Is this statement about the challenges of tracking down the Chinese equivalent of a name in Pinyin basically correct?

Yes and no.  The characters associated with context-free random toneless pinyin will sometimes impossible to infer with certainty.  However, the issue is more about identifying characters which match the pinyin, and not really about the possible tone combinations.  Thus, context gives a lot of information as to which characters are appropriate and which are not.
To illustrate, it's unproblematic to understand something like:

Ni jiao shenme mingzi?

despite there being 56 ways of ascribing tones (noting the existence of the neutral tone).  The mental process is basically "think of a common character which has this pinyin and fits the context", and often there's only one or two such characters.  But for names of people and things its harder to pinpoint.
In the case of Ceres (谷神星), I'd guess a Chinese person who is interested in astronomy will already know the characters (the same way a native English speaker who is interested in astronomy would know "Ceres", and your average Joe might not know what "Ceres" is).  Someone who had to guess the characters for "Gushenxing" (being aware it's in an astronomical context) would likely get 星 ("heavenly body") for "xing" correct, and may correctly recognize 谷神 from Chinese mythology.  However, they might also guess 古 ("ancient") or 姑 ("paternal aunt") for "gu" and 深 ("deep") for "shen".  So it's an overestimate to say there are 43 ways to guess the tones for "Gushenxing" as many of the random tone combinations are not plausible, but the characters are not inferable with certainty.  (And it's possible for Baidu to guess Gushenxing means 谷神星.)
Let's take the surname "Xu" as another example: from CC-CEDICT, there are multiple characters which are used as surnames with the toneless pinyin "Xu":
徐 徐 [Xu2] /surname Xu/
盱 盱 [Xu1] /surname Xu/
胥 胥 [Xu1] /surname Xu/
藇 藇 [Xu4] /surname Xu/
許 许 [Xu3] /surname Xu/
鄦 鄦 [Xu3] /surname Xu/vassal state during the Zhou Dynasty (1046-221 BC)/

Familiarity with Chinese lets us know it's most likely 徐 or 许, but both of these surnames are common, so it's not possible to be certain how to pronounce a surname written "Xu".
As an additional point, it's also not uncommon for Chinese people to have rare characters in their names, e.g. I couldn't add three of my co-authors names to my CV because the LaTeX font I used didn't contain these characters (璟 瑀 曌: I replace them with homophones (「景」「雨」「照」)).  So a Chinese person may not even recognize characters used in people's names: sometimes the character itself is not enough.


In Cantonese, what is a less "childish" way to call one's own parents?

In Cantonese, 我爸爸 and 我媽媽 are perfectly fine to use to refer to your parents, no matter what your age is. They are neither rigid nor childish. Slightly more familiar terms are 我阿爸 and 我阿媽. In a very formal context, You can also say 我父母.

To address them directly, most people use 爸爸 and 媽媽, or 阿爸 and 阿媽, depending on which their family prefers.

父親 and 母親 are mainly for writing.


https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%B5%B7%E8%A7%A3

  起解” 如果要简单的翻译成现代汉语，那就是：“提审”

  If we want to simply translate "起解"  into modern Chinese, it is: "提审"

  “提审”。提审程序如果按照目前的诉讼法理论，是上级法院根据自己的意志做出的、对下级法院生效判决重新审理的司法程序 (It means a higher court initiates a retrial of a case that was adjudicated by a lower court)

  起解 also means [start sending prisoner away under escort]∶押送罪犯或货物上路

  Since Su San was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, there was no reason to send her somewhere else, Therefore, 起解 in 苏三起解 should mean "retrial" not "escort away"

苏三 is a woman's name (she was the heroine of the Chinese opera 苏三起解)

苏三起解 can be translated as "The retrial of Su San"  or "Exoneration of Su San"


Judging from searching the web, it looks like we're using the grammar structure:

再 + [adjective] + 不过
couldn't be more [adjective]

It adds emphasis to the adjective (turning it into a longer adjective), such as in the given example:

[without the 再……不过]: 这都是正常的事情
these are all ordinary matters
[with the 再……不过]: 这都是再正常不过的事情
these are all couldn't-be-more-ordinary matters

It can be used with a range of adjectives; some examples in the wild are:

再红红不过黎明，再美美不过李嘉欣！[src]
Couldn't-be-redder dawn, couldn't-be-more-beautiful Li Jiaxin
我其实和你一样,是个再自私不过的人了[src]
I, in fact, like you, am a couldn't-be-more-selfish person

It is often used in conjunction with a 了, such as in:

我们对结果再高兴不过了[src]
We, regarding the outcome, couldn't be happier.
鸡腿面包，再好吃不过了！[src]
Chicken leg bread: couldn't be tastier!
穿阔腿裤不要穿这3种鞋子，再丑不过了！[src]
[When] wearing wide-leg pants, don't wear these three kinds of shoes: [it] couldn't be uglier.

This function is similar to 太……了 and 及了.


The biggest help to clarify the difference is that 记住 has the result complement 住, which is used to express halt (e.g. 站住 stand still), and, by extension, firmness of the action (e.g. 忍住 withstand).
So 记住 literally means "remember firmly", therefore "bear in mind", with also the additional nuance of making an active attempt to remember.
Examples:

他刚说的话很重要，你一定要记住 = What he just said is very important, you must remember it.
中文语法例外太多，我记不住 = Chinese grammar has too many exceptions, I can't remember them.

记得 instead means simply "to remember", "to recall", without an active effort to remember firmly.
Examples:

我昨天晚饭吃了什么，我已经不记得了 = I already don't remember what I had for dinner yesterday
明天记得把垃圾扔掉吧 = remember to take out the trash tomorrow
你去超市记得给我买一些水果 = remember to buy me some fruit when you go to the market


is equivalent to 要...了

You can say that 我們星期一要上課了(We will attend the class on Monday) or 我們明天要上課了(We will attend the class tomorrow.) but you cannot say that 我們星期一快要上課了 or 我們明天快要上課了。 because when people use 快要, they don't add time to modify somethings in a sentence or component.

In this situation, 要...了 is not about to do something.


What could these characters i found on a robe mean?

You are right for the first character.
However, the second character is not 得. It is 禄 and means "official salary". The thrid character, 寿, means "life" or "age".
Combined together, 福禄寿 generally represents fortune or prosperity, high status or position, and longevity. It was originated from 道教 (Taoism). You can find more explaination here on Wikipedia about Sanxing.


"您好,我是否能知道原因呢" translate to "Hello, can I know the reason"

The word 您 as an alternate for 你, implicates that you really respect the person you are talking, thus, you would also need to use 'May I' to show politeness while asking.
I would translate it as follow:
Greetings Sir/Madam, may I know what is the reason?


In 当然，你说的部分也有道理, can we translate 当然 to "of course"?

It seems "truning" is supposed to mean "turning", 转折, turning point, transition, turnaround.  Chinese grammar on the topic of 复句（complex sentences) mentions 偏正复句 (subordinate and main) with 转折关系 as subtopic, (A, 但是 B)

  有些句子，前一个分句往往能引起人们的一种预期，比如说＂他不很喜欢运动＂，这句话往往引起人们的预期-----＂所以身体不能健康＂。如果后一个分句同引起的预期相符合，那么两个分句的意思就是一致的。如果后一个分句同所引起的预期不符合，于是中间就转了一个弯儿，变成＂但是身体很健康＂。这样，两个分句的意思相背，前后不一致，中间有了转折，所以叫做转折关系。
  汉语语法基础

Possible conjunctions: 但是、可是、然而、不过、但、可、却、倒. Complex sentences need not have conjunctions, cf. 紧缩复句 (contracted complex sentence). It would seem translating 当然 as "of course" may not contradict the fact that in some sense there may be a turning point  转折。


勇

brave
bold
adventurous
daring
courageous
firm
undaunted


师 is probably just a typo of 帅, handsome.


Chinese (Simplified) or Chinese (Tradition), which language is used as Most popular language in China?

Simplified Chinese is used throughout mainland China, though pretty much everyone can read the Traditional also. Traditional Chinese tends to still be used in places like Malaysia, Singapore, etc.

If you're marketing to mainland China then you probably want Simplified.

Alternatively, do both.


I think you've got the idea what this phrase means. In terms of the grammatical structure, you can think about "没法" or “没办法” analogous to "没得". They have similar meanings except that “没法” or “没办法” are more formal than "没得". 得 is mostly acting like a full verb with V (you can interpret 得 as the same meaning as the 得 in 得到), though it's also sensible to consider it as a compliment.
Suggestion: Don't bother with this grammatical structure. "没得" is mostly used in informal speaking.
Yes, it's pronounced as second full tone here, as you said, PROPERLY. However, it's not strictly followed. It depends on the context and your emotions, like, some people may pronounce as first full tone when they say the sentence quickly.
The most common uses for this structure are 没得＋比 \ 没得＋看 \ 没得＋选 \ 没得＋用 \ 没得＋上 \ 没得 ＋ 玩. But actually, the structure is pretty flexible, feel free to change!

Hope it would help!


【古诗英译】王之涣《凉州词》   译/晚枫

凉州词
王之涣

黄河远上白云间，
一片孤城万仞山。
羌笛何须怨杨柳，
春风不度玉门关。

Lyrics to Liangzhou Tune

by Wang Zhihuan
tr. Rhapsodia_晚枫

The Yellow River riseth up far into clouds so white,
An isolated city on mountains standeth sky-high.
The flute is futile the weeping willows tune here to blow,
In that beyond the Jade-gate Pass spring breezes never go.

第二版（12月12日）

The Yellow River riseth far into clouds white,
Atop a mountain standeth a lone fort at height.
Should the piccolo pick the willow tune to play?
Since over the Yumen Pass spring breeze reacheth nay.

经过这一番讨论，现在根据新的认识，拿出第三版，望各位批评：

The Yellow River reaches up to touch clouds white,
A lone fort sets far against the high mount in sight.
The weeping willow tune the flute needs not to play,
For yond the Yumen Pass spring breeze won’t make its way.

第四版 Dec 15 2010

The Yellow River reaches up into clouds white,
A lone fortress and a high mountain far in sight.
The weeping willow tune the flute needs not to play,
For yond the Yumen Pass spring breeze won’t make its way.


The difference between simplified and traditional Chinese and how should one convert a traditional sentence into a simplified one?

Now how can it be converted to a pure mainland Chinese version?
It's a big project. Best to find a professional translator who knows both well to do the job.
I mean are the differences just in typing?
No
Are there any difference in the vocabulary?
Yes. Quite a lot are different. Like software, in Taiwan it's 軟體 and in the mainland it's 软件. I'd like to show another example, the word cache in computer science. In Taiwan they adopt 快取 while in the mainland 缓存 is used. The two versions seem quite different at the first glance. One uses 快 fast, the other 缓 slow. But they describe the very same thing from two aspects. Both 快取 in simplified and 緩存 in traditional will be odd.
Is there any service on the net which gets a traditional word (or a word typed in traditional Chinese) and then gives you its simplified version?
Character-to-character is available, like from 體 to 体. But word-to-word is not that easy. 软体 is improper. Besides, there are cases that multiple traditional characters can be transformed into one simplified one.
Do I have to apply grammatical changes, too?
Grammars of both are almost the same in the written language, but I'm not sure about it.
Do simplified Chinese (People who are living a mainland China) understand traditional Chinese easily? What about vise versa?
The written language can be easily understood. The characters can be recognized easily though one may find it hard to write them by hand. I know little about the case vise versa since I'm from the mainland. Traditional characters are never forbidden though they cannot be used in the official documents like laws. We learn to recognize the traditional ones but not how to write in the school. I have read a lot of novels printed in traditional Chinese. Both of them can be widely seen in daily life, of course the simplified more than the traditional. Anyway both are precious legacies from our ancestors of the past thousands of years.
Which one is used wider in the world (traditional or Chinese)? (I mean for promotional purposes is it better to translate a passage into simplified or traditional to be understandable by more people?)
So far as I know, many softwares, webs and manuals provide both. But I myself find it okay to read only the traditional version.


Before I want to ask a stranger, I will try to get their attention first.

Saying 您好/你好 (Hello/Hi) before starting my question, then 对不起打扰了,请问 or just 请问 (Excuse Me) and followed by the question.

您好,请问附近的医院是往哪个方向？
嘿，打扰了，请问附近的医院是往哪个方向？


Do 跟我读 (gēn wǒ dú) and 跟我念 (gēn wǒ niàn) have the same meaning ("read with me")?

