音


How to distinguish two words the same pronunciation but different meaning (gāo jià)

As a Chinese native speaker, I use contextual information to distinguish them while listening. It's very common.

Different tones also used to distinguish them. Same pronunciation and same tone is not very common in different Chinese phrase.

Every Chinese pronunciation has many different characters, so you can easily distinguish them by their shapes while reading.


What is the word in majiang equivalent to suits in cards?

The measure word for 饼、条、万 is called 门, which literally means 'department; division; faction'.

Example usage:

  ……序数牌……分“筒子/饼”、“索子/条”、“万子/万”三门，每门有序数从一至九的牌各四张。(from wikipedia)

An alternative measure word is (花)色, which literally means color/pattern. 色 is also widely used.

When talking about the abstract concept of 'suit' in Mahjong, per my own experience 门 is more common, although 色 is perfectly fine too. There might be regional differences though.

When it comes to specific Mahjong terminologies like 清一色 or 一色三步高, those are set phrases in which 色 should not be replaced by 门.


The words "的" for adjectives or "地" for adverbs are optional. e.g. 快速上升 = 快速地上升 (ascend rapidly), 聪明人 = 聪明的人 (clever man). Ancient Chinese didn't have these conjunctions/sometimes used other conjunctions(e.g. 然). You might treat the version without these conjunctions as a bit more formal/written, but that's not always the case. Either version is perfectly understandable/acceptable to people.


[...] after reading my grammar notebook, I think that 的 belongs to "是...的" structure, though 是 is omitted in this sentence. Take a look at [this resource] and focus on the part of "Position of 的". It is said that 的 can be put between the verb and the object.

Your grammar notebook  correctly addressed the use of 的 in your example.
Compare to 我(是)七点到的学校,  我(是)5点下的班，etc.
Those are often heard in day-to-day conversations.
Here is more quote from dictionary definition:

（用在谓语动词后面， 强调动作的施事者、时间、地点等）:

I made the sketch; he filled in the colours.
是我打的稿子， 他上的色。
It was the year before last that he went to Xizang [Tibet].
他前年去的西藏。


As @YuiTo Cheng 's link

煙:

The gas produced when a substance burns. Examples: cooking smoke,soot.
The black ash condensed by the smoke produced by the burning of things which is often used to make ink.
Moisture, like water between mountains and rivers. Examples : clouds,  smoke.
Especially opium. Examples: opium smoke.

菸:

A plant name. Solanaceae, an annual herb. Its leaf is the material for making cigarettes.

Conclusion:

    Related to tobacco, use "菸"

    Such as: cigarettes, tobacco, tobacco leaves, tobacco wine. "香菸、菸草、菸葉、菸酒"

    Related to opium and drugs, or burning something without cigarette, use "煙"

    Such as: smoking halls, smoke ghosts, smoke poisons, clouds.
"煙館、煙鬼、煙毒、雲煙"


If you have London accent, it means, you have London 口音. it is nature.-----
If you talk like a manager, it means, you have manager 腔调, i.e. you want to command others, you have no accent, but you have 腔调.


are these words commonly used？：很好 、极好 、非常好 、相当好 、特别好 、十分好、极其好

Let's forget about '好', you can replace it with any other adjective. Your question is about the difference between superlatives
很 = is; very
极 = very; extremely
非常 = very; extraordinarily
相当 = quite; very
特別 = very; especially
十分 = very (fully)
极其, 极之 (more colloquial) are the same as 極 (more literary)
Examples:
她的成绩很好 = her grade is good/ her grade is very good
她的成绩极好 = her grade is very good/ her grade is extremely good
她的成绩相当好 = her grade is quite good/ her grade is very good
她的成绩特别好 = her grade is very good/ her grade is especially good
她的成绩十分好 = her grade is very good
More examples:
他跑得很快 = he runs fast/ he runs very fast
他跑得极快 = he runs very fast/ he runs extremely fast
他跑得相当快 = he runs quite fast/ he runs very fast
他跑得特别快 = he runs very fast/ he runs especially fast
他跑得十分快 = he runs very fast


Why Is 浜 (bīn) Used So Much In Panda Names?

They are not so popular in China. However, a lot of pandas are born in Japan, where they are named with the character 浜. It's probably due to the name of the Shirahama zoo (Adventure World, 白浜野生动物园, アドベンチャーワールド) where they are born.


播放列表 and 歌单 are both okay.

It's been translated as 播放列表 for long because of the early version of Microsoft Windows Media Player and other old players. You can tell that 播放列表 is directly translated because “play“ means 播放 and “list“ means 列表。

In 歌单， 单 is equal to 列表， and 歌 means the music that you wanna listen to. While in Chinese, 歌 mostly refers to the music with lyrics and that might be too narrow in meaning for there mignt be classical music without lyrics in your playlist. That's why I prefer 播放列表 to 歌单. The former has the more exact meaning.

Nowadays the people who listen to the music without lyrics are much less than people who listen to 歌， so 歌单 is also widely accepted and used by the public and sometimes replaces 播放列表. What's more, the word 歌单 is much shorter than 播放列表. I guess that also makes it more popular.


Does Chinese have an equivalent to Arabic-style praising grammar (translates to 褒贬句)?

There isn't a certain structure of praising or disparaging something in Chinese actually. The meaning of a Chinese sentence is all about the words it uses.

If simply expressing approving/disapproving attitude, we may just use 很好/不好（很壞）as below:

-XXX很好
誠信很好

-XXX不好
說謊不好

More naturally, we should append a category noun and use 是 structure:

-誠信是好品質

-說謊是壞行為

Apart from basic 好/壞, in daily life we use various words to show approval/disapproval:

-誠信乃万善之始

-說謊應遭人唾棄

However, words having similar meanings can be distinguished according to their 褒貶色彩. E.g. 深謀遠慮（褒） 老謀深算（中） 深奸巨滑（貶）. And when we use it, the attitude is conveyed by choosing the word itself. I try to write a paragraph and use these kind of words as many as possible:

-以上十年，左右佞臣，肆奸植黨，掠脂斡肉，上下交征！今幸天易明主，國舉良相，深謀遠慮，雷厲風行，斬惡剷奸，還朝堂以清明，社稷以昇平。自此尸位素餐之徒，紛丟權柄，蠹國害民之輩，立撒頭顱。人心大快，莫過於此。


Basically, we would use 马上 to imply that I’m on my way.

We use 立刻，to imply “immediately”.

直接 means directly or straightforward.

For example, when I was a high school student, I was naughty and always made teachers mad at me, so they would ask me “go to the office after class immediately!” (That’s: 立刻来我办公室！in Chinese.)
 And I would reply 马上来，which means I’m on my way. So when I describe this story to my friends, I could say, 下课之后我直接去了办公室（I went to the office directly after class.)


Yes, it is.
In Chinese, dependent sentences are not so common, and most phrases could be used as adj. with '的'.

e.g. "这是一个已经关闭了20年的港口"

Otherwise, you could also start another sentence to describe the meaning in 'which' clause, which could be separated by comma.

另外，你也可以用另外一句话来表述'which'从句中的意思，这一句跟前一句可以用逗号分开。


Colour code characters according to tone on iPhone/Android

This is not possible with existing products. You'd need a special input method, like the Multiling Keyboard, that would specifically format the input. There are a few difficulties with this:

Many hanzi have multiple tones. Which one to pick? To be (possibly, but never 100%) accurate, you'd need a dictionary. Which means the input method would have to backtrack when the tone of the first character changes tone.
WeChat doesn't allow colour formatting. So your new input method won't be able to colour the text anyway.