Edit:

In the context of '跟我念', the standard version should be 唸 (recite). However, 念 is also an acceptable variant

The difference between 跟我读 and 跟我念

读出 = read out
念出 = recite / read out

In 跟我读 (follow me and read) ,  there have to be some written text for you to read it out.
In 跟我念 (follow me and read/ follow me and recite), you can either read from some written text or recite words from memory

念 literally means "recite ".  For example 念經, 念诗, 念咒

We can use 念 interchangeably with 读 (read out)  because "recite" can mean "recite what you are reading"


What does 一事 mean in 美国总统特朗普在被问及前顾问班农被捕一事时表示?

一事 is short for 這一件事 (this thing; this event; this matter)
In your post, '前顾问班农被捕' is the event
"前顾问班农被捕(一事)" = "(the event of) 前顾问班农被捕"
Similarly:
他设法把话题从他离婚一事(這一件事)上引开
他辩称路上人多而把迟到一事(這一件事)推脱得一乾二净
一事 can also be used literally as "one thing" (mostly in classical Chinese)
e.g. 在下有一事相求 - There's one thing that I wanted your help


噷 is not the one you are looking for.

In Chinese, we usually say 嗯.


How to say we failed to reach an agreement

failed to reach an agreement
--for bussiness,we say"无法达成共识" or "协商失败"
--for daliy life ,we say"说不通” or“沟通失败”


Your sample sentence should be "我在我的手机上听音乐" as ChineseHulu.com said.And you actually SHOULD not omit the word "上" in this sentence,or it would be a little bit weird to native Chinese people.

"在...上" is a preposition phrase.It can be used on representational target like:
在操场上 -- on playground
在沙发上 -- on sofa

And it can be used on abstract target like
在手机上 -- on cell phone
在电脑上 -- on computer
在网络上 -- on internet

Usually we Chinese won't omit "上" if we use this phrase on abstract target or express specific position relation.So these sentence should not omit this word:
我正在手机上玩游戏 -- I'm playing game on cell phone.
我想在电脑上看电影 -- I wanna watch movie on computer.
我通常在网络上聊天 -- I usually chat on internet.
男孩在沙发上跳着 -- The boy is jumping on the sofa.

But if we use this phrase to express the location where something happened,not focusing on the position relation.We can omit this word:
男孩们在操场上玩 or 男孩们在操场玩 are all ok.(Boys are playing on the playground.)

And if you wanna express something happened on the specific location but it's a large area.You MUST omit the word "上" and the phrase thus turn into another single word preposition phrase "在...".
我在上海工作 -- I'm working in Shanghai.
我在苏州旅游 -- I'm traveling in SuZhou.

Apologize for my English.Hope you will get it all... :D


Correct grammar for "While speaking Cantontese with my mom, I accidentally said one half of a sentence in Mandarin and the other half in Cantonese."?

Mandarin has sure enough affected my Cantonese. "While speaking Cantontese with my mom, I accidentally said one half of a sentence in Mandarin and the other half in Cantonese?
我國語果然有影響我的廣東話。今天我跟我媽媽講廣東話，我無意講的一個句子有一半國語也另外一半有廣東話。

我的国语果然会影响我的广东话。今天我跟我妈妈讲广东话时，我无意讲的一个句子，有一半是国语，另一半是广东话。
The way to express such a complex sentence is, split the phrases out.  For example

I accidentally said one half of a sentence in Mandarin and the other half in Cantonese

is
“I said a sentence.” “The sentence is half Mandarin and half Cantonese.”
我说了一个句子，句子里一半是国语另一半是广东话。
Though yours is good enough to understand, personally I would suggest following translation:
我的粤语（表达）的确被国语所影响。跟我妈说粤语时，我无意间说出了国语粤语参半的一句话。


"A而B且C" means A and B and C. We use "A而B且C" instead of "A且B且C" simply due to the reason that we do not want to use the same word twice in the phrase.

"既","且"，“而” can all mean "and", while sometimes, the word "而" can means "but" (when "而" is used alone to link two sentences). One thing for sure is that in the form of "既A且B" and "A而B且C", they all mean "and".


㐆 is a reversed 身 which could be a rotund man or pregnant woman, likely the latter in this context. I've never seen 㐆 being used alone before.
殷 is grand, abundant, or flourish. Getting pregnant with child would be a source of celebration back then, and 殳 represents a hand hitting something, likely a drum if we were to interpret the original meaning as "grand music."
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E6%AE%B7


古伦木 and 欧巴 are not character names but two lines in 奇袭白虎团, which is a Korean-war-themed 'Modern Peking Opera'（革命现代京剧, Peking operas written in PRC）. The plot involving this two lines is (which is historically accurate, based on records in the Korean War): the Chinese army and North Korean army learn from a South Korean captive the password of a certain South Korean checkpoint and successfully pass this checkpoint using the password. The password is "A: 古轮木 B: 欧巴". (It is said that 古轮木 is from Korean 구름 gureum [cloud] and 欧巴 from 우박 ubak [hail].)
The movie In the Heat of the Sun focused on youngsters who grew up in the Cultural Revolution era. Eight selected modern Peking operas, or 八大样板戏 Eight Model Operas, are the most-often performed and the most influential operas during that time. Almost everyone then knows these two lines. In the movie, Ma Xiaojun and his gang use these to tease the fool 傻子, who always answers with 欧巴 when asked with 古轮木 (an imitation of that opera). However in the end of the movie, when they, as grown-ups, meet the fool and try to tease him again, the fool answers with 傻屄 stupid cunt. It represents the end of dissipated youth of Ma Xiaojun.
Jiang Wen used this as a symbol of the Cultural Revolution era and his youth (he has grown up in the same era and the same environment as Ma Xiaojun, and the movie can be seen as his attempt to put his youth memories onto the screen).
Jiang Wen's movies are not easy to understand (the meaning of the character of the fool is still often discussed in China today), let alone to people with little knowledge of that special era (including today's Chinese young men who were born after the Cultural Revolution and didn't experience it personally).
The full text of 奇袭白虎团 can be found here: http://www.mzdbl.com.cn/yinyue/gepian/baihutuan.html
The discussion of the character 傻子 on Zhihu:
https://www.zhihu.com/question/30430096


What are the Chinese characters for Cantonese 'tìm ge la wo'?

Well, it's

keuih: 佢

lo-jo: 攞咗

daih: 第

yat: 一

mihng: 名

tim: 添 (u+6dfb)

ge: 㗎 (u+67b6)

la: 啦 (u+5566)

wo: 喎 (u+558e)

Next, I disagree with the author that these four particles would be used together, in colloquial speech.

Most likely, a Cantonese speaker would say:

佢攞咗第一名添

佢攞咗第一名架

佢攞咗第一名架啦

佢攞咗第一名架啦喎

佢攞咗第一名啦

佢攞咗第一名喎

Just not all four together.


死 means 赴死 or 尽死力 ((worth) dying for / giving all one's strength).
党 means 朋党 (clique; cabal; faction).
死党 means "pursue private ends" at first,

[pursue private ends]∶ 为自己的朋党拼死竭力
案后将军朱博、 钜鹿太守 孙闳,故光禄大夫 陈咸( 王)立交通厚善,相与为腹心,有背心死党之信,欲相攀援,死而后已。——《汉书·瞿方进传》

And means "sworn followers; diehard followers" (with derogatory sence),

[sworn followers; diehard followers]∶效死的党羽
网罗死党

Nowadays it usually means "best friend".

比喻情誼深厚的朋友。

Reference: 文化漫谈：为什么好朋友又称为“死党”？有何典故由来？


Useful sites/services/resources/tools for learning Chinese

Singchinesesongs.com

Sing Chinese Songs is a site where you can listen to Chinese music, hovering over the characters of the lyrics you can see the corresponding pinyin/meaning (as shown in the image).


屏幕前的你
Split it like this: 屏幕 前 的 你
屏幕：Screen
前：before

屏幕前 means "before the screen".
This means that 'The one (you) on the other side the screen'.
The sentence seems to be in an advertisement.
Translation:
Some friends (of the speaker) joked about baldness being the most worrying problem among adolescents.  And are you, who are on the other side of the screen, also worrying about where have your hairs went?


How to talk about identity politics in mandarin?

Sexual orientation = Sexual identity = 性取向 or 性向

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Identity politic

  identity politics

  Definitions of identity politics

  noun

  a tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics.

Google translates "identity politics" as "身份政治" which is not a satisfactory translation to me.

With "政黨政治"(party politics), people can easily understand it means "people making political choices or decisions base on their political party's direction"

However, it is hard to connect "身份政治" with "people making political choices or decisions base on their particular religion, race or social background"

It would be much more accurate to translate it as "群分政治".

When people see this term, the idiom "物以類聚，人以群分" (things gather by type, people divide into groups) would come to their mind. They can easily put the two terms together and grasp the concept of "群分政治" means "people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances...."

My other choice for "identity politics" is "社群政治" (society groups politics)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Google's translations of [heteronormativity] as [異性戀] and [patriarchy] as [父權制] are acceptable.


How to introduce "Husband" in social occasions?

老公 is more for casual conversation. e.g. 這是我老公

先生 can be used in a more formal situation. e.g. 這是我先生

In a even more formal situation, you can use 外子.  e.g. 這是外子


I did some searching for tone distribution chinese and found this post ("What is the distribution of tones in Mandarin Chinese?") on Quora.

One person who responded took a list of characters and extracted, with some programming, the tone(s) for each character. (Multiple pronunciations are permitted and counted separately.) The result he got was:

First tone:

24.2% (counting by characters)
26.9% (counting by appearance in words)

Second tone:

28.1% (counting by characters)
24.7% (counting by appearance in words)

Third tone:

16.3% (counting by characters)
18.3% (counting by appearance in words)

Fourth tone:

31.4% (counting by characters)
30.1% (counting by appearance in words)

However, I am not sure what exactly was counted as a "word".

More importantly, there is also the presence of a tone sandhi. This allows for a "neutral" tone (e.g. in 妈妈) and in a sequence of two repeated third tones, for the first third tone to shift to a second tone (e.g. in 你好). (There are also some more examples with the behaviour of specific characters.) As a result, working off of dictionary entries may not reflect actual frequencies of tones, and moreover, the specific tone used will depend on context.

In any case, this and my experiences with Chinese indicate that there's no one tone that comes up overwhelmingly frequently. However, there are some pointers in this question for tone memorisation, and I particularly like the idea here.


Why is both 盐 (salt) and 咸 (salty) in 尝尝他们的盐一样咸的咸菜?

The part is actually fine. This is a parsing problem; the whole meaning is

  trying their pickled vegetables which taste as salty as (pure) salt

「鹹菜」does not just mean salty vegetables, it's the name of a specific dish known as Chinese pickles in English.
「鹽」is used as a measure of saltiness (in taste) between Chinese pickles and pure salt.

Note that salty is actually a measure of the richness of flavour of 鹹菜, so while translating the above into English (as salty as salt) sounds a bit unpleasant, it's meant to be a praise of the tastiness of the villagers' dishes.


What are the words that are missing after the 的 so that the sentences make sense？

The omitted word in all three cases is 人。

In Chinese it is common practice in written and in speech to omit generic nouns after a 的，i.e. when the generic noun is modified by a noun phrase, like a relative clause or an adjective.
In case of a relative clause, as your examples are, you could translate the ~ 的（人） into something like "those who [...]"

As an example, other generic nouns that admit this behavior are 事 (thing, matter) and 东西 (physical thing, stuff).

  我很饿的，我想吃好吃的
  I'm hungry, I want to eat tasty stuff.


Well, 俾 is BEI, and 给 is KAP in Cantonese pronunciation. In fact, 俾 and 给 also can be pronounced in Mandarin: 俾 is something like BI, I guess, and of course 给 is GEI.

So, they won't get confused, because they would certainly be taught that both words contain the same meaning but with a different pronunciation. In fact, I think 俾 is sort of like an unofficial word, which people usually use in texts/chats, and 给 is the official one. If you noticed, songs usually use 给 instead of 俾 :)


Handwritten note in chinese (Characters identified: 阳台还有衣服)

It says

  阳台还有衣服
  Yángtái háiyǒu yīfu

This directly translates to "balcony still has clothes".  More specifically:

阳台 (yángtái) = balcony (or something similar, like a veranda)
还有 (háiyǒu) = still has (in this context)
衣服 (yīfú) = clothes


可毒瘾一发作，他就不停地流眼泪，流口水，哈欠连天就，接着便浑身冒冷汗，颤抖，肌肉疼，骨头疼，{心呀、肝呀、肺呀什么的，全都翻了个儿}，真是求生不得，求死无门。

全都 refers to 心呀、肝呀、肺呀什么的, not all the symptoms.

翻个, turn over, defined in baidu baike:

翻个
fān gè
翻过来；颠倒过来：场上晒的麦子该～了。

了, in 翻了个儿, denotes a completion, as you know. 儿 is erhua.


Which dialect of Chinese has the fewest tones?

I am not sure, but probably the Shanghai dialect (上海话), which is said to have only two tones or rather pitch accents: low and high.


I have some more:

洗发水

洗发剂

洗发液

洗发露

洗发乳

洗头膏

洗发精

洗发液

洗发香波

They all mean shampoo. If there is any difference, that might be frequency or regional preferences. The last one is a loanword (香波)


How do (did) you remember the meaning for 迫(廹)?

Well, a mnemonic might be:
walk 辶 chuò in the moonlight 白 bái ：
you can't go home, you are forced to wander the roads alone under the moonlight


What is the English translation of my chop? Is it right side up?

百郎妲 /Bǎi láng dá/ is a transliteration of your name Brenda

The meanings of the individual characters in 百郎妲 is irrelevant

Google transliterates Brenda as 布伦达, which is different from  the one on your chop.


Why is Russia translated to 俄罗斯(E Luo Si)?

the "俄" part seems to have no corresponding phoneme, either in Russian or any of the other language I have looked up.

Yes it's peculiar in Chinese. It's related to the Mongolian.

Reference: 郭文深.俄罗斯国家名称变迁考——从“罗刹”到“俄罗斯”

Summarize it in short:

From Yuan Dynasty, the Mongolian translated 罗斯 as oros (but not ros) followed by the Mongolian pronunciation habit, and then translated into Chinese character as 斡罗斯. In Mongolian, there's no words started from [r], such words are usually borrowed words. Then for these words, in order to make it conform to Mongolian pronunciation rules and incarnate Mongolian vowel harmony, the strong vowel of the first syllable will be brought forward. Then 罗斯"ros" became oros, then 斡罗斯.

In Qing dynasty, the Manchu didn't have direct contact with the Russian, they used the translation (especially the transliteration) of the Mongolian which is the intermediary between them. For Chinese characters they used 鄂罗斯 and 俄罗斯, until the Emperor QianLong unified them into 俄罗斯.


The other answers seem to have mistaken what you are looking for...

Wikipedia has a page of 同音文章 (one-syllable articles or homophonic poems (as you called it)): here

(in case they get deleted here's what they have below)

侄治痔

  　　《侄治痔》

  　　芝之稚侄郅，至智，知制纸，知织帜。

  　　芝痔，炙痔，痔殖，郅至芝址，知之，知芷汁治痔，至芷址执芷枝，豸至，踯，郅执直枝掷之，枝至豸趾，豸止。

  　　郅执芷枝致芝，芝执芷治痔，痔止。

  　　芝炙脂雉肢致郅。

羿裔熠

  羿裔熠，邑彝，义医，艺诣。熠姨遗一裔伊，伊仪迤，衣旖，异奕矣。熠意伊矣，易衣以贻伊，伊遗衣，衣异衣以意异熠，熠抑矣。伊驿邑，弋一翳，弈毅，毅仪奕，诣弈，衣异，意逸。毅诣伊，益伊，伊怡，已臆毅矣，毅亦怡伊。翌，伊亦弈毅。毅以蜴贻伊，伊亦贻衣以毅。伊疫，呓毅，癔异矣，倚椅咿咿，毅亦咿咿。毅诣熠，意以熠，议熠医伊，熠懿毅，意役毅逸。毅以熠宜伊，翼逸。熠驿邑以医伊，疑伊胰痍，以蚁医伊，伊遗异，溢，伊咦。熠移伊，刈薏以医，伊益矣。伊忆毅，亦呓毅矣，熠意伊毅已逸，熠意役伊。伊异，噫，缢。熠癔，亦缢。

遗镒疑医

  伊姨殪，遗亿镒。伊诣邑，意医姨疫，一医医伊姨。翌，亿镒遗，疑医，以议医。医以伊疑，缢，以移伊疑。伊倚椅以忆，忆以亿镒遗，以议伊医，亦缢。噫！亦异矣！

易姨医胰

  《易姨医胰》 易姨悒悒，依议诣夷医。医疑胰疫，遗意易姨倚椅，以异仪移姨胰，弋异蚁一亿，胰液溢，蚁殪，胰以医。易胰怡怡，贻医一夷衣。医衣夷衣，怡怡奕奕。噫！以蚁医胰，异矣！以夷衣贻夷医亦宜矣！

于瑜欲渔

  于瑜欲渔，遇余于寓。语余：“余欲渔于渝淤，与余渔渝欤？”余语与瑜：“余欲鬻玉，俞禹欲玉，余欲遇俞于俞寓。”余与于瑜遇俞禹于俞寓，逾俞隅，欲鬻玉于俞，遇雨，雨逾俞宇。余语于瑜：“余欲渔于渝淤，遇雨俞寓，雨逾俞宇，欲渔欤？鬻玉欤？” 于瑜与余御雨于俞寓，俞鬻玉于余禹，雨愈，余与于瑜踽踽逾俞宇，渔于渝淤。

熙戏犀

  西溪犀，喜嬉戏。席熙夕夕携犀徙，席熙细细习洗犀。犀吸溪，戏袭熙。席熙嘻嘻希息戏。惜犀嘶嘶喜袭熙。

饥鸡集矶记

  唧唧鸡，鸡唧唧。几鸡挤挤集矶脊。机极疾，鸡饥极，鸡冀己技击及鲫。机既济蓟畿，鸡计疾机激几鲫。机疾极，鲫极悸，急急挤集矶级际。继即鲫迹极寂寂，继即几鸡既饥，即唧唧。

狮食豕史

  狮识豕，豕识狮。始，狮嗜舐豕；豕适。豕时侍狮食柿，狮适。时逝，狮始试豕势。狮舐豕时，适时试噬豕。狮嗜豕时，豕试噬狮。狮嗜豕时，豕适示狮。豕噬狮 时，狮奭。豕始识狮势实势。豕蓍筮，筮示：狮实誓噬弑豕。豕饰失势，事事适狮。时时侍狮。师事狮。试使狮释豕。 是时，豕视虱噬狮，狮拭虱，狮实失适。豕舐狮时，噬虱示狮。豕时时噬虱示狮，使狮适。狮视豕噬虱，狮释。狮始识豕势实是噬虱，豕失势。狮始矢誓弑豕。适 时，豕适噬虱示狮，狮示豕：豕噬虱失实，豕实是试弑狮。狮始施狮式示豕。豕视狮式，豕失屎。狮始噬弑豕。 狮噬食豕势，豕失势，豕逝世。

  适时，十豕驶适。十豕视豕尸，奭。十豕誓师，誓使狮释豕尸事实。狮释：狮食实是柿，食豕是失实。狮视豕是‘士’，豕视狮是‘师’。狮事事适豕，豕失识世事。豕时拭狮豕屎；时施矢石弑狮。适时狮驶，豕施矢石弑狮失事，豕弑豕，豕逝世。狮饰弑豕事实，十豕释，驶逝。

  豕逝世，狮失豕侍。狮食失柿。狮始试食豕尸。狮食豕尸实适。狮始识豕尸实适狮食。是始，狮时时弑豕，嗜食豕尸。

  始，狮视十豕势似狮。时逝，狮始识，十豕势实似豕。视十豕是十尸。适时，狮视十豕适，狮施狮式示十豕。狮恃势噬弑豕。十豕失是豕，十豕驶逝。 狮拾豕尸适市。使絁饰豕尸。狮视市，示市：狮是豕师，豕师事狮。豕视师失食，豕矢誓使师食豕。豕逝世，侍师食豕尸，豕实是‘士’。狮食豕，狮失‘士’，实 狮蚀。是使狮谥豕：‘豕氏’。谥豕‘仕’。狮示市：十豕师事‘豕士’。

  狮时适市，施狮式示市。诗《狮食豕史诗〉示市：

  狮食实是豕，豕食实是柿。时时狮食豕，世世豕食柿。

  事实是事实，实事是实事。世视狮食豕，实是事实事。

Baidu baike also listed some others: here

《对联》

  上联：齐妻起棋，齐欺妻气，妻弃七棋。

  下联：伊姨移椅，伊倚姨疑，姨遗一椅。

【吏李立莅】

  吏李立莅，赲逦屴岦峛沥俚黎，立艃漓里叕鲤礼黎，罹沴厉离，俚黎蛎鹂历呖。

《季姬击鸡记》

  季姬寂，集鸡，鸡即棘鸡。棘鸡饥叽，季姬及箕稷济鸡。鸡既济，跻姬笈，季姬忌，急咭鸡，鸡急，继圾几，季姬急，即籍箕击鸡，箕疾击几伎，即齑，鸡叽集几基，季姬急极屐击鸡，鸡既殛，季姬激，即记《季姬击鸡记》。


I believe the core of the meaning is overly expressive with gallantry or proudness.

Although the most common usages are when guys showing off in front of girls, it can be used in other contexts as well. For example if someone keeps talking proudly about some small deed to his friends, they may react with '你今天怎么这么嘚瑟？', which could be a neutral question, or '你嘚瑟个什么劲儿？', which is a slightly negative critique.


Why is there no 的 in the question 你是第一次去北京吗 (is this your first time going to Beijing)?

The structures are different

[1. 你] [2. 是第一次去北京] [3. 吗]?
[1. you (subject)] [2. are going to Beijing for the first time (verb clause)] [3. final particle indicates question form]

The verb clause "是第一次去北京" describes what you 'do'- you go to Beijing for the first time
~

[1.你] [2. 是第一次去北京的] [3.吗]?
[1.You (subject)] [2. 是第一次去北京的 (adjectival clause)] [3. final particle indicates question form]

The adjectival clause '是第一次去北京的' describes what 'you' are - 'you are the person who goes to Beijing for the first time'
Other example:
我不会屈服 I will not yield (describe what I do)
我是不会屈服的 I am a person who will not yield (describe who I am)


You can  say 我(正在)为考试而复习. Colloquially, we usually separate it into two pieces: 快考试了，我得复习了。；我得复习了，要考试了。

There are some other alternatives like 我要备考了，我正在备考，etc. , which means I'm preparing for my exam.


What is the name of this tonal marking system?

It's called 发圈法.
《内江市志 方言》：

here it says:

标调用传统的四角发圈法

so we have (四角)发圈法
百度百科：发圈法

发圈法
发圈法，是指一种标记声调的方法。
能够独立区别意义的调值的类别称为调类。调类可以从共时角度编号并命名，也可以参考历时因素命名。
汉语方言的调类系统大多与中古汉语的平、上、去、入四声系统和声母的清浊系统有对应关系，通常根据这种历时对应关系来定调名：与平上去入四声对应的调类，今调名仍称平上去入；与中古清声母对应的调类今称阴调，与中古浊声母对应的调类今称阳调。

and
百度互动百科 says:

标记声调的一种方法。
能够独立区别意义的调值的类别称为调类。调类可以从共时角度编号并命名，也可以参考历时因素命名。汉语方言的调类系统大多与中古汉语的平、上、去、入四声系统和声母的清浊系统有对应关系，通常根据这种历时对应关系来定调名：与平上去入四声对应的调类，今调名仍称平上去入；与中古清声母对应的调类今称阴调，与中古浊声母对应的调类今称阳调。
用这种命名法命名的调类系统可以用发圈法标记，中国传统语音学是用附加在汉字的四角的四个半圆来表示；如果因古声母清浊影响而产生了声调分化，则在因受古浊声母影响而形成的调类号下加短横，这样，四个声调就变成八个。具体方法是：在音节或汉字的四角用带缺口的小圈标记，从左下角开始，按顺时针方向依次为阴平、阴上、阴去、阴入，相应的阳调则在小圈下加短横线表示。例如：
阴平: 【半圆在左下】（诗 阴上: 【半圆在左上】（使 阴去: 试）【半圆在右上】 阴入: 识）【半圆在右下】


Although both mean "to become aware of", I feel there is still subtle difference in terms of which action happens first.

觉察 is from 觉 to 察: you suspect something first, then observe some facts that supports the suspicion. For example, 突然教室里很安静，我觉察到原来大家都走了。
察觉 is from 察 to 觉: you observe first, then draw a conclusion about something. For example, 我抬头左右看了一圈，察觉到大家都走了。

Which one happens first, 察 or 觉, can indicate some difference. Usually we use 察觉 because people often draw conclusions after observing the facts. But when 觉察 is used, the emphasis is on the suspicion or cautiousness.

Note that it is also possible to say

觉而不察: to suspect but not to examine
察而不觉: to observe the facts but not to realize/understand


Are there other examples of 一辆车 ("a car") vs. 车辆 ("vehicle") and 一匹马 ("a horse") vs. 马匹 ("horse")?