In WeChat's web interface, one might be able to develop a Chrome extension that reads all messages, and colours them. That wouldn't be that hard, but I expect it would be time consuming, and resource hungry.

EDIT

After giving it some thought, here is what I think would required:

The CEDICT dictionary. Probably edited to fit a database.
Alternatively, if you only care about character tones, a database based on Unihan.
Some Javascript and jQuery to lookup the messages and color them.

Something like this [I am using Cantonese tones as I am much more comfortable with them]:

VERY COARSE CODE

var db={};
db["行"]=4;
db["有"]=5;
db["人"]=4;
db["嗎"]=3;

var myColors= new Array("nil", "#FF0000", "#00FF00", "#0000FF", "#FFFF00", "#00FFFF", "#FF00FF");

for (n in x) {
  myString="";
  if(x.hasOwnProperty(n)) {
    if(x[n].innerText!=undefined) {
      s=x[n].innerText;
      console.log(n, s);
      j=s.length;
      for(i=0; i<j; i++) {
        z=s.charAt(i);
        t=myColors[db[z]];
        console.log(" .",z, t);
        if(t!=undefined) {
          myString+=""+z+"";
        } else {
          myString+=z;
        }
      }
      x[n].innerHTML=myString;
    }
  }
}


When submitting forms on the web, you often click a button label 'submit'. I was wondering how to express the word 'submit' in chinese

The answers are 提交 and 更新, respectively. FYI, I am a native speaker with enough knowledge of IT terminology.


In 我只是为了让你觉得我在关心你，然后以此在逃避, who is escaping? Does it refer to an escape route?

You are almost there.

  我只是为了让你觉得我在关心你，然后以此在逃避

I just want you to think I care about you,
and use this(refer the act"you think I care about you" or "I care about you", both could be right. Can not know since the information is not given)

to escape(from something. [Escape from what? it's not given]).


How to say "Problem Management" as a profession in Chinese?

It is the 主管/ 经理 (supervisor/ manager)'s job to manage problems. If your job is to provide solutions to solve problems for the company, but don't have the power of a supervisor, then you would be a  问题管理顾问 (Problem Management Consultant) or 问题管理专家 (Problem Management Specialist)


Chinese names for zeptoseconds and yoctoseconds

Zeptoseconds = 仄普托秒 / 仄秒 / (Taiwan Guoyu: 介秒)

仄（仄普托）= zepto-

Yoctoseconds = 幺科托秒 / 幺秒 / (Taiwan Guoyu: 攸秒)

幺（幺科托） = yocto-

The shortened forms, i.e.: 仄秒 & 幺秒 are probably more accessible than their long forms.

You can check out this Metric SI Prefixes Table in Chinese for even more details. Heres a quick and dirty current screen grab for reference:


Is the cantonese expression 五福臨門 present in Mandarin too?

Of course it exists in Mandarin. I didn't know it is a Cantonese expression. Maybe it should be just "Chinese expression".

I cannot answer whether the meaning are the same. I don't know Cantonese. But I think the meaning should be the same in Cantonese and Mandarin.

"五福" comes form 《尚书·洪范》:

  五福：一曰寿，二曰富，三曰康宁，四曰攸(yōu)好(hào)德，五曰考终命。

which are long life, being rich, being healthy, clement, having a peaceful end (death). It may or may not be related to the number meaning of five, I don't know. Maybe the original author picked five because five is a good number.

And currently, most Chinese cannot list what "五福" are, though "五福临门" is commonly used.


Radical Pronunciation - Helpful to Learn?

To answer your question, I think the answer is no.

Learning radicals is indeed a good idea to improve your character recognition (and also remember them better, for writing).

For example, knowing that the character 想 is composed of three radicals (tree, eye and heart) is useful if you study its etymology/origin or if you want to create your own mnemonic to remember this character.
It makes more sense than remembering the strokes individually.

However, knowing how to pronounce those radicals does not help to achieve this goal. And as you've mentioned, their pronunciation is sometimes tricky. I think you're just find with remembering the radicals by their actual meaning.

That being said, any knowledge is still valuable, and knowing the pronunciation of radicals has the advantage to allow you to have conversations about radicals with Chinese speakers.
I personally never learnt those pronunciation, and my level in Chinese is very close to native speaker. And every time I ask details about a character to Chinese friends, I'm struggling when they tell me that it's composed of radicals X or Y!

Hope that answers your question!
Wish you pleasure and success in your studies.


What are the characters on this seal? (Characters identified: 李濟懋印)

As the other answer stated, the characters are 李濟懋印.

Approximate idea of character development - this may not be strictly how the characters evolved over the years.

李

  「李」(originally a kind of fruit > plum, Baxter-Sagart OC: /*C.rəʔ/) is comprised of

  「木」, a semantic component, reinterpreted from「來」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*mə.rˤək/, /*mə.rˤək/), a phonetic component;
  「子」, a semantic component.

  「木」is relatively similar in appearance to its regular script counterpart.

  「子」originally depicted a baby or child, which is its original meaning.

  商甲甲2262合集22484

  This form directly leads on to its seal script shape. Compared with an adult human「大」, the child's head is emphasised and legs are de-emphasised.

  商甲甲387合集22421

濟

  「濟」(originally to cross a river) is comprised of

  「氵/水」, a semantic component, explanation given here;
  「齊」, a phonetic component.

  What「齊」exactly depicted is not universally agreed upon. However, most sources agree that it was originally comprised of three of some kind of plant:

  商甲前2.15.3合集36493

  The primary attested meanings are even, alike, level.

  Later on, decorative marks in the shape of「＝」were added on:

  戰國金陳侯因⿱次月敦集成4649

  The bottom two plants then had their stalks extended, leading on to the seal script shape:

  秦篆咸陽瓦

懋

  「懋」(diligent, hard-working; used as a name) is comprised of

  「楙」, a phonetic component;
  「心」, a semantic component.

  「楙」(quince; sometimes interchanged with「茂」flourishing) is comprised of

  「林」, a semantic component;
  「矛」, a phonetic component.

  An ancient variant of「懋」did not include「林」:

  商甲京都2062合集29004隷定

  The top component is often seen as the oldest form of「矛」. Later individual appearances of「矛」clearly depicts a long spear or pike with a curved handle:

  西周金⿹戈冬簋集成4322

  The head of the weapon and the handle was subject to shape corruption, e.g. into three「刀」:

  楚簡秦家嘴1.5

  Further stylising from similar shapes leads to

  秦簡睡ㆍ法85　篆說文解字

  the latter of which is the seal script form found in the photo.

  「心」depicts a heart:

  商甲甲3510合集6

  Later on, the chambers of the heart were exaggerated, and the shape became more stylised:

  西周金史墻盤集成10175楚簡包2.218　篆說文解字

  Unfortunately, the shape for「心」in the photo is exceedingly uncommon and difficult to recognise. All common forms of「心」have curves which open at the top, not closed like in the photo. This situation happens very frequently in deciphering characters in seals and calligraphy pieces, and at this point other methods will have to be used to determine the entire character. Two possible methods are:

  Use a handwriting recognition tool to write the known components (well) and an approximation of the unknown component, e.g. in Pleco:

  Use Ideographic Description Characters or similar decomposition methods in a search engine:

  The most viable candidates are「壄」(variant of「野」) and「懋」. Google search also reveals that "李濟懋" is an actual name, unlike "李濟壄", which should increase confidence that the character is「懋」.

  If the above process is not satisfactory, we can go further and look for variants of similar shapes in a comprehensive site like 教育部異體字字典.

印

  「印」depicts a hand「」pressing down on a kneeling person「卩」, which is also its composition.