一匹马 --> 马匹
一疋布 --> 布疋
一只猪； 一只牛；一只狗 --> 猪只；牛只；狗只
一块石；一块铅；一块肉 --> 石块；铅块；肉块
一枝枪；一枝竹 --> 枪枝；竹枝
一锭银 --> 银锭
一层楼 --> 楼层
一堆沙 --> 沙堆
一式菜 --> 菜式
一朶花 --> 花朶
一本书 --> 书本
一间房 --> 房间
一件事 --> 事件
一群羊； 一群人 --> 羊群；人群
一张纸 --> 纸张
一局棋 --> 棋局
一滴水 --> 水滴
一條面 --> 面條
一粒米 --> 米粒
一段路；一段曲 --> 路段；曲段
一剂药 --> 药剂
一线光 --> 光线
Difference between the two: 'X 匹马' refers to 'X number of horses'; '马匹' refers to 'horses' in general
Notice: There are some exceptions:
For examples, 一封信 (a letter) is different from 信封 (envelope), while 一张纸 (a sheet of paper) and 纸张 (paper sheets) are both referring to the same thing. The classifier for 信封 is 个, as in 一个信封; the classifier for 纸张 is still 张, as in 一张纸张
生 in 一生人(a life) is not a classifier for 人(people). 生 itself is a classifier for 人生 (life), as in 一生人(生), 几生人(生)
Also, 一团饭 a (lump of rice) is different from 饭团 (rice ball) which is a specific term for a food item. The classifier for 饭团 is 个 as in 一个饭团


愣 is used pretty common in Chinese in a couple of ways. In this situation, the lady 她 could be a little bit shocked, amazed, and surprised. That kind of feeling made her to stare at the scene for a moment.


The grammatical component of 来 in this sentence

agreed with Dan's answer, “来“should be a preposition here, its function is to denote an intention / express going to do sth.


There are actually two meanings of "can't help but" here, with a rather subtle distinction. In your first example, the guy cannot control the fact that he wants to cry - he simply let go of his emotions. In your second example, you can control your behavior, and in fact you're very determined to do it.

In the first example, an equivalent phrase would be:

  不由自主地 (did something without control)

In the second example, an equivalent phrase would be

  没有办法不[责怪你]  (have no choice but to [blame you]).

You're right that the phrase 不由得 is rarely used. In fact, when it is used, it usually has a different meaning: telling another person "You have no choice", e.g.

  这件事情不由得你 = You have no say in this matter


As a sign, it is common to see "不可攜帶寵物", "請勿攜犬入內".

However, we seldom use "攜" or "攜帶" in ordinary text; simply "帶" is okay.


Is 谑 (xue4) occassionally used in modern Chinese?

yes, 戏谑 is mostly used word contains 谑 in Chinese simplified


http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/1072/

  革: [3] [v] get rid of; dismiss; abolish

革 = remove (verb)

去 = away (result complement)

功名 = scholarly honour plus official position (noun)

革去功名 means "strip away all titles and government positions


Which term and which counter to use when ordering simple meals?

When you don't know the measure word, the safest choice is 个. It is the most common measure word, is used for things that do not have specific measure words, and can sometimes be used even if another measure word is used:

“个”作为一个量词，它的使用范围十分广泛。它可以修饰没有专用量词的名词，如人、馒头、国家、苹果等等；同时，一些有专用量词的事物，如“一只耳朵”、“一所学校”、“一家工厂”等也都可以用“个”来修饰，成为“一个耳朵”、“一个学校”、“一个工厂”，因此，有人称“个”为“万能量词”。
http://www.pep.com.cn/xgjy/hyjx/hyxxzy/hyxx/yffd/201009/t20100901_855523.htm

For food servings, 份 can be used too, but note that it is most properly used on items that are served from a larger whole. For example, this includes rice as it is cooked in one large pot and served in multiple bowls.
Where you can though, try to use the most specific measure word, as it will sound more natural:

Use 碗 for things that are served in bowls, often (plain) rice or soup noodles
Use 盘 for things served in dishes
Use 道 as a generic measure word for food dishes


仿佛:    seem; as if ; just like

Example1 : 她工作努力，仿佛不知疲倦似的。 She works hard as if she never knew fatigue .
Example2 : 无论我提议什么事，她仿佛都不愿干。She doesn't seem to want to do anything i suggest.
Example3 : 她她如此美丽，仿佛就像个天使。 She so beautiful just like an angel.


When Chinese speakers read Arabic numbers, do they still read them in Chinese?

I'm a native speaker. I'll read "我(wo) 想(xiang) 要(yao) 三(san) 百(bai) 二(er) 十(shi) 一(yi) 個(ge) 餃(jiao) 子(zi)".

BTW "321餃子" doesn't make sense. "321個餃子" would be correct because you need the unit "個".


this mughal jade cup, it's "瓜瓣瓢" or "瓜辨瓢"?

Looks like it should be 瓜瓣瓢.

瓜瓣瓢 probably means a 瓢 made from 瓜瓣. In contrast, 瓜辨 is not a word (AFAIK).
See a printed version of 清・金士松《喬羽書巢詩集》 (https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&file=105725&page=51). Since your screenshot looks like it's from a handwritten version of 《御製詩四集》, I suspect that it's a handwriting error. Well, printing is less likely to introduce errors :)


Wubihua input method. You can find this on older chinese phones hardware keys, or with a software keyboard on smartphones. It consists of just 5 buttons, each representing a basic stroke type. You tap them in the order of writing and suggestions of the most likely character come up. My personal favourite is multiling keyboard on Android. I have no idea how to input this on windows or mac. I only use the pinyin based microsoft chinese ime.


How to say financial trader in Mandarin?

'Stock trader' as a job title is '股票交易员' They buy and sell stocks in the stock market for clients for short-term returns or long term investment
股民 (stockholder) refers to people who trade stocks themselves or through their agents on a part-time basis. There are stockholders who hold stocks for long term investment and they are called 股票投资者 (stock investors). There are stockholders who speculate the stock market like a gambler, and they are called 股票炒家 (stock speculators)
A financial consultant is a 财务顾问


Why did people sometimes call Liu Bei "明将军"?

It's an honorific, meaning "illustrious" or "enlightened general", and as such is not specific to Liu Bei.
For example, in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Pei Song's annotations cite a passage where Huangfu Li (皇甫酈) addresses Li Jue (李傕) as 明將軍:

近董公之強，明將軍目所見...
In recent times, you yourself, illustrious general, saw with your own eyes how powerful Dong Zhuo was ...


Dissimilation of bilabial finals following Middle Chinese (法, 品, 凡)

It's not just Cantonese. In Taiwanese Minnan (which does also preserve the labial final -m, usually), the finals of 法、凡、品 have also become alveolar. Also, most Hakka varieties have made the final of 品 alveolar too.

This phenomenon is examined in p.258 under "Long-distance C..C effects", in the chapter on "Consonant-vowel interaction in Cantonese" by Moira Yip, part of collection of papers published in Studies in Chinese Phonology (1997) ed. Wang Jialing. There, it is argued that it is evidence of consonant-vowel segregation.

Labial dissimilation is among the features of Cantonese investigated in part 6 "Cantonese syllabary" of chapter 3 "Cantonese syllables and words" of Modern Cantonese Phonology (1997) by Bauer & Benedict.

This labial dissimilation in Cantonese affects vowels and labialised velar consonants (e.g. /w/, /kʷ/) too: the front rounded vowels /yː/, /œː/, /ɵy/ are disallowed after labial or labialised consonants as well as before final labial consonants; /ɔː/ and /uː/ also tend to be disallowed before final labial consonants.

Why is it labial dissimilation, and not coronal or dorsal dissimilation? There is acutally some indication that coronal dissimilation is happening between the vowel and final consonant in loanwords into Hong Kong Cantonese, e.g. with /ɔːn/ and /ɔːt/ becoming /ɔːŋ/ and /ɔːk/ respectively. There is already an exclusion of front non-high vowel (/ei/, /ɛː/, /œː/) and of mid /ou/ pairing with a labial or coronal coda consonant; this points to an emerging injunction of mid vowels in general being paired with coronal consonants, i.e. coronal dissimilation. The injunction of high vowels with dorsal consonants isn't quite what one would see as dorsal dissimilation though. See this paper for further details from these English-based loanwords.

Still, labial dissimilation far outweighs coronal and dorsal. This paper argues, based mainly on data from Taiwanese Minnan, that it is not principally markedness that motivates the rime phonotactics, but the phonetics of having unreleased final stops. The difference between vowels in their vowel-consonant transition is the reason why some need not dissimilate; they may diphthongise (adding an excrescent schwa in Taiwanese Minnan), change vowel quality, or even neutralise.

That explanation of course raises the following question: Why in Middle Chinese do all those syllables with labial initials and labial finals also have front vowels or front medials?


言未訖，只見關公口開目動，鬚髮皆張，操驚倒

Before he had finished speaking, he looked at Lord Guan and saw:
His mouth was open, his eyes were starting,
His beard and hair were all bristling and crackling!

Cao Cao was petrified with fear.


It's a Taiwanese slang.

  機車：在台灣有時會用來形容人難以相處，作為一種罵人用語。由來為台灣閩南人中，部分人士對於令人不滿
      的人會以粗俗詞語「欠姦」（閩南話）來形容，甚至以「膣屄」（閩南話，發音類似「機掰」）取代「欠姦」，
      但由於感到不雅或故意作為玩笑，起於民國80年代的學生族群，有一些人「機……」第一個音發出後，第二個
      音改接「車」而成為「機車」。

ref : wikipedia of 機車


What is Mandarin's conversational equivalent of English's "How interesting!" or "That's cool"

As for things like
”I started taking guitar lessons" or "I saw that movie yesterday" you can say 嗯，感觉怎么样？（Oh， how do you like it?) to show your interest in the conversion.
Then they may say,不错（well）、一般（average）、糟（bad）,and now you are taking control of the conversion. You can comment on their response with few words and talk on something else.

对...object...感兴趣=be interested in ...
If the object is somebody then it's a different matter:you have the tendency to love him/her.
有趣 seems not so native， people often say 有意思 instead. This show that they feel something is interesting. Besides, they say 搞笑 instead of 滑稽 or 有趣 when something is funny. They also say 太扯了 to say something is so ridiculous or amusing.
Some short expressions in English are widely accepted, such as good,what,cool,okay.

cool can be translated into many Chinese，but it rarely has connection with 有趣. More often it's 帅 or 牛。

You can use 有趣 to describe an activity as well a person.But here is one point：if you use it on somebody,you have to make it clear that you are saying he or she is humours rather than ridiculous.

Do not repeat one sentence over and over again, that just implies your mind has gone miles away from the topic.


The punch is 五蝠 →五福

A graphic of "five bats" (五蝠) symbolizes 五福臨門 (Five good fortunes come to the household)

Five good fortunes:
「壽(long life)、富(wealth)、貴(status)、安樂(peace)、子孫眾多(many children)。」


Can someone please translate this note to a friend? (Characters identified: 你是我的嘘声)

It means :

  You are my hiss.

The characters on the strip of paper don't look like a native speaker's work. Normally even foreigners will attain some ease in pencilling out frequent characters like 我。 I therefore  assume a foreigner with very little practice wrote this and possibly confused some characters.


Why is 的 used with 是 sometimes to answer in the affirmative? As in 是的

I believe there is no semantic difference between 是。 and 是的。when used in answers. Both are very common, but using just one word / phoneme to reply colloquially can be a little bit too spartan / less polite sometimes.


Is there really no word for individualism in Chinese?

In my opinion, the term 个人主义 might be a valid direct translation of the word individualism, but I don't think it always conveys the same meaning.

The suffix 主义 in Chinese hints to an actual ideology or ideological system. Whereas in English it can have a narrower application, as you can call an individualist someone who lives an independent life. So that would be 独立。

  西方人比中国人独立很多
  Westerners are more individualists than the Chinese.

Perhaps you can argue that 独立 here is used as an euphemism but what they mean is actually "individualist", which - also in English - means an independent person who doesn't need much support from others without being maliciously selfish.


How to say that the teacher has marked my homework?

You should say

今天我复习了我老师给我批改的作业

批改 means correct. Or you can use 批阅, which has similar meanning


Does "格秀拉康" have an equivalent proper noun in English?

Yes, it is Kartsog Lhakhang.
It means the "Temple of the white [pure] assembly".