  商甲乙112合集22148

  The relative proportions and positions of the hand and person have changed throughout history. A bronze script form which looks similar to the photo is:

  西周金毛公鼎
  集成2841


Grammar structure for "which do you like more?" questions

Grammar structure for [like A more than B]

insert "多過" (more than) between object A and object B:

[妳喜歡中國菜][多過][日本菜] = [you like Chinese food] [more than ][Japanese food]

I think it is the "cleanest" grammar structure you are looking for, to express "[(verb)(object A) (more than) (object B)]"
The verb act on both object A  and object B.  Therefore, we don't need to repeat the verb for object B. As in "[妳喜歡中國菜][多過][(喜歡  )日本菜]"
~

Topic and opinion structure:

[Compare to object B] as a topic
[like object A more] as the opinion
[比起日本菜], [我][更喜歡中國菜]= [compare to  Japanese food] [I] [like Chinese food more]

更 short for 更為. You can replace 更 with 較, which in term is short for 較為


招待人 for "host" of guests or visitors (e.g., our "host" was kind)?

主人

Tuttle

  N

  1
  host (antonym 客人 kèren)

  客人都来了, 主人呢?
  Kèren dōu lái le, zhǔrén ne?
  The guests have all arrived, but where is the host?

As a verb you can try 做东 aswell.

Words.HK

  動詞
  作為主人家招待客人
  to be the host

  你嚟我屋企, 我做東。
  nei5 lai4 ngo5 uk1 kei2, ngo5 zou6 dung1.
  Come to my house, I will be the host.

Both work in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Kind and hospitable host I would translate like:

做东做得友好又大方


When can a classifier be omitted? E.g. in 一女子跟着自己的包进了安检机

IMO, 一女子 can mean "there's one woman"， 有一名女子 or 某女子. The measure word can be omitted only when the number is one 一. We don't usually say 两女子，三女子， and we say 两名女子，三名女子 instead.

More examples: 一小孩 == 一个小孩; 一老人 == 一个老人; 买一玩具 == 买一个玩具;

However, I wouldn't suggest such omissions since the rule might not work very well for all the noun words. We'd better add the measure word and it will work all the time.


Words for acronym, initialism and abbreviation

缩 in 缩写 means "to condense/ to contract"

Acronym and initialism are both (首字母)缩写. (contracting a phrase using the first alphabet of each word in the phrase)
聯邦調查局 (Federal Bureau of Investigation) 的 (首字母)缩写 是 FBI

中央情報局 (Central Intelligence Agency) 的 (首字母)缩写 是 CIA

abbreviation is (字句)缩写 (abbreviate a phrase by omitting some part of it) ; 簡化; 簡稱

Example:

中央情報局 簡稱 中情局 (the abbreviation of 中央情報局 is 中情局)
美國 其實是 阿美利堅合眾國 的簡稱 (America is actually the abbreviation of United States of America)
阿美利堅合眾國 (United States of America) 的 (首字母)缩写 是 USA

The difference between acronym and initialism is,  you can read acronym as one word e.g. Mothers Against Drunk-driving = MAD. But you read each alphabet in an initialism

Basically 缩写 is a correct translation of all three terms


显然这出自一篇网文（玄幻或武侠之类）。惊鸿即为受惊而翀的鸿雁，“翩若惊鸿”就是盛赞洛神之体态轻盈。言归正传，这里就是一类仙侠玄幻小说常用设定罢了——此剑既唤作 惊鸿剑，就真的能够化为惊鸿了。或是极言其变换移形之迅捷，好突出它的厉害。事实上，随便用其他的意象也无妨。换成“化为一闪电光”之类的也可以。

“道”自然是量词，但是属于“创意性的用法”。“一道”什么，首先令人想到的就是闪电，这样更加表现了剑之莅飒。在文学中，量词的运用可以带来感官的变化。比如在我所给的句子中“一闪电光”同样用了一个不寻常的字眼来作量词，是一个道理。

This quote looks like it comes from a type of web novel (specifically fantasy stories of martial arts, righteous warriors, and immortal sages).

「惊鸿」refers to a swan goose「鸿」which flies straight upwards (like a missile/jet) whenever it gets startled「惊」, and harks back to the idiom「翩若惊鸿」, which is an old chengyu describing the graceful body figure and mannerisms of immortal beauties.

In this context, the novel has set the usage of the word「惊鸿」. Either this sword being called「惊鸿剑」can really transform into a「惊鸿」, or「惊鸿」is a metaphor for its powers, or「惊鸿」is just one of its powers. Describing the sword as being able to transform into a lightning bolt gives much the same imagery.

「道」is a measure word, but its use here is innovative.「一道X」gives an impression of a flash of lightning, highlighting the swiftness and nimbleness of a sword's motion. In literature, a measure word (that may be different from expected) may be used to bring out some special features of the object measured for the audience. For example, I could use the word「闪」to measure occurrences of lightning.


The pronunciation shān is only really used in certain compound words:

光栅/光柵, a diffraction grating used in optics.
栅极/柵極, the grid of a vacuum tube or the gate of a transistor.

The Taiwan standard uses zhà for both even in this context.

Apparently, it also has another pronunciation, cè, for certain placenames in Zhongshan, Guangdong.


Is it correct to introduce yourself as "我是 name"

From a grammatical point of view your sentence is correct. The pattern 我是 + name is a casual way of introducing yourself. Personally I heard that a lot.
However, in formal situations using the pattern 我叫 + name is probably the best option.

Like user3a said, I think it's true that the structure 我是 + name implies that the focus is on 我, whereas in a sentence experessed in the form 我叫 + name it is your name that receives the focus.


There are lots of words that can be both verb and noun. As you said， 姓 is one of them. I don't have a full list for all of them.

As for 吃， most of time it's a verb.

In 我要吃, 吃 is a verb. To be more clear, you can put a target for it, like 我要吃饭；我要吃水果； etc.

这个吃很好 is unnatural. It should be 这个很好吃. 很好 is an adverb modifying the verb 吃.

One case in which 吃 is used as a noun is 口吃，meaning stutter.


Help me finish translating this song 《失眠飞行》-接个吻，开一枪/沉以试/薛明媛

There are limitations to this "word-by-word" or "syllable-by-syllable" approach, some of which you're encountering already with the parts you've had difficulty with. Chinese word formation, grammar, and so on don't usually map very directly onto English equivalents.
Also, I strongly recommend working from the characters in addition to the pinyin, even if you're not learning the characters yet. That way, you won't come across extremely common words such as 那 ("that") and not know what they are (哪？拿？纳？).
You can always use browser extensions such as Chrome Zhongwen plugin to get the pinyin, or run the whole thing through a characters-to-pinyin converter so you can have both side-by-side.
If you're serious about learning Chinese, you should also never use pinyin without tones. Tones aren't typically used in singing, but they are still an integral part of the pronunciation. It's said that a wrong tone causes about as much ambiguity as a wrong vowel. This may be surprising, given that they're omitted in songs, but you can consider it as being similar to how Creed songs exchange every vowel for "HEYYEEEAUGH".

That's right: In Chinese, every song is a Creed song.

With all that out of the way, here are the parts you asked about (and a couple you didn't):

低空 low altitude (not just "low"). 空 is literally "space" or "air".
不如... it would be better to...
坠入 fall into
转晴 (Of weather) to become clearer
又 again + 过了 past = 又过了...的时间 once again, it is past the time to...
人海 literally "people sea", but actually means "crowd"
路过 to go (e.g. walk, drive) past
那家 that (家 is a classifier, not sure why you have it as "the" - Chinese doesn't have articles such as "the" or "a")
说出口 to speak aloud (e.g. something one has been thinking about for a long time)
写着 to write
里 in, inside. ...的时间里 during the time that ...
床头 here it means something like "at the bedside"
黑了眼圈 blacken one's eyes - this is a reference to staying up late and getting dark circles around the eyes, not domestic violence or goth makeup
穿过格林威治 I think it's just a cute way of saying travel a long distance, through lots of different time zones. "Greenwich Mean Time" is another name for UTC+0 time zone. For comparison, China is UTC+8


Standardisation of place names in Chinese

Different regions governed by different governments. Translations in Taiwan usually doesn't follow Chinese Mainland

Different regions have different dialects. A transliteration in Mandarin might sound completely different in Cantonese

We still don't have a complete Standardization of place names in the Chinese language.
If a foreign country declares its official Chinese transliteration, it will be the standard, If a foreign country doesn't declare its official Chinese transliteration, then it is up to the Chhinese regional governments to decide


Take away (when ordering food): is it 带走 or 打包?

In my experience (Beijing), 带走 means take away or take out. 打包 means you want a doggy bag.
Update: As a result of further observation, I've found that both 带走 and 打包 mean take away. However, if you want a doggy bag you would probably say 打包.


100% = 絕對，肯定，一定 (definitely)
80 - 90% = 應該 (most likely/ probably)
70 - 90% = 多數  (most likely)
60 - 90% = 大慨 (probably)
60 - 80% = 極可能，很可能 (very likely)
1 - 50% = 有可能 (possible)，或者，也许，說不定 (maybe)


Is my interpretation of "向右往后勾提。至甲势已背时" correct in the context of Tai Chi?

first of all

a two-person push hands sequence

the mentioned verse is of sparring (散手), not push hand (推手)

甲 is the left man, grey cloth; 乙 is the right one, white cloth

乙被掤・乘勢含胸拔背・向右轉腰坐腿・右手刁住甲右腕・向右往後勾提・至甲勢已背時・右手按甲右腕・同時左手按擊甲右肩

[乙’s ] right hand stick with 甲’s right wrist (右手刁住甲右腕)
towards 乙’s right and aft [向右往後], connected [hand and wrists] (勾), slightly upward (提); till (至) the moment that 甲’s posture (勢) shows his back (背)
the hidden message is: 乙’s wrist, arm moves according to the turning of waist and shifting centre of gravity (轉腰坐腿)

as "Face to the right and shift back, drawing out the force from #1's back until none is left."

Does my translation of "勾提“ make sense in this context

nice try  well, i’m sorry to say, no.
btw, here’s a wordpress page, you may find helpful info:
https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/taiji-two-person-sparring-set-taiji-san-shou-dui-da/
have fun :)


I made mention of this on my answer to a different question here (which I'll repeat here for your benefit): https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/890/166

In general, adjectives in Chinese do not need to have 很 to be used predicatively (and thus 很 is not be considered a copula); however the lack of 很 gives the implication of contrast by default. Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington explains it in this way:

  The presence of these degree adverbs and complements removes any implication of contrast that is latent in an unmarked predicative adjective.

  If somebody says:

    这本字典好。 zhèi běn zìdiǎn hǎo. This dictionary is good.

  the speaker must be understood to be implying that some other dictionary is not as good as this one. In fact the degree verb 很 hěn 'very', unless it is emphasised, does not really mean 'very', and its integration into adjectival predicative is more often than not to counteract an implication of contrast.


I believe they are almost interchangeable.

  新型建筑 新式建筑

  新型计算机 新式计算机

  新型设计 新式设计

  新型武器 新式武器

  新型手机 新式手机

A little concern is that 新型 is primarily for things that does have a 型/型号.

For example， most digital devices and most industrial products always have 型/型号. So 新型 and 新式 are both good for them.

On the other side, most art-related products have only aesthetic concerns and have no specific 型/型号. 新式 could be better here.

  新式服装 新型服装？

  新式婚礼 新型婚礼？

  新式歌曲 新型歌曲？

  新式糕点 新型糕点？

  新式化妆 新型化妆？

Still, I re-point out that, to a native speaker like me, they are almost the same and interchangeable.


How do you say "to get back at someone"? Is it 找晦氣 or 找負氣?

找晦氣 is correct.

你得罪咗佢，佢实找你晦气[你得罪了他，他一定会来报复的] 。


Are there standard dictionaries for Chinese?

Yes. For Mandarin (Simplified Chinese):

The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (现代汉语词典): This one is for words and phrases. They have a version in both Chinese and English.

Xinhua Dictionary (新华字典): this is for Chinese characters. Also available in both English and Chinese.

I'm not too familiar with traditional dictionaries. But 國語日報辭典 seems pretty popular from googling around.


How do you say 'I hope you got to know a little more about me'

希望 (hope) 你们 (you) 对我 (to me) 有了 (have) 更多的 (more) 了解 (understanding)

xī wàng nǐ men duì wǒ yǒu le gèng duō de liǎo jiě


What does 你就是个托 mean, which 文佳佳 yells at Frank in the movie 北京遇上西雅图 (Finding Mr. Right)?

In this context, "托" means the person who pretend to involve an activity or to support someone to perform a scam typically.
It is related to 衬托, but derogatory sense only.


In your example, "玩得转" means "Trump's method is widely accepted in the United States, so his plan was very successful ".

"玩转" often means "do sth. well" or "understand sth. well"

Example: How to take photographs well(如何玩转摄影)

Let you understand all things about Shanghai well with me(带你玩转上海)

And it is a Internet slang!


How do I understand 的 in 因为广州的雨季下的那个雨真的是特别的大?

因为 广州的 雨季 下的 那个 雨 真的 是 特别的 大。

Only the 的 of 下的 can not be removed.
No. Because the 个 must be with 那. You can remove 那个 ,  or replace 下的那个 with a single 的.
Yes. 真的 means trully.
No. But you should know that the 的 is belong to 特别.


How did 舆论 come to represent Public Opinion?

Interesting question!

When I was a student, I was wondering why until I read a 词(Cí, a type of poery) by famous writer 辛弃疾(I really like reading his works). In that Ci, I read a sentence "百炼都成绕指，万事直须称好，人世几舆台", I got stuck with the word "舆台". The note said, "舆台“ meant "people at a lower rank". In ancient times, people were classified into 10 classes. The sixth class is 舆 and the tenth class is 台. So where does this word come from?

In the famous historical book 《左传》, in its section 《昭公七年》, it records a talk between two men, one says,

  天有十日，人有十等，下所以事上，上所以共神也。故王臣公，公臣大夫，大夫臣士，士臣皂，皂臣舆，舆臣隶，隶臣僚，僚臣仆，仆臣台，马有圉，牛有牧，以待百事。

This text shows the 10 classes are: 王(king), 公(duke),大夫，士，皂,舆,隶,僚,仆,台.

So 舆 could mean people who is at a lower rank, a member of grass-root. That's why “舆论" means “public opinion".


Can 上 always be used like English ” ” (i.e.: same as above)?

According to this kknews article (找薦004.疊字符/重字符這麼用，有沒有錯？), many variants were used for the iteration marks, including marks that were or looked like the following:

「S」
「々」
「匕」
「上」
「乙」
「=」

It goes on to state that what looks like「匕」is normally thought of as a result of rapid writing leading to graphical corruption, or degradation of the engraving medium (for steles). We know that「々」came from a variant of「同」, but the origin of「=」is conjecture without any hard evidence. It may be later surmised as「上」or「二」, but it is probably impossible to ever know.