  Kartsog Lhakhang (格秀拉康) is the oldest and most important Buddhist temple in Yushu (玉树) town. Its exact origins are unknown, but a small temple on this site dates back to the founding of Jyekundo (Yushu) town by Sakya Pandita (萨迦·班智达, 1182-1251) in the thirteenth century. The present temple took its shape in the eighteenth century. Located in the heart of the historic town, it is the local community's neighborhood temple, the most important place in their daily life. It is also used for fasting practice (Tibetan: nyungney 斋戒), hence the name Kartsog Lhakhang, “temple of the white [pure] assembly.”

康 (khang) means the house or building. For example,
医院 (hospital) 门康
商店 (store or shop) 村康
旅馆 (hotel or inn) 准康
书店 (bookstore) 贝村康
银行 (bank) 威康

拉 (lha) means the heaven or god.

Then, 拉康 (lhakhang) means the temple (神殿, 庙, 寺).

The Chinese name of Kartsog Lakhang (格秀拉康) is 格秀经堂 or 嘎措寺.


Belonging to. What. Where. Word by word: ordinarily with regard to.

See http://www.iciba.com/凡属


It is a list of 四川話 (Sichuan dialect) terms, I suppose it showed other provinces' visitors some basic terms in Sichuan  dialect

It includes :

夫妻為 「兩口子」(husband and wife is "兩口子")

最小兒女為「么兒」(smallest child is "么兒")

小妹妺為「么妺」; 「么姑娘」(youngest sister is "么妺" ; "么姑娘"

小弟弟為「么兄弟」(youngest brother is "么兄弟")

The one sentence you are asking is:

  幼叔為「么叔」(youngest uncle is "么叔" )

The  Chinese 「  mark below 为  bent left instead of bent right, because the text was written in vertical right to left Chinese style.

I bet Sichuan dialect speakers can guess the missing characters better than Mandarin speakers. I couldn't figure out 「屋里」 in 男人稱妻人為「屋里」(men call their wives as "屋里")


What is the difference between 怕，害怕 and 恐怕

The context in which I would use 恐怕 is something similar to "I'm worried this  might be the case". I'd say it is used to describe a predicition or extrapolation, sometimes can be translated to be just "probably".

這池恐怕有三公尺深 :　 The pool here is probably 3 meter deep (and that worries me)
我恐怕會被留校 : I guess I'm going to be in detention

怕 alone can be translated to "be afraid of":

我怕蛇 : I am afriad of snakes
我怕高 : I am afraid of height

... or "be weak against / be bad at"

我怕燙 : I'm weak against hot (food/drink)
我怕冷 : I'm weak against cold (weather)

... or "being a chicken and not willing to face it".

害怕 is more of a mental state and perhaps less of a verb. If it is, it's probably a intranstive verb.

我對這裡的交通感到害怕 : I feel scared by the traffic here
這電影院令人害怕 : The movie theather make me scared

The use of "害" usually implies "bad effect".

Now... there could be use cases in which 害怕 and 恐怕 are shortend to be just 怕. In this sense, perhaps 怕 is more abstract than the other two. In summary:

區別的方法只怕很難說明 : Describing how to disambiguate is probably going to be difficult.

:-)


Why is 得 put before 我 in 搬家公司只管大件，小东西还得我亲自动手?

Is it OK and if that is the case, how can I know in what case should I put 得 before the subject?

This is OK. You can change the order of words for the purpose of emphasis; note that the object being emphasized changes according to the position of 得. e.g.

我还得亲自动手（搬）小东西。
小东西我还得亲自动手（搬）。 => for emphasizing the object, i.e. 小东西
小东西还得我亲自动手（搬）。 => not only emphasizes the object but also the subject, i.e. 我

BTW 得 is not the verb; as you said it means "need", "have to" or "must", the verb is 搬 which is omitted. This is a kind of 宾语前置 (object fronting), i.e. change from S-V-O structure to O-S-V structure.


將以求吾所大欲也 meaning of 將

i would interpret 將 in that sentence as "in near future" (即將).

抑王興甲兵．危士臣．構怨於諸侯．然後快於心與
王曰．否．吾何快於是．將以求吾所大欲也

mencius challenged 齊宣王, said "or (抑), your majestic (王) increases (興) armours (甲) and soldier (兵), [puts] your officials (士臣) in risk (危), makes up (構) enmities (怨) amongst (於) dukes (諸侯). and then (然後) [you'll be] cheerful (快) in (於) [your] heart (心)?"
his majestic (王) said (曰) "no (否). how come (何) i (吾) [would be] cheerful (快) for (於) these (是)? in near future (將), [these policies are] for (以) seeking (求) my (吾) greatest desire (大欲)"
your translation:

I do (those things) to seek what I greatly desire!

quite good, as a shortcut :)
info added.
well, 齊宣王's greatest desire is in the following text:
https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&id=12913

. . . 欲辟土地．朝秦楚．莅中國而撫四夷也

[your] desire (欲) [is]: open up (辟 --> 開闢) [more] land (土地), [have representatives] in the court (朝 --> 朝廷), from the nation of 秦 and 楚, administrated (莅 --> 蒞) the china (中國), and (而) soothe (撫) all surrounding barbarians (四夷).
at that time (bc 319-301), 齊 is a small nation in 山東半島. then, "中國" is "關中平原".


A: "小姐， 我想寄一个包裹。" (Miss, I want to mail a parcel)
B: "请问寄到哪儿? 寄什么?" (May I ask, where are you mailing it to? And what you are mailing?)
.......
A: "请问几天能到?" (may I ask, in how many days can it arrive?)

能 = can ; 到 = arrive

几天能到? =  can arrive in how many days?

会 = would/will

几天会到? = would/will arrive in how many days?


【送】

一、Send something to somebody, this means You intentionally bring something to someone with your own payment, and this thing orignally belongs to you. This is usually used when you wanna go to pay a visit, or you wanna invite someone, to be in honor of something……ect.

E.g：

明天小明过生日了，我们送什么好呢？（Tomorrow is XiaoMing's birthday, what can we buy to send him as a present?）
今天是我们结婚的纪念日，我送你一枚戒指（I'd like to send you a ring for the anniversary of our wedding today.）

二、Can be also used you want to give someone something intentionally (for some special purpose, either good or bad).

E.g：

我送她一束花，我爱她。(I sent her a bunch of flowers because of my love to
her).
我送领导1000元红包，希望仕途顺利( I sent my boss 1000 RMB for my future
official career).

三、 The way of "sending someone something" by using “送” NOT ONLY MEANS"Person To Person". But Just enpharsis "Something to the destination". So you can say：

我寄了它一个包裹，送他一个表. (I sent him a package with a watch inside).

【带】

Bring something to somebody. The way to "give someone something" MUST BE "Person To Person". And this usually has two meanings (either will be OK):

The object to be brought to others isn't yours.
Maybe you have a purpose to bring this thing to others, and this isn't your main aim. You just do it "buy the way" (=捎)

E.g:

今天小王生病了，请给他带作业本。(Please bring the workbook to XiaoWang, because he's ill today).
我去了一次南京，顺便给他带点好吃的东西. (I had a trip to Nanjig, and by the way, I brought him something good to eat).

【捎】

This word CAN BE ONLY USED wihtout any purposes, this means when you do something, you see that this could be also good/favourate to others. So you also do that "by the way"：

你既然要去看阿姨，我就不去了。顺便请捎给她我的问候，谢谢。

(Since you are going to your aunt's, Please bring my greetings to her as well and I won't go there. Thanks).

For “捎”，you can also say “捎带” instead.


How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name?

It's your name and you can arbitrarily pick characters to be your name.

We Chinese generally select characters with positive meanings (of course, I think characters with negative meanings would not be the choice for most people) and avoid possible bad meanings from the words with the same or similar pronunciation with the name.

For example, it's common to see characters like 刚（rigid), 强 (strong), 杰（excellent), 明 (bright), 阳（sun), 洋 (ocean) in a man's name, and 艳 (beautiful, brilliant), 卉 (flowers), 丽 (beautiful), 芳 (fragrance), 静 (quiet) in a woman's name.

Also, some people, will name their offspring after related characters. A good example is the name of the famous poet and politician in Song dynasty, 苏轼; his brother's name is 苏辙. "轼" is the rail on a wagon and "辙" is the track a wagon leaves on the road.

Some people will also select words from classic Chinese books to be the name. trideceth12 shows the name "云龙"; I am not sure whether he takes this word occasionally or not, but this word really comes from the book of "Yì Jīng"(易经),"云从龙，风从虎".


Talking about things in the past - 曾经， 从前，以前

I would like to modify mbjb's answer about 曾经.
曾经 should be translated as once instead.
“我曾经吃过” should mean "I have once eaten" ("I have eaten before" is correct as well, but to distinguish the differences, once is more accurate)
Although similar, 曾经 and 以前 are not interchangeable. Take a look at the following sentence:
"我以前经常来这操场玩，而且曾经在这里摔倒。"
I often come to this playground to play in the past, I also fell down here once.
You cannot switch the 曾经 to 以前 here, it cannot give the meaning of "once".
以前 and 曾经 can actually be used together as well!
"我以前曾经在这里摔倒。"
I have fell down here once before
I am sorry that I don't have enough reputation so I cannot comment.


What and where is the connection between 压岁钱 and the character 岁 that appears in it?

"压岁" and "压祟" have the same pronunciation (yā suì). The meaning of "压祟" is exactly what you have mentioned here: "suppress or put down the evil spirit". "压岁钱" is actually a homonym of "压祟钱".  It's a usage passed down from ancient time.


In chinese,半仙==半+仙==half+fairy(generaly male)。Generally, 半仙 is a human but with some magical power, rather than a ghost, the 半 means a half, not a entire fairy（because He is still a human）.

The adjective 海 in 海半仙，most probally the place this 半仙 lives is close to （OR in） a sea or lake （waterside）. It can also be a family name of 半仙, but mostly is the place relating to water.

You may encounter 陈半仙，where 陈 mostly is a family name, because 陈 in China is a very popular family name, but 海 is not


「拜」was originally「」, comprised of「手・扌」and「」.

  「」(please read this in both meaning and sound as「禱」) depicts flowery adornments used in dances and religious prayer/rituals.

  商甲佚32合集1439西周金番生簋蓋集成4326秦簡日甲61背　篆說文解字　今楷

The combination of「手」(hand) and「」(flowery adornments used in dances and religious prayer/rituals) indicated the meaning to conduct obeisance.

西周金沈子它簋蓋集成4330秦簡睡・秦153

In the character「」, the bottom part of「」was sometimes corrupted into something that looked like「手」.

秦簡日甲166

Similarly, the top part of「」, which is「卉」, was sometimes removed. This leads on to the modern form of「拜」.

東漢隸鄭固碑　今楷

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂
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》


Can anyone tell me what this means please? I think it is a proverb

From Tao Te Ching ("Canon of morality") attributed to Laozi. These words are excerpted from various parts. Various translation exists, and here I am just being literal.

上善若水。水善利萬物而不爭。(part 8)
The utmost goodness [or benevolence] is like the water. Water is good at being benevolent to everything, and does not compete with them.

守靜篤。(part 16)
It is concrete to hold stillness.
[or better, "Surely you must be calm."

靜爲躁君。(part 26)
Stillness is the monarch of the movement.
[Or better, "The waiting person rules the impatient person."]

清靜為天下正。(part 45)
Stilness is the right thing of the world.
[Or maybe "Inactivity is the principle of reigning."]

It seems your friend admires Lauzi very much ; )


买 is a transitive verb; 买东西 is a separable Verb-Object structure, so the number + measure  goes between.
Examples:
to eat/ to have eaten a meal
吃飯/ 吃了一頓飯
to sing/ to have sung two songs
唱歌/ 唱了兩首歌
to shop/ to have shopped three times
買東西/ 買了三次東西
to tell a story/ to have told several stories
講故事/ 講了幾個故事
With intransitive, multi-syllabic verbs that cannot be separated, the number + measure goes after.
Examples:
to perform/ to have performed one show
表演/ 表演了一場
to complain/ to have complained quite a few times
投訴/ 投訴了好幾次


How to Say the "something" in the phrase "Do something"

First you were right by using 什么 to mean "something" in Chinese.

However, 了 is a past tense indicator, which was not supposed to be there because you didn't hang out yet.

The correct way to say “Do something together” in Chinese is:

一起做些什么

or

一起做点什么


Proper translation for nib sugar, coarse sugar, decorating sugar

What a simple question.Nib sugar we called it 珍珠糖.Coarse sugar called 砂糖.And decorating sugar called 装饰用糖 or 烘焙装饰糖.


Should I center a headline written in Traditional Chinese?


About 他 and 她 （regarding the song "break up 分手不分离" by z.tao)

In "心陪着你,  因为我想知道 她(他)是不是比我好"
He used '你'(you)  to refer his ex-girlfriend at the beginning of the sentence. It is wrong to use a different pronoun "她" to refer his ex-girlfriend in the same sentence later.
她 has to be a typo, It should be '他' not ''她 in this line

"My heart is with you because I want to know if he is or isn't better than me"

(Implying: If he is, I am happy for you, if he isn't, then come back)
车厘子 wrote:

Ps. It is official lyric so I don't think it's a typo

Official lyric can use the wrong word too.
'Made a typo' means the guy who typed the lyric mistakenly typed 她 instead of 他,
'Chosen the wrong word' means the guy who typed the lyric mistakenly thought 'XX' in 'XX 是不是比我好' was referring to the girlfriend instead of the girlfriend's new boyfriend


Is it ok to answer only the day of the month to the question "今天几号?"?

Yes, it totally makes sense to answer only the day since the question is asking for the day only instead of month and day.

If one is asking for month it would be something like: 今天是几月几号？


I would say your "What comes around, goes around." is a good translation. Another idiom you can use is "You reap what you sow." The only small drawback with both is that they don't necessarily imply suffering justice/reprisal for criminal activity, as the Chinese phrase does. I say small drawback however, because with context that shouldn't generally be a problem.

A non-idiomatic translation could be: "When you lead a life of crime, sooner or later you have to pay your debts."


三只虾：3 prawns

good

半虾：half a prawn

Wrong. It should be 半只虾

一半只虾： half a prawn

Wrong. See above.

三只半虾：3 and 1 half prawns?? or 3 half prawns = 1 and 1 half prawns??

Three and a half prawns.
Chinese grammar wiki has a page about Expressing half with ban.
The structure "Number + Measure Word + 半 + Noun" means "Number and a half nouns"


Your text (承受得起) is fine. And also could use 负担得起 for can afford.

As you said, it's easy to say can't afford as ~不起, and the opposites in Chinese is ~得起, and then you could use this form for more verbs according to the context.


Is there some other meaning in 微笑是一种真实的、热诚的、发自内心的快乐的情绪。?

You are correct, "微笑" (smile) is an "expression" (表情) not a "mood"(情绪)

"happy" (愉快/快乐) is a mood.

一个微笑 (A smile)
代表 (represents)
一个愉快的心情 (a happy mood)

  "微笑是一种真实的、热诚的、发自内心的快乐的情绪。"

should be

"微笑(代表着)一种真实、热诚、发自内心的快乐情绪。"

(you can omit most of the '的' to make it less wordy)


The first expression is usually used when the speaker has a feeling that the other person had done something, so he's making a guess, while the second could be either a simple question or suggestion.

In the first case,

  你是不是吃蛋糕了？

can be used when the speaker noticed a cream stain on the other person's shirt or something like that. The speaker is guessing if the other person has had a cake.

  你吃蛋糕了没有？

can be used when the speaker wants to suggest the other person to have a nice piece of cake or simply query whether he has had cake.


What are nonstandard forms of written words called?

异形词 is the broad term.

A more specific, albeit obscure and probably not widely accepted term would be: 俗体词.

Usage of 俗体词 can be found on this Zhihu question: 英译中里俗体词和异音词如何处理？

  俗体词（比如错音错意、用词不当等）

Although it is talking about English, it should be clear enough to be understood in Chinese as well.


Why is my Microsoft Pinyin IME suddenly making traditional characters instead of simplified?

The Simplified Chinese Microsoft Pinyin IME is capable of both simplified and traditional characters. When you install it, it will be set for simplified characters. It is set up to toggle between simplified and traditional with the keybinding ctrlshiftF. It is easy to do this accidentally if the IME is active and you do a "Find All" in Visual Studio or a similar program with the same keybinding.

You can toggle back by activating the IME (if necessary, using WinSpace) and then toggling back with ctrlshiftF.

You can disable this key or change it to another letter (note, ctrlshift is not optional!) by navigating to the keyboard options:

Press WinS and start typing "language" and select:

Click on the language and it will expand and offer an "options" button:

Now find the keyboards, click on the "Microsoft Pinyin" keyboard (probably the only one):

From there you can toggle back to simplified under "General" and modify the toggle binding at the bottom of "Keys"


How are postal notifications called in Chinese?

They are called '邮件领取通知单' or '领取邮件通知单', and it also has other name.


The left two should be 壽富, from top to down. The right ones, from top to down again, are likely to be 富貴X. I am sure about the last character, 屋?


Determine radicals for simplifed characters that lost their traditional form completely

The radical of many simplified characters has nothing to do with the character itself; the only reason for this is just to simplify characters. I have some examples (found on the web):

  1) Without the heart, how can one love

  2) Looking back at the hometown, the man has already left

  3) No morals, because it is none of my business

  4) The leader has lost his/her path

  5) Unable to see each other, how can the two be close(intimate)?


Is there a Chinese term for dramatic irony?

戏剧(性)
This is a good way to express dramatic in Chinese. Wiktionary has the following definitions:

1 (uncountable) drama; dramatic art; theater(performing art)
2 (countable) play; script of a play; piece of theater, work of theater (Classifier: 部 m; 齣／出 m)

Here's an except from an article on Zhihu:

最后聊聊Dramatic irony（戏剧讽刺），它是常用的文学、戏剧手法。指在某一情景中，观众对情况的把握多于剧中人，剧中人的无意识和观众的有意识之间构成张力。观众对这种张力所产生的喜剧或悲剧效果心领神会，讽刺效果就实现了。

There you can see the English along with the Chinese for dramatic irony.


What are the differences between 香港繁體, 澳門繁體 and 台灣正體?

Technically speaking, there are mainly two factors diversifying what you see between different versions of Chinese Wikipedia pages:

The HTML language tag: lang

<html lang="zh-CN" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 大陆简体
<html lang="zh-HK" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 香港繁體
<html lang="zh-MO" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 澳門繁體
<html lang="zh-SG" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 马新简体
<html lang="zh-TW" dir="ltr" class="client-js ve-not-available"> 台灣正體

The lang attribute tells the browser to choose proper display settings such as fonts and styles. Different "proportions, shapes, and sizes" are generally decided by the browser and the locale settings of the operating system.
Wikipedia literal conversion system "字词转换" (TECHNICAL DETAILS). The necessity of the conversion is that different regions sometimes use different Chinese terminologies, e.g.

  大陆：数字化、数码化
  台灣：數位化
  港澳：數碼化
  新馬：数字化、数码化

The conversion has four stages, which are sequentially executed by the MediaWiki LanguageConverter (a brief history can be found here):

  (1) MediaWiki internal conversion table (MediaWiki内置转换表);
  (2) Chinese Wikipedia local-global conversion table (中文维基百科本地全局转换表);
  (3) Public conversion group (公共转换组);
  (4) Manual conversion for specific entries (各条目内手工转换).

So even if the automatic conversion steps (1)–(3) fail, the final manual work can rectify all the errors.


What is the difference between these two sentences?

跑 | 3公里的 | 步

跑步 is a simple (verb) + (noun) structure: 跑 (verb) + 步 (noun)
3公里的 is a relative clause of the noun 步, that describe the length of it.
The relative clause 3公里的 is inserted between the verb and the noun 跑 | 3公里的 | 步

跑步 | 跑了3公里 is a (topic) + (statement) structure

跑步 (topic) + 跑了3公里 (statement)

The difference between #1. and #2. is:

treat 跑 | 步 as (verb) + (noun), then add a relative clause for the noun

The typical is :S+V+O.

他（S）跑(V)步（O）跑了三公里（补语）。
Notice that We can totally ignore “跑了三公里”, so this is just answering for "How long did he ran"？So that's 3 kilometers.


In Chinese, when you are talking about family, close friends (我朋友) or a group that you are part of (for example 我班), you don't use 的. They are both grammatically correct, but it is more natural to skip it.


profanities in written cantonese blurred out

Four of the five  "Big Five Profanity Words of Guangdong (廣東粗口五大字)" can be used as a superlative before an adjective. The one that couldn't is '屌', which is strictly a verb for 'f..k'
To use a swearing word as a superlative, it must be placed after the superlative adverb and before the adjective, not inserted between the two characters of the adjective, e.g. 好X食 roughly means 'tasty my ass'= not tasty at all
The correct form:
好食 = delicious
好好食 = very delicious
好X好食 = very damn delicious (better than very delicious)

"撚" is the most common one in this kind of phrase


生命好像听得见摸得着了

The sentence can be paraphrased as 生命好像可以被听得见、摸得着了. It can be translated to it seems that now life might be heard and touched. The reason why 了 is there is that originally we assume that life is not something that can be heard and touched, but in author's case he feels like he could be able to do so. 了 here denotes now the situation changed(unable -> able).


Does a 不会拍照的男友 not want to be photographed or not want to take photographs?

会 means 能，善于, 'able to'.

不会: 不善于，不能，unable to

不会拍照的男友 means the boyfriend who does not know how to take photographs.


Is 下个星期三 (xiàge xīngqīsān) = "next Wednesday" ambiguous like in English?

下个星期三 would only refer to Wednesday, next week. There is no way you would use 下个星期三 to refer to Wednesday this week, like the one that is coming two days from now, that would just be 星期三.

There's a question on Baidu Zhidao that, kind of(?), asks this.

  下个星期三要多少天?

with answers like:

  8天

and

  七天

Perhaps Larry David would be disappointed though.


Wikipedia has a very good explanation of the concept of 缘分:

  Yuan (simplified Chinese: 缘; traditional Chinese: 緣) or Yuanfen
  (simplified Chinese: 缘分; traditional Chinese: 緣分; pinyin: yuánfèn;
  Vietnamese: duyên phận) is a Buddhist-related Chinese concept that
  means the predetermined principle that dictates a person's
  relationships and encounters such as the affinity among friends or
  lovers. In common usage the term can be defined as the "binding force"
  that links two persons together in any relationship. The concept of
  synchronicity from the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung can be seen as
  similar to yuánfèn,[citation needed] which Chinese people also believe
  to be a universal force governing the happening of things to some
  people at some places. Yuánfèn belongs to the family of concepts known
  in theology as determinism.

  Some believe that the driving forces and causes behind yuánfèn are the
  actions done in the previous rebirths. Therefore, it can be understood
  as the relational- as opposed to the physical- aspect of karma in
  Buddhism. However, while karma often refers to the consequences of an
  individual's actions on him- or herself, yuán is always used in
  conjunction with two persons.

and 有缘无分:

  The proverb yǒu yuán wú fèn (有緣無份), "Have fate without destiny," is
  sometimes used to describe couples who meet, but who do not for
  whatever reason stay together.

Other than the above, I would like to add my own interpretation as follows:

In modern day practice, 缘分 is used more seriously to describe a relationship between lovers, whereas 缘 is used more casually to describe the chanced encounter between friends. For example:

  我俩的缘分已尽，还是分手吧。(This is the end of our relationship, let's split up.)

  我跟你真的很有缘，走到哪里都可以碰面。(The two of us are so fated together that wherever
  we go, we tend to meet up.)

The character "分" is originally written as "份" and is still very much in use today. "份" has the meaning of a share or a portion, e.g. "股份", "名份", "福份". Therefore, 有缘无分 (expanded as 有缘相爱，无份相守) can be taken to mean two persons having the fate (inevitable turn of events) to meet and become lovers, but not having the destiny (destination, the end result) to share the rest of their lives together as husband and wife.


The cases you mentioned is more or less like slang. If there is a urban dictionary it would be in there. Some of them are evanescent though. There are several cases I could think why they use those characters.

Funny accent: some people pronounce some words with their cute accent from their dialect. One day these thing gets viral, and popular. like 卧槽，蓝瘦香菇, etc.
Internet sensation: for example, 小白 means beginner, 你是个好人 means sorry I can't say yes to your proposal.

So these words are more common in younger generations I wouldn't say they are wrong. If you use them with old people they would possibly not understand. Also, sometimes we understand them by the context.

I think similar things are in English as well. Like you say Netflix and chill for sex. Sis, bro, bae... too many.

Understand those gets you more comfortable in getting into Chinese contemporary culture for instance if you live in China.


What's the difference in pronunciation between "yo" and "you" in pinyin?

There is a difference.

唷 (Toneless IPA: /jɔ/) rhymes with 波. The rhyme is the open-mid back rounded vowel, and is the ough in American English thought.
優 (/joʊ̯/) rhymes with 秋. The rhyme is the diphthong oʊ̯, and almost the same as ow in American English low.


一 in 一线 has two kinds of tones, and two corresponding meanings:

yi1 xian4 (1st tone), means front line / 1st line, such as 一线城市 (first-tier city), 亲临一线, 一线队.
yi2 xian4 (2nd tone), means a gleam of / a ray of, such as 一线光明, 一线生机.