BTW, if you search your copy of 躋春臺, it will have more examples of「匕」as the iteration mark.


you may consider "倘若", "假如", or "假使"

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000051670

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000089761

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000089751

but, the chinese language is "fuzzy", these terms do not absolutely indicate an untrue condition in the clause; they just merely imply such.


Is it acceptable to omit the main clause in 只要～ phrase?

Ah. I think the tone matters here ( from MY own perspective).
When we read 只要……就 sentence, you may perceive that the stress is on 只要…… part. We are emphasizing the condition and 就 part is not as strong as the condition （就 weakened the tone）.
However, here Kim Jong-un is making a  vow that North Korea will NEVER USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND ......, unless she is threatened by nuclear annihilation (this is more like a supplementary condition). So 就 is supposed to be omitted to enhance the momentum.
PS. You may let a native read the sentences with and without 就 for you and try to feel the subtle difference.
试比较：

只要你不在此捣乱，我（就）决不撵你出去。( There could be a 就，but I prefer not.)
只要你不在此捣乱，我就不会撵你出去。


剑膽琴心（膽:Traditional Chinese,=胆）          德峰书

  剑胆琴心/劍膽琴心：courage of a warrior and the soul of a musician; the gall-bladder of a sword and the heart of a lute.

This kind of work is used to describe and praise the people (especially the original owner or the author himself) who has both brave and lofty temperament/taste. It's something like 文武双全/文武雙全.


I believe the situation is more or less the same in all languages, that the language drifts across generations. Whereas you could easily communicate with Isaac Newton, it would be a little more difficult to do with Shakespeare, and more so with Chaucer. When you get to Richard Lionheart and earlier (say, the times of Beowulf), you can just forget any meaningful exchange of ideas.

As for Mandarin, you could speak perfectly well with late Qing people, although they would still retain tones that are now forgotten. Going back to Cao Xueqin's time (1700s), you would still be able to discern most of the vernacular used, just like you can read 红楼梦 without too much trouble. But you would get progressively lost talking to Su Dongpo and Princess Wencheng of Tang, they would speak a completely different language.

The thing with Chinese, though, is that you could still exchange ideas in writing with these people.


As a noun, both 朋 and 友 mean friends. While 朋 is mostly a noun, 友 is often be used as an adjective for 'friendly, ' as in '友軍'(friendly force); '友方'(friendly side)
友 can also be a verb for 'befriend' in classical sentences.
To find the subtle difference between two characters with similar meaning in a compound word, like 朋友，you can observe the other compound words they associate with.
Examples:

朋比為奸  friends collude in criminal acts
朋黨 circle (of friends); alliance (of friends)

The phrases above show 朋 emphasis on the 'closeness' and  'alliance' between  friends

友善 (friendly), 友好 (friendly), 友愛 (friendship), 友誼 (friendship)

The phrases above, show 友 emphasis on the ' fondness' and 'emotional tie'  between friends'


This question is more advanced.

--

In short,

魂 is more related to the 陽 Yang side (the male, the bright, the sun side) of the spirit or soul.

魄 is more related to the 陰 Yin side (the female, the dark, the moon side) of the spirit or soul.

--

You may find the following texts valuable.

1) 道教原始的生命观认为，魂和魄一个属阴，一个属阳，一个主静，一个主动。阳魂就是思想，主动，是注意力，是对身体接触到外世界之后的第一反映，阴魄就是不变化的本源，主静，是对思想的承载，是一切万有的实质和内含。宇宙天地万物的总依赖。所以魂和魄之中，阴魄是体，阳魂为用。-- from www.zhihu.com/

2) 在中國哲學之中，魂魄陰陽對反，魂為陽性精氣，魄為陰性精氣

3) "Within this ancient soul dualism tradition, every living human has both a hun spiritual, ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, and also a po corporeal, substantive, yin soul which remains with the corpse of the deceased. Some controversy exists over the number of souls in a person; for instance, one of the traditions within Daoism proposes a soul structure of sanhunqipo 三魂七魄; that is, "three hun and seven po". The historian Yü Ying-shih describes hun and po as "two pivotal concepts that have been, and remain today, the key to understanding Chinese views of the human soul and the afterlife.""

4) If you know the Naruto story, the author also used the similar idea of 陰 Yin side and 陽 Yang side of souls as the two dual souls of the Nine Tail beast. See also the Yin-Yang release and more.


「硅」(Pinyin guī) is the Mainland Chinese word for silicon, while「矽」(Pinyin xī) is the Taiwan and Hong Kong word for silicon. This difference in the word for silicon transfers over to their respective names for Silicon Valley as well.

From Japanese Wikipedia; top character is PRC chemical element name, bottom character is Taiwan chemical name.

ランタノイド: Lanthanide series
アクチノイド: Actinide series

(Don't know why English and Chinese Wikipedia doesn't provide this naming difference periodic table between PRC and Taiwan)


Can someone explain the meaning of 都 in 我都說?

The speaker you're referring to has these subtitles following his speech:

  所以说真的, 我们每次学的时候, 难怪我都觉得说, 人家看我怪怪的。 我都说(something in Japanese),
  可是那个(something in Japanese)是女生的, 对不对？

What I'm actually hearing (I've double checked with speed 0.25) is this:

  所以说真的, 我每次学的时候, 难怪我都觉得人家看我的时候怪怪。 我都说(something in Japanese),
  可是那个(something in Japanese)是女生的, 对不对？

He speaks at a fast pace, which results in being not completely 标准 (standard), similar to English natives saying 'wanna' instead of want to.

What I hear might also be different from what he actually says, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Answer to your question:

The 都 in '我都说' (which is your question), means 'always'. The speaker doesn't say 每次, but that is exactly what he means. See here for expressing 'always' with 每次...都.

In addition to this, I would like to add to the answer of songyuanyao (I don't have enough reputation to comment).

都 means already, only in the structure: 都...了. See here for further explanation.


It is better to learn "到此为止" as one compound word.  For example, 今天的会议就到此为止吧. The meeting of today ends right now. "到此为止" implies that there may be more issues but will be handled next time. It is somehow different from 今天的会议开完了. The meeting of today completed now.

Also it is better to learn "是否就到此为止呢?" also as a whole phrase. This question implies its answer, such as, "显然不是!" Instead of a question, it is a way to emphasize the answer. In English, "Are these all of the problems? No, definitely not."

You also mentioned "until". That is a different usage. Such as "直到...为止. For example, "我们不能回家，直到把这个题目做完为止. We will not go home until the project is completed.


I know exactly the thing. There's a project on Wikimedia commons to document the substructure of characters in terms of other characters. I haven't spent much time with the data itself, so I can't tell you how complete it is, but it seems pretty good based on my experience with the Tatoeba character search tool that is based on the data. That tool allows you to "explode" characters into their components (e.g., 蝴 => 月虫...) or search for all characters with a particular component (e.g., 隹 => 倠傕傩...).

Another project to do something similar is Wenlin's database of characters in the Character Description Language. Here is Wenlin's page of resources on the CDL. I'm not really sure if you have to buy Wenlin in order to get at some data. Anyhow, it looks pretty awesome.

Best of luck in your endeavors! I've wanted to do something similar, but I've always been too busy. Make sure to tell us about the cool things you do with the data :-)


说明 is used as a noun word here, meaning 'illustration or explanation'.

So, 说明称 means 'say in her/his illustration/explanation'.

从一开始 means 'from the very beginning', while 从开始 means 'from the beginning'.


While learning Korean, is it a good idea to start learning Chinese in parallel?