Basically, before the word with 4th tone, 一 should be pronounced as the 2nd tone (“一”的音变), such as 一样, 一辈子. But if it is used as ordinal, should use its original tone (the 1st tone), such as 第一名, 第一线. Note in this case 第 could be omitted, but still should keep its original tone (the 1st tone). So if 一 is used as the meaning of 第一 (the 1st), it should always be pronounced as the 1st tone.

Reference:
试析“一”声调的读法
“一”的音变
“一”的变调


If there are ever "annotations" above or below Chinese characters

No, the Chinese character itself doesn't have such annotation.
For Japanese, that happens on hiragana/katakana, like 'た' vs 'だ', but not in 'kanji'.

If two Chinese character happens to appear as if annotation applied, it's likely they are 2 different characters.


Can 谢谢 be abbreviated to a single syllable 谢?


Learn the characters at the same time as the language?

There is a key difference between learning the language as a native speaker, and learning the language as a second language. Native speakers of all languages invariably learn speaking and listening skills first, and only start to learn reading and writing at school, after the age of about 3 or 4. Learning a language as a second language, reading and writing have more prominence and can expedite some of the learning, but this also depends on a person's 'learning style'. Generally, combining all four communication skills is better.

To clarify what I am trying to say, my own experience of learning Chinese (and other languages) mixes all four modalities (reading, writing, speaking, listening). I find that learning the characters sometimes gives insight into the relationships between words (the semantics), that are not obvious from how they are said. Sometimes the process works the other way, as I see patterns in the written characters that are reflected in the sound.


can anyone help identify the chop mark please and translate (Characters identified: 一切惟心艁)

well, again, read from right to left, top to bottom. and, don’t fixated on regular script (楷書)
the top right character “一”, and the top left character “心” (in small seal script) are easy to recognise.
Next, the bottom right character, the left component is also a “心”, and I recognised the right component is “隹” (a bird); which made it “惟”.
So, the text is “一x惟心x”.
I known the verse “一切惟心”, a buddhism notion, I would guess the middle right character is “切”. See the link as proof.
The last one, the bottom left character, again, I recognised the right component “告”.
At this moment, my “free association” of it is “一切惟心造”, however, the right component did not like a “⻍“, or a “辵“ (radical 162)
The next inference is: it might be a variant (異體字). So, I would try these two sites, search for variants of “造”:

https://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/variants.jsp?cid=23691

https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/variants/rbt/word_attribute.rbt?quote_code=QTA0MTQ2

Voilà, the left component might be “舟”
Last, when the text is found to be “一切惟心艁”, I just google it as “一切惟心造”, and pick a simple, acceptable result, and interpret it in English.
“一切惟心艁” might be interpreted differently, according to the sect. Any further elaboration would be better asked in buddhism forum, imo.
have fun :)


Who knows the most number of characters in Chinese?

I do not think a meaningful answer can be had for the following reasons:
First of all, one needs to define the word "know". What exactly do you mean by "knowing a Chinese character"? If I can recognize and sound out the character when I read, but I have never used it myself, do I know it? I suppose this would be a very passive kind of knowing. If another person knows how to write it from memory, can pronounce it and use it in a sentence, then s/he certainly knows the character better than I do. If a third person not only can do everything the second person does, but also knows the etymology, and what other characters it goes with to form words. Would all three be classified as "knowing" the character? If the answer is "yes", then it does not seem fair to the third person because clearly, s/he has a much deeper knowledge than I have. In short, there are different degrees of knowing. Before any such competition, a clear definition is needed.
Secondly, in this "competition", are you relying on people self-reporting on how many characters they know, (provided we can arrive at a clear definition of "know" in the first place)? Or is there a certain way to objectively judge and compare different people's knowledge? If it is self-reporting you rely on, then much more will come into play than just the number of characters a person knows. A person who is full of self confidence may genuinely believe and report on a greater number of characters than they actually know. In contrast, a knowledgeable yet self-doubting person may do just the opposite. And that's not even counting the people who exaggerate to impress.
Also, how often have you thought you knew something, only to discover that you don't really know it? In the area of Chinese characters, many people mispronounce, misunderstand, or misuse a character without even realizing it. In view of this, self- reporting as a basis of comparison is essentially useless.
If self-reporting does not work, then there needs to be some kind of judge or judging panel to decide how many characters a person knows. Who would qualify to be in this panel? Wouldn't this person need to know pretty much all the characters there are, since they need to decide if another person "knows" a certain character?
I think there is a reason why when you try to google, you keep getting the average number that people know.


Chinese name of a dish containing both chicken and egg?

I think it's just invented by that one restaurant (or some restaurant else before). It's something like paronomasia, and may be seen at some Chinese restaurant, but it's not a famous/typical dish in Chinese dishes.

親子丼 has nothing to do with the Paul Simon song. And 親子丼 is a famous/typical dish at Japan.

BTW: "Mother and Child Reunion" can be translated as "母子重逢".


The biggest differences between the two are:

合适 is an adjective while 适合 is a verb.
合适 can be used as an attributive modifier. E.g., 合适的机会

适合 cannot. I.e., you cannot say 适合的工作


地位 sounds like tek-ui or te-kui: singer's mistake or lyrics should be different?

The [q]/[k] sound came from the glottal stop [ʔ] which must be placed between「地」and「位」when speaking the word. Contrary to its conventional phonetic notation,「位」actually has a glottal plosive consonant before the vowel. So 'te-ui' is actually read as [te11ʔui22] rather than [te11ui22] without separation between the two letters. The difference is similar to that between "come in" [khamʔin] and "comin'" [khamin]. Because this guy is singing, it is easy for the glottal stop to corrupt into an uvular [q] or a velar [k] plosive. (Having a full glottal stop in the middle of a phrase will spoil the legato. )


What is the right translation for "replacement class"?

The scenario you described is usually called 调（tiáo）课 in Chinese. I am not sure if there is a corresponding noun for replacement class in Chinese, but the sentence you had

  I have a replacement class this Saturday

can be translated to

  我们有一节课调（tiáo）到这周六了


Why is 肯德基 (Kěndéjī) = Kentucky Fried Chicken not called 肯德鸡 (Kěndéjī) when it's pronounced the same and 鸡 means "chicken"?

The full Chinese name of KFC is 肯德基炸鸡, but it was shorten to 肯德基 currently. The word Kentucky, was translated into 肯德基 in Chinese intentionally, in order to distinguish with Kentucky State, while 肯德基 and 肯塔基 are same word in English actually. I think it is because that KFC is a influential foreign brand in early period, Chinese may know what it is now when seeing or hearing about 肯德基, so the word 炸鸡 isn't necessary at all. If it was named 肯德鸡, for most people, it would be considered as a low quality translation, and the brand may be regarded as an imitated brand from China, rather than a foreign brand.


Why should someone learning Chinese as a second language learn 成语 idioms?

Idioms and classical phrases are important because they are parts of the modern Chinese.
The obvious benefit of using idioms, is it can greatly reduce the length of our sentences
Look at the following example:
跟他做交易真是[與虎謀皮 ]
The idiom 與虎謀皮 in this sentence, expresess several ideas

It is dangerous to deal with him

He is untrustworthy

He is a vicious character

It is foolish to expect good result

If you don't use the idiom 與虎謀皮, you have to use extra words to express all the ideas above. The sentence would become something like this: "他不講信義，手段兇狠, 跟他做交易是一個十分危險而且愚蠢的行為" (He is vicious and untrustworthy, dealing with him is a very dangerous and foolish act)
Just from reading  the four characters 與虎謀皮 , we know the person you are dealing with is 不講信義(can't be trusted)，手段兇狠 (vicious) and the deal itself is 危險 (dangerous) and  愚蠢 (foolish)
I would say learning idioms is as important as learning anything else in one's study of Chinese. Idioms are refined short cuts to express complex ideas in simple and comprehensive way
Origin of 與虎謀皮: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?14,131767,131767#msg-131767


Is there a list on the web where I can find Cantonese special characters and their meaning?

You can check out wikipedia's page for Written Cantonese which contains a lot of information like borrowed characters, marked phonetic loans and workarounds but the page I'm guessing you're looking, mostly, for is derived characters which contains things like:

冇 móuh (v. not have). Originally 無. Standard written Mandarin: 沒有
係 haih (v. be). Standard written Mandarin: 是
佢 kéuih (pron. he/she/it). Originally 渠. Standard written Mandarin: 他, 她, 它, 牠, 祂
乜 māt (pron. what) often followed by 嘢 to form 乜嘢. Originally 物也. Standard written Mandarin: 什麼


Modern Standard Mandarin equivalent of the 倒...不... and 半...不... constructs?

I only know [不...不...]  and [半...不] , never heard of [ 倒...不...]

Example:

不男不女 (not a man nor a woman)

半男不女 (not fully a man, not quite a woman)


Is it possible to use 过 with specific time words?

Yes,两个都可以。比如:去了北京与去过北京大体意思是一致的。但是，“去了北京”有已经回来与没有回来两种可能，而去过北京则结果只有一个，那就是现在已经不在北京了！谨记：过的语句后可以加了字，反之不可以！!

Edit (Translation):
Yes, both are possible. For example, 去了 Beijing and 去过 have roughly the same meaning. But, 去了 Beijing has two possible meanings; went and already came back, or went and still hasn't returned. However, 去过  Beijing only has one, you have been but you are no longer there! Remember: You can put 过  at the end of a sentence but the reverse is not true!

(Comment by editor) Im not sure if the last sentence is translated correctly or maybe the OP meant something else. Possibly you can put 了 at the end but not 过。


What is the meaning behind 5000萬「袋住先」and D7689!@#?

The pronunciation of "D"-"7" is similar to a Cantonese foul phrase (something similar to  fxxking hard).

689 is a common way to refer to the current Chief Executive (CE) of Hong Kong, because he won the election in 2012 by having 689 electoral votes out of the 1200-person Election Committee.

"袋住先" is also a common Cantonese saying.  "袋" here means the action to put something in your pocket, as analogous to "acceptance".  "袋住先" is to accept something at the time being, with a implicit promise that something better will be offered later.

Hong Kong would probably be having an electoral reform to adopt universal suffrage in 2016 CE election according to the Basic Law (supplemented by elaborated explanations from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China).  The HK Government is promoting its Beijing-blessed proposal and many famous people are telling the citizens to "袋住先".  (This is IMO somehow self-contradictory because the proposal is advertised as "universal suffrage" and the Basic Law does not mention any improvement beyond "universal suffrage".)

As for "5000萬", please refer to http://www.theage.com.au/business/world-business/hong-kong-chief-executive-cy-leung-faces-questions-over-secret-7m-payout-from-australian-firm-20141008-1134yv.html


How to decide which part is a subject and which a predicate?