I speak Chinese, Korean and Japanese and it's not the grammar but the vocabulary which is similar. I learnt Chinese first so expected Korean to be very alike due to reading that 60% of all Korean vocab comes from Chinese. I was shocked when I found Korean so alien but in truth it is similar - to Classical Chinese and not Mandarin. I started learning Cantonese recently and indeed the vocab is far more similar to that than Mandarin. E.g. 학 / 学 which is pronounced xué in Mando but hak in both Korean and Canto.  大 is dà in Mando but dae in both Korean and Canto so University is daehak in Korean and Canto but daxue 大学 in Mando. Learning Canto made Korean make more sense to me.

The other issue that I faced was the characters. Korean uses the traditional script so upon visiting Korea I was faced with not only Korean script but a multitude of shop names which they think look cool in the traditional Chinese script. So I was struggling with two scripts!

In general though, I've enjoyed learning them side by side as they do inevitably compliment each other, yet are different enough to not confuse you. I got to the stage of learning a new word in Mando and then looking up the word in Korean to see how similar it was. I learnt that all Chinese words in Korean work with 하다 to make them a verb so essentially all 하다 verbs are Chinese, e.g. To regret = 후회하다 / 后悔 hòu huî. It becomes quite fun!

Hope this helps!
Gareth


Mandarin version of "because of you" or "thanks to you"

多虧 means 'largely owe to' ; 全靠 means 'all depend on (thanks to)'

  What's the Mandarin equivalent of 全靠你?

Actually, 全靠你 can be used in both Cantonese and Mandarin

Similar to '全靠' are  '全仗' and '全賴' . All mean 'all depend on'

'全仗' and '全賴' are more literary; '全靠' is more colloquial


How do you say something is "very alcoholic"?

Per my understanding, alcoholic has two meanings in English:

(Something) contains or is related to alcohol.
(Someone) is addicted to alcohol or is affected by alcoholism.

For the first meaning, in Chinese we say 含有酒精的 or 酒精含量高的. E.g.

  Alcoholic drink 含酒精的饮品 or simply 酒精饮品

For the second, we use the word 酗酒(成性) (adj.) or 酗酒者/酒鬼 (noun).

  He is an alcoholic. 他酗酒成性 or 他是个酒鬼。

Regarding the Chinese phrases in your question,

酒精很强，很有酒精 means #1 but don't sound natural without context.

"酒量很高“ or ”酒量很大” means someone is good at drinking. 酒量 is not the short form of 酒精含量, but one word meaning 'the ability of a person to hold liquor'.


As @S.Rhee has pointed out, and IMHO, below are some issues with your translation:

影响 translates to "affect/influence".
安全 in this context translates to "security".
职责 translates better to "duties/obligations".
The second "that" modifying clause should modify 职责, not 国家安全情报.

A more accurate translation might be,

  "To carry out the other duties, as indicated by the President or the Director of National Intelligence, that are related to influencing the National Security Intelligence."


anaphrodisiac [ænˏæfrә`dIzIæk; ænˏæfrәˋdiziæk]

  <<形容詞>>adjective
  抑制性慾(欲)的; 鎮慾(欲)的

  <<名詞>>noun
  鎮慾(欲)藥; 制慾(欲)劑


How would you translate "He is somewhat tall?"

挺 /tǐng/ = quite; rather
If a man is 170 cm tall, he is of above-average height for a Chinese male (164.8 cm), and we can describe him as 挺高. But it is not that rare. On the other hand, a Chinese male over 190 cm tall has to be considered 很高
We only describe 姚明 as 很高 (very tall), never 挺高 (quite tall), I mean, he is really tall.
More example:
85% mark is 挺高分數 (quite a high mark - high but not rare); 95% is 很高分數 (a very high mark)

How would you translate “He is somewhat tall?”

他人挺高的 (he is quite tall)


How can I distinguish between Western style spirits and Chinese style spirits (liquor)?

烈酒 means hard liquor. 洋酒 means western liquor. Conceivably it could include wine and such, but it usually refers to western hard liquor (e.g., whiskey, vodka, rum).
Here's an example sentence for your benefit:

The city of Guangzhou consumes nearly 40% of the foreign hard liquor sold in China.
广州人所消费的烈酒，占了中国洋酒总量的近40%。


What is the role of 清楚 in 一定要注意签订书面合同，核实清楚物业费、水费、...?

清楚 here is resultant complement for 核实 instead of adverbial, so the literal meaning is 'verify clear' (verify towards a clear result, think 'make clear') instead of 'verify clearly'.

If you have to insert 的/地/得, it should be 得 i.e. 核实得清楚, but that changes the sentence from imperative to declarative.

It's really just a figure of speech to emphasize 核实, as opposed to carry some actual meaning. The previous sentence '一定要注意...' is similar in that regard, by using 一定 to emphasize 注意.


It's most probably written vertically, right to left:

七年八月十一 Year 7, Month 8, 11(th day). 1938/8/11 (Year 1 is 1932).

No idea what the 九/9 at the end stands for.

EDIT

As Wang Dingwei says, Henan wasn't part of Manchukuo. So year 7 is probably 1918. 紀元轉換


How do Chinese speakers convey emotions by speech?

How can Chinese express emotion if tones determine the meaning of a word? This should be one of the top 2 or 3 items on a Chinese language FAQ. It seems to be a constant source of puzzlement and a goad to much odd speculation.

The problem is that the word 'tone' when applied to Chinese does not mean what people think it does. Or perhaps people do not think carefully about what they think tone means when speaking of it in their own language.

For most people, it seems that tone is simply emotion embedded in language. This is much too simplistic to provide any insights into how we judge emotion in speech.  What is an angry or frightened tone? Put in these terms, it's purely subjective.

For Chinese tones, however, it is possible to give a much more objective statement of what they consist of.  Jerry Norman's book Chinese (published by Cambridge UP) gave what I thought was a very clear description: Tone consists of primarily of pitch, but duration and volume (Norman says intensity) are "important secondary cues." These are all relative, not absolute.

Much of what people tend to interpret as the emotional content of speech is in the departure of one of these from what has come before or what comes after.

This might seem puzzling, but perhaps a comparison with English might help. English indicates interrogative with a rising pitch. In contrast, many people interpret angry or strong emphasis with a falling pitch.  Is it possible to ask an angry question in English? I think this is not at all difficult, using increased volume and duration and perhaps less of a rise in pitch than is common.

Emotional inflection in Chinese works in similar ways, with increased or decreased volume and duration. Pitch certainly does not work the way in Chinese that it does in English, and this can make it easy to misinterpret the emotional inflection of speech for those who do not know the language.

I have often heard learners complain that it sounds like Chinese speakers are arguing or angry all the time, and this was certainly my first impression when I heard people speaking in the Minnan dialect. In fact, however, I think that misjudging emotional content is common with most languages that one is unfamiliar with.


I think that "the thing" can't be explianted precisely. We can't give it a name because"名可名，非常名".
When it comes to the relationship between "混成" and"物".It's naturally to say  that "混成" is the adverbial of "物".
"混成" have several meanings at the same time.
1： 混杂而成：Everything is contained in "the thing".
2： 混然一体：However,"the thing" can't be separated as it makes no sense—— just like "ok" is not a part of "book" although "o" and "k" is 2 letters of the word "book".
3： 自然形成："自然" is more suitable to be explained as"by itself" than "naturally" here. The orign and reason of "the thing" is itself so it's a perfect thing.


Can a single consonant (辅音) ever be used in transliteration?

No.

A normal syllable always has a vowel inside. The syllables like 'n', 'ng', 'm' are very special and have very limited use. They would not appear in transliteration.


What is a polite way to ask "may I ask who is speaking?"

There are several ways to say it:

Polite:

请问，你是哪位?

Qǐng wèn (May I ask), nǐ shì (you are) nǎ (which) wèi (identifier for people/position)

May I ask, who is this?

您好， 您找谁？

Nín hǎo (hello), nín (polite form of you) zhǎo (looking) sheí (who)?

Hello, whom are you looking for?

喂，请问您是谁？

Wei ("hi"- typical way people answer the phone), qǐng wèn nín shì sheí?

Hi, who is this please (..., 请问 is "please". 请问 ,... is "excuse me") ?

Impolite:

喂？ 哪位？

Wèi nǎ wèi

Hi, who is this...?

找谁呀？

Zhǎo sheí ya ("ya" is a participle equivalent to 啊 "ah" expressing surprise or doubt)?

Who are you lookin' for?

These are the ones I typically hear... although there are more.


You're right that 口 is one of the measure words for 人, but 人 (people/person) and 人口 (population) are two different words. The word 人口 is mostly used for the population of a city or a country instead of a household.

You can say 几口人 (how many 'units' of people), 三口人 (three 'units' of people), but not 三口人口 (three 'units' of population).


几 in declarative and interrogative sentence

I think all the sentences with 几 above can turn into interrogative sentences. For example:

  后面有几个人笑起来了?

  你家有几口人?

  上海有几个火车站?

In the mainland mandarin, we usually put 好 in front of 几 in the declarative sentence to indicate that there are more than one. For example:

  后面有(好)几个人笑起来了。// 好 can be omitted without changing the meaning.

  你家有好几口人。// 好 can not be omitted

  上海有好几个火车站。// 好 can not be omitted

With 好，you can differentiate if it's a declarative or interrogative sentence.  In some sentences (like the first one above), 好 is omissible. You'd better not omit 好 in the sentence 2 and 3, otherwise they would sound like interrogative sentences.


来打我呀 (come hit me) is a taunt here.  Since the internet users in WeChat are not physically facing each others, it is impossible to reach over the monitor and hit somebody.

Saying 来打我呀 (come hit me) remind the other person that "Yes, I am pissing you off, and there's nothing you can do about it."  ╮(╯ ∀ ╰)╭

You can taunt people on the web with anything that's impossible to do physically like 來咬我吃呀 (why don't you come bite and eat me), 來砍我呀 (why don't you come hack me up)


I don't think there is a universal prefix equivalent to 小 or 阿. Certainly you can add 'Little', but that's not a prefix, but an adjective.

In the West, nicknames follow different patterns, mainly using the first syllable of the full name and adding an [i] (-ie, -y or similar):

E.g. John --> Johnnie, Andrew ---> Andy, Lisa ---> Lizzy, etc.

Other countries have similar fashions, adding -(e)tte [French], -chen, -le [German, with some regional differences], -ito,-ita [Spanish] -ka, -ška, -čka, -ek, (Czech and other Slavic with different spellings).

Some nicknames are completely different from the formal given name, e.g. Richard --> Dick.


HSK5 - 'make / do / create' verbs (meaning of 搞 unknown)

搞 is an omnipotent verb used in oral language. It emerged very lately as gao3，with which the modern meanings associated has nothing to do with its ancient usage.

Basically, most important usage is to attach it to any abstract noun/verb, meaning conceptual "do":

搞艺术/搞创作/搞发展/搞卫生/搞活动/搞名堂/搞关系...

Even in oral language, 搞 has a tone of bureaucratese, because using (abusing) these kind of all-purpose verbs are a prominent feature of government officials' speech/writing.

Other than "do", 搞 can mean "get", but I would say it's more like "do something such that":

In 搞两张票来/搞到手, you may treat 搞 as "get", but this is not the essence.

Because it is 来/到手 that indicate "get": do something such that two tickets "come" （搞两张票来）＞"get"/ do something such that something to your hand（搞到手）＞"get"

So it can extend to: 搞好关系/搞砸事情/搞定/搞完/搞大肚子/搞死/搞出人命...

The last usage, though somehow overlaping, is "make":

搞事/搞钱/搞核武器...


这桌菜看样子很好吃。The food served ("tableful of food") looks delicious.

食物看起来很不错。The food looks great.

Actually there is nothing wrong with 看起来 and 好吃.
If you would like to show off your skills, use a chengyu, here's a list.


就 here means 迁就，将就, "to accept" in english
范 here means "standard, model"; in history 范 is the model to cast iron.
So 就范 means "fit in a model" (given by others) in very strict way from the original meaning. It's a strong word, you can understand it as "surrender".


This answer belongs to Stan. Since he is not able to post, I'll write it up for him.

In the phrase 产业结构优化等优势, the word 等 indicates that 产业结构优化 is just one of several 优势.  The word 等 does not require several items to be listed before you use it; instead, it can illustrate one of a range of possibilities.

Translating this into English, I might try using a 非限定子句 'non-defining relative clause':

"The first two divergences can be interpreted as a gradual manifestation of competitive advantages, such as optimized industry structure."

NS.X explains in the comments above that 背離 is some sort of investment jargon for the word "divergence".  Be wary of my translation; I can't understand the technical side of the article at all.


Is this a true translation of a famous quote?

Almost.

Translating「瓦全」as a whole piece of clay, in my opinion, is not immediately intuitive (and that's not really what the literal translation is anyway). I would translate「寧爲玉碎不爲瓦全」to

  Better to be shattered jade than to be flawless china.

The message is: A principled person would rather die upholding righteousness than to live an ignoble existence.


Sure.
We don't have pinyin(the one used today) until the foundation of PRC. The creator of Pinyin is this man, zhoyouguang (wiki)
In my point of view, pinyin has little to do with English. So don't mess them up. Pinyin has its own pronunciation, its own combination rules. The practice of Pinyin is to, reduce the illiteracy of Chinese people, to better facilitate people's needs (say, type Chinese chars in QWERTY keyboard).
One thing to note is, other than pinyin, there is also a widely used kanji notation, namely zhuyin. It is also designed in the 20th century, and remains its popularity in Taiwan.


Why was the traditional character 內 simplified to 内?

They don't call this a "Simplification" in the PRC. Simplification is stroke-cutting achieved by various methods - if a character is standardised not by stroke cutting, it's not a Simplification.
Basically, the structure of「內」was already not clear by the time of Han Dynasty clerical script, and famous calligraphers overwhelmingly wrote the inside with the same strokes as「人」. Most print forms and standardisation efforts (apart from the PRC) have reverted the inside back to「入」.

「內」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*nˤ[u]p-s/, inside) is comprised of simultaneously semantic and phonetic「入」(/*n[u]p/, to enter) and semantic「宀」(building).
For reference, some character evolution sequences:
商甲鐵・185.1合集17299西周金大盂鼎集成2837秦簡日甲146背睡虎地秦簡東漢隸論語熹平石經殘今楷
商甲存・812合集14993西周金公貿鼎・安集成2719秦簡編20・安睡虎地秦簡東漢隸校官碑・寶　今楷
商甲前・4.28.3合集5560西周金豆閉簋集成4276秦簡秦・80睡虎地秦簡東漢隸衡方碑　今楷

Please carefully note the shapes of the corresponding timeframes of the character samples.「人」was never part of the structure of「內」.
商甲甲・2940合集18901西周金善鼎集成2820秦簡日乙17睡虎地秦簡東漢隸孔龢碑　今楷

What you're really seeing in the PRC standard「内」is the culmination of a change within regular script strokes using a Qin-Han shape as a basis.
Note in 東漢・衡方碑「內」, the top of the inner shape is still much more elongated than the top of 東漢・孔龢碑「人」. When regular script morphed characters into a roughly square shape (instead of the flattened rectangular shape as typical of clerical script characters), the top of「人」became elongated as well, so the inside of the regular script calligraphy style of「内」and「人」became indistinguishable.
隋?・智永楷眞草千字文

References:

何琳儀《戰國古文字典：戰國文字聲系》
小學堂
中華語文知識庫・漢字源流
國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》
孫雋《中國書法大字典》


what's mean of "打的"？ How to understand "的"

You can say "打车". Whether to use "打的" or "打车" might be only personal/regional preference.

Here 的 is pronounced as di1[1] , and it shorten from "的士" which means taxi.

Currently I can think of only a few words which uses this meaning of "的": 打的, 的士, 的哥(male taxi driver), etc。

[1] My dictionary says the pronunciation is di2. While in everyday life (in Beijing), what I hear and use is di1.


Strictly speaking, the word formations between 加载 and 载入 are a little different; however, as Alex has said, both are acceptable in your case.

加载(verb) = 加(verb, add) + 载(verb, load)
载入(verb) = 载(verb, load) + 入(preposition, in/into)

EDIT
Notice: both 加载 and 载入 can be used as a transitive verb or an intransitive verb.
In most cases, they are interchangeable; however, because 入 in 载入 has implied a preposition, if they are used just before a prepositional phrase, they act in different ways. For example:

These data should be loaded into the cache.

这些 数据 应当 加载 到 缓冲。

这些 数据 应当 载入 (到) 缓冲。

As 载入 has implied 入(in), the preposition 到(to) can be omitted. In contrast, if you omit 到 in the first sentence, the sentence

[Warning! May be ambiguous.] 这些数据应当加载缓冲。

is (most likely) considered as

These data should load the (contents of the) cache.

So, as you see in this 加载/载入+prepositional phrase case, they are not equivalent.


Looking for help with knitting machine terms

This is my understanding of the terms:

起始针 - starting stitches (the first row)

花样 - pattern

花板 - most likely pattern template

花版最大幅 - the largest (widest) part of the pattern template

设定总针数 - pre-set total number of stitches

The sentence you quote sounds like an awkward translation of the following:

When the number of stitches at starting + stitches at largest part of the pattern exceeds the total number pre-set by the knitting bed, a warning signal will pop up.

Now I have to admit I've never used a knitting machine before, but I have been knitting since I was nine years old, so I feel I can probably shed some light on this. It makes sense that a machine will need to have a limit on how big a garment and how complicated a pattern it can produce. If my understanding is correct, you probably don't need to worry about this part, unless you're trying to knit something really, really enormous or have an extraordinarily complex pattern.


Because the name is also translated according to its original meaning.

  白俄罗斯在本土语言中是Беларусь，其中前面的Бела是“白“的意思，剩下的是“罗斯”的意思。

白 comes from the front part of the original phrase Беларусь, i.e. Бела, which means white.

and

  白俄罗斯人是东斯拉夫人的一支，根本不属于俄罗斯民族。白俄罗斯人称自己为“别拉罗斯”（音）人，如果完全按照音译国名就是“别拉罗斯”。“别拉罗斯”的俄语翻译是
  Беларусь 由“Бела”（白色）和русь（罗斯）两部分组成。应该翻译为“白罗斯”。

  英语可能是从俄语再译，是 belarussia 。可能是因为当时的翻译者，从英文的russia联想到俄罗斯，又因为俄文中的 Бела
  （白色），再加上对白俄罗斯人的历史没有常识，就想当然地翻译为“白俄罗斯”了。

references:
【风俗文化】其实，每一个“斯坦”国都有自己名字的由来
国名的疑问为什么叫白俄罗斯?因为他的人比俄罗斯还白?
俄罗斯、白俄罗斯、乌克兰等名称的由来及其它


What do I say when a friend tells me about the death of a loved one?

If you are notified a distant relative of someone has just passed away, you don't need to say much, just a simple "這樣啊" (Oh, I see) and/or "那真不幸" (that's really unfortunate) to acknowledge you have just learned the bad news.

If you are notified a close relative of someone has just passed away, you should add an condolences, and the most common phrase for offering condolences is 節哀順變 or 節哀

"這樣啊... 那真不幸，希望你能節哀順變" (Oh, I see... That's really unfortunate, hope you can restrain your grief and accept the change)
"這樣啊... 那真不幸，請節哀 (Oh, I see... That's really unfortunate, please restrain your grief)


How do I say the exercises "Bridges", "Supermans", "Scissor kicks", "Wall sits", "Lying lateral leg lifts", and "Side planks" in Chinese?

I learned move 2, 4, 5 and variants of move 1, 3 from a trainer and dance teacher. My translation will come from or be inspired by her version. She is rather senior. So some of the moves have been known and practiced in China for decades, where I expect the terminology to be more stable and uniform. As well, in China, a unique-ish form of body training called 形体 emerged over the recent decades, where people use moves adapted from basic dancing training/college for general exercise. Those moves tend to have uniform terminology. In other cases, moves that became popular later should have more diverse terminology.

仰卧撑

仰卧 means lying facing up. 撑 means push up or pushing up.
I can't remember if there is a standard name for such a move. There might be a different standard name for having your two arms in a flat position.
拱桥腿 is used by some. 拱桥 means rainbow bridge. I prefer descriptive naming myself -- not metaphoric. My preference is a bit "German-like" (and arguably wider Chinese preference too).

俯卧四肢向上

四肢 - the four limbs
向上 - towards up (if you are into language, this is a rare case of preposition conjugated into verb)
四肢向上 for short also works. Since you can't do this move in any other way.

You need to disambiguate.

If you mean lying flat, kicking one leg up while fixing the other leg on the floor, (head should be on the floor, arms are relaxed) then
仰卧前踢腿
Memory is vague on this one. But this version conveys the point.
仰卧 - lying facing up
踢腿 - kicks
前踢腿 - front kicks
So this combo differentiates from the possible sick kicks. It is inferred that you do not kick with both legs, because it is not productive to do so. (Raising both legs slowly is called 仰卧抬腿. 抬 means lift. The both part is inferred because it makes no sense to lift one leg.)
If you mean raising both legs, raising one more while losing one and alternate, (head area should be raised, but legs should not be near 90 degree up,) then
交叉抬腿
交叉 means cross
Obviously, be careful to not hurt the neck.

Various possibilities:

背靠墙蹲
靠墙蹲起
The search links themselves offer more possibilities.

Various possibilities:

躺地踢旁腿
侧躺踢旁腿
侧卧踢腿
侧卧抬腿
Notably, 侧卧旁踢 seems to not work even though it should be fairly unambiguous.
躺地 means lying on the floor
躺 means lying (down)
踢旁腿 means kicking towards the side
侧 means side
侧卧, 侧躺 means lying on your side (at which point kicking to the side is the only sensible thing to to)
踢腿 means kick
抬腿 means lifting leg
So, if you mean kick, then don't say 抬腿; if you mean lift, use 抬腿 or 举腿 (not used in this case)

侧卧撑

In specific context, I expect 侧板撑 or 侧板支撑 or 斜板支撑 to be legitimate since 平板支撑 has been accepted for plank. However, none of them yields the correct search result.
Meanwhile, 侧卧撑 is immediately comprehensible because 俯卧撑 means push-up.


What does this sentence mean? “千万比我不要更有格调！”

千万比我不要更有格调

The correct grammar is 千万不要比我更有格调 (absolutely don't be more stylish than me)

千万 - absolutely

不要 - don't

比我 - compare to me

更 - more

有格调 - stylish