我 - I (subject)
这两天 - these two days (relative phrase- stating the duration of the event)
住 - stay (verb)
(得) - (verb particle, to indicate the result or degree )
很愉快 - very happy (resultive phrase, describe the result of the verb 住 )

"我" is the subject; "住得很愉快" is the predicate

~~~~

(的) - (adjectival suffix, indicate the phrase it followed is an description of the following noun)
"这两天住(的)" should be followed by a noun, e.g. 地方, as in 这两天住(的)地方 (the place I lived in these two days)

这两天住(的)很愉快 is grammatically incorrect. Either it misspoken 得 as 的, or mistakenly used an adjective instead of a noun after the adjectival suffix "的"

*Another possibility is, the noun and the verb in an relative clause are omitted. 这两天住的(地方)很(令人)愉快

Another example:

我|玩|得|很高興 - (I played and I was very happy)

我(subject)|玩(verb)|得(verb particle)|很高興(resultive phrase)


How does work ergative structure and how often is it used?

Ergative constructions (作格结构) is one name for a phenomenon where the one subject argument in the intransitive version of the construction is the same as the direct object of the transitive version. These ergative verbs are variously called labile verbs, unaccusative verbs (非宾格动词), anticausative verbs; they have even been posited as reflecting a sort of middle voice (distinct from the more usual active and passive voices for verbs).
For example in Chinese:

TRANSITIVE: 他开了门。
TRANSITIVE-DISPOSAL: 他把门开了。
INTRANSITIVE: 门开了。
Incorrectly inferred: 他开了。

This parallels what happens in ergative-absolutive languages, where the morphosyntactic alignment is like this by default.
This kind of pattern is only defined for those verbs that can both be transitive in some instances and intransitive in others, also known as ambitransitive verbs.
There are some cases where some Chinese verbs can appear ambitransitive where English cannot be. This is often called the "notional passive":

TRANSITIVE ACTIVE: We defeated them. 我们打败了他们。
TRANSITIVE-DISPOSAL: 我们把他们打败了。
INTRANSITIVE (Chinese only) = NOTIONAL PASSIVE: 他们打败了。
TRANSITIVE PASSIVE: They were/got defeated. 他们被/给打败了。

However, the sentence used in the original question is not even from one of these ambitransitive verbs, as I can't think of a case where 停 alone acts as a transitive verb. Rather the two forms are:

SUBJECT - LOCATION - VERB: 车在院子里停着。
LOCATION - VERB - SUBJECT: [在]院子里停着车。

This is called locative inversion by linguists. In Chinese, it is very often used, although not as frequently as the standard order. Note that it is possible to drop the 在 in the form with location at the front. It can give off an atmospheric, almost poetic vibe, and is a beloved technique of narration and storytelling. This is not too dissimilar to English.


Yes, 不仅...而且/还是...  is equivalent to "not only... but also...". I think 不仅仅 fits here. Because the author really wants to emphasize the achievement of this coffee shop, which is '首个提出咖啡情绪疗法的品牌'.

Example:

  他不仅是一个模特，还是一个大学教授。

This just tells you that he has two jobs.

But if you say,

  他不仅仅是一个模特,还是一个大学教授

this means that being both a model and a university professor is really impressive.


Why 青椒牛 instead of 青椒牛肉 in this Chinese menu?

I am not sure how it sounds to Cantonese ears or Chinese-speaking population outside China, but in Mandarin spoken in mainland China, 青椒牛 is absolutely weird, and sounds like the cow is cooked in whole (uncut).

However this usage is extremely common in Chinese restaurants in the US. I heard it's similar in other English speaking countries. No idea why it evolved like that.

Aside from the improper omission of the meat form (肉/丝/片/etc.), the lack of cooking method (炒/烧/烩/etc.) also sounds off. In mainland China even in very casual spoken language, those words are included out of habit. It will actually take effort to omit them.


Is there any different meaning between using 真 and 真的 in a sentence?

When 真 is used as an adjective, or adverb here in all your examples, "的" can sometimes omitted. When "的" is used however..in my personal opinion it just makes the sentence longer and sometimes you could emphasize the tone on "真的". When emphasized in an question, it'll feel like you're surprised someone really don't know the subject. When emphasized in a plain sentence it'll feel like you're emphasizing you really don't know it.
But if you're using it as a noun, then it's just "真"
Some examples:#
"不知道這個新聞的真假" (used as noun)
"不知道這個新聞是真的假的" (used as adjective)
"真(的)不知道這新聞的真假" (used as adverb first, then noun at the end)


I'd say all of your sentences are used in practice within the  mainland.

These are all correct expressions:

你的电话号码是什么？
你的电话号码是多少？
你的电话是多少？

Colloquially, we even brief it like 你电话多少？ or 电话多少？

Hope this could help you.


送官究办 sòng guān jiūbàn - means to be sent to court to be dealt with

送 - to send

官 - means an official building, in this case it means the court

究 - investigate

办 - to be dealt with

Maybe others can provide some insight into whether or not this is still in use


Can 偷工减料 be used to describe the intentional and open purchasing of somewhat inferior product?

偷工减料 means shoddy/poor workmanship and lousy/substandard materials. It is not something you would use to describe intentionally buying something that is inferior or less expensive. It is by nature something that is deceptive or dishonest or even corrupt and dangerous. It is more severe than cutting corners, which is sometimes associated with the term "cost down" if cost reduction is being done dishonestly.


I would call it 釐清 (to clarify)

釐清 這個 'li' 是 理由的理, 不是 里程的里
to clarify this 'li'  is 理 for 理由, not 里 for 里程

or
闡明 (to clarify )

闡明 這個 'li' 是理由的理, 不是 里程的里
to clarify this 'li' is 理 for 理由, not 里 for 里程

神秘德里克 wrote:

提问人问专门的词，这两个词也不是说专门表示这件事情。应该是没有什么专门的词专门表达这件事情。

I agree there is no specific term for 'specify a character by context' .
'specify a character by context' is an act of '釐清' or '闡明' a character

"你叫 Huáng Yuán? 請問是那一個 Yuán?" (Your name is Huáng Yuán? May I ask which yuán is that?)

"To clarify (釐清/闡明) which 'Yuán' is in his name, 黃源 said: 'it is the 源 in 水源"


What does 为 do in 鸦片战争后，天津开放为通商口岸?

为 means 变成 / 成为 here.

  (7) 变成，成为 [become]

  何遽不为福。——《淮南子·人间训》

  不能为祸。

  终为忠臣。——《世说新语·自新》

  而改为入。——宋· 洪迈《容斋续笔》

The sentence means Tianjin (was) opened and became treaty port.


How to guess when to use 銷 or 消 in compounds?

Use 銷 when the object has man made physical  form

Use 消 when the object has no man made physical  form

We 吊銷牌照 and 銷毀武器

License and weapons have man made physical form

We 消滅 敵人 and 消除恐懼

Enemy and fear have no  physical form, they are concepts

Simply put, look at the object and you can guess it should be 消 or  銷 in the compound


What's the difference between 逼, 迫, and 逼迫?

http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/4820.html

  逼,近也。——《说文新附》

  逼, means 'to approach and get close to'

~

  http://xh.5156edu.com/html3/4732.html

  迫: 用强力压制 (use force to press)

~

  http://xh.5156edu.com/html5/z32m80j144802.html

  逼迫: to force;to compel;to press

逼迫(approach and forcefully press) = 'to force/ to compel/ to press'

It is a compound word

逼 and 迫 are very similar, but there are subtle difference

逼: by approach extremely close, you are in effect pressing the object
迫: by forcefully pressing, you are extremely close to the object

In my experience, many people use 逼 and 迫 interchangeably

I have no problem with people using 逼 or 迫 for 'press' as in '逼切/'迫切 (pressingly close = urgent)

But I object using 迫 instead of 逼 for 'approach' as in '颱風逼近' (typhoon approaching)

  Do they all carry the same connotation of “to force?”

迫 and 逼迫 mean 'to force' directly
逼 means 'to force' by extended meaning  (approaching --> pressing --> forcing)

Cantonese only use 迫 or 逼 for 'to force'.
We do not use the term 逼迫


Looking for a [common] idiom that loosely translates to "I fart you away"

I guess it is "滚开". That's a insulting idiom.


How does one distinguish between homographs in Chinese?

Yes, this word has two different pronunciations.
便宜 pián yi means:

[adj] cheap, inexpensive
[noun] benifit, interest, which you are not supposed(allowed) to get.
[verb] to make sb get that benifit

便宜 biànyí means:

[adj]convenient

Because these meanings are different significantly, I don't think we'll get confused. Also, biànyí is a written, literature ,classic word, so you won't meet it in most cases. Instead, we'll use "方便" in that case.
In your example, I don't think 便宜 is used correctly, no matter how it pronounces. You may want to say:

我的大学学费很便宜。 The fee of my university is very cheap.
我的大学上网很方便。It's very convenient to surf the web in my university.


How Many Characters Are There Where The Radical Is The Same As The Main Component?

A quick perusal of my database gives me

u-cjk/6299      抙  ⿰扌手
u-cjk/726a      牪  ⿰牜牛
u-cjk/72be      犾  ⿰犭犬
u-cjk/73cf      珏  ⿰王玉
u-cjk/8aa9      誩  ⿰言言
u-cjk/8e00      踀  ⿰足
u-cjk-xa/3908   㤈  ⿰忄心
u-cjk-xb/201a7    ⿰亻人
u-cjk-xb/23c99    ⿰氵水
u-cjk/9342      鍂  ⿰金金

(considering only Unicode code points). I tested against the RegEx 氵水|礻示|⺬示|釒金|钅金|王玉|忄心|竹|讠言|言言|冫氷|扌手|足|⻗雨|爫爪|亻人|火灬|犭犬|牜牛|飠食|食|饣食, which may be incomplete.

In related news, a search for 水水|示示|金金|王王|玉玉|心心|竹竹|手手|足足|雨雨|爪爪|人人|火火|犬犬|牛牛|食食 brings up, amongst others, these:

u-cjk/4ece      从  ⿰人人
u-cjk/6c9d      沝  ⿰水水
u-cjk/708f      炏  ⿰火火
u-cjk/73a8      玨  ⿰王王
u-cjk/7958      祘  ⿰示示
u-cjk-xa/3e5c   㹜  ⿰犬犬
u-cjk-xb/225f0    ⿰心心
u-cjk-xb/22a92    ⿰手手
u-cjk-xb/24519    ⿱爪⿰爪爪
u-cjk-xb/24934    ⿰玉玉
u-cjk-xb/25d12    ⿱竹⿰竹竹

some of which may violate your expectations about how to correctly write characters, as the usual positional variants are not used in these forms.


What is the difference between 古怪 and 古里古怪?

This pattern, like you mentioned, seems to be referred to as "A里AB"式 in Chinese.
A quick search came up with the following list of words:
糊里糊涂hū lǐ hū tú
怪里怪气guài lǐ guài qì
流里流气liú lǐ liú qì
傻里傻气shǎ lǐ shǎ qì
土里土气tǔ lǐ tǔ qì
慌里慌张huāng lǐ huāng zhāng
妖里妖气yāo lǐ yāo qì
彻里彻外chè lǐ chè wài
胡里胡涂hú lǐ hú tú
没里没外méi lǐ méi wài
秀里秀气xiù lǐ xiù qì
歇里歇松xiē lǐ xiē sōng
小里小气xiǎo lǐ xiǎo qì
打里打外dǎ lǐ dǎ wài
蹀里蹀斜dié lǐ dié xié
疙里疙瘩gē lǐ gē dā
古里古怪gǔ lǐ gǔ guài
鬼里鬼气guǐ lǐ guǐ qì
火里火发huǒ lǐ huǒ fā
楞里楞气léng lǐ léng qì
啰里啰唆luō lǐ luō suō
蒙里蒙懂méng lǐ měng dǒng
噗里噗通pū lǐ pū tōng
痞里痞气pǐ lǐ pǐ qì

There also seems to be a couple of studies about this speech pattern:
浅谈“A里AB式”
现代汉语“A里AB”格式的研究
but that's all a bit pedantic for our needs...(although you can be sure it is a set pattern)
It seems like you have already explained it pretty clearly as well:

According to my book, there is a pattern for building further adjectives from adjectives. If the original adjective is AB (two different characters), its derivation is A里AB.

as for the meaning:

...意义并未改变。例如 ： 马虎， 意思为做事不认真 。变为
“ Ａ里 Ａ Ｂ式 ” 马里 马 虎 ， 思 同样 为 做 事 不 认 真....浅谈“A里AB式”

The meaning does not change. For example: 马虎 and 马里马虎 both mean 做事不认真.
AB and A里AB mean the same - with a stronger sound/meaning on the A里AB than the simple AB pattern.


On a HSK6 test, why is 社会稳定，人民生活水平显著提高，这一切都给人留下了深刻的印象 the incorrect sentence?

In all seriousness, as a college student majoring in Chinese linguistics & a native speaker, all of the above explanations don't make sense to me. I think there’s nothing grammatically wrong with this sentence, which means it is simply a bad question.

  I'm going to guess that 人民 ("the people") should be either 民众 ("the
  populace") or 老百姓 ("ordinary people"). I also feel it omits
  grammatical particles (的 地 得), but maybe that's okay. I don't really
  know.

人民生活水平 is a common expression in Chinese, and the usage of 人民 here is correct. This sentence, however, does not omit any grammatical particles (的) either, since it's feasible to use a sentence to serve as a subject. "國語的推行需要大家的努力"(literally The implementation of the Mandarin language requires the efforts of all) and "在全社會推行國語需要大家的努力" are both grammatically correct.

  In summary, 一切 is an abstract term but this usage is too concrete.

Please pay attention to this: "一切 and 所有 may not have a scope." This means that
it's fine even if it has a scope. E.g. When preparing for a dinner, people often say "可口的蛋糕、浪漫的蠟燭，一切都已準備好了。" Nevertheless, to some extent it's also an abstract usage since the things prepared includes but not limited to the two preparations (cakes and candles) previously mentioned.

  Technically, there's no grammar or spelling mistake, But when the
  sentence only listed two points, using 'both' is better than 'all'.

This is exactly the point. There's no strict regulations on the usage of "both"/"all" in Chinese. Some might say one way is better than the other, but basically it's due to the impact of English grammar. It is grammatically correct to use "一切" to address two things only, though it might not meet everyone's sense of language.

In summary, I see no reason to blame that dude in the video. This is merely a bad question.


Confused about 们 in this particular sentence "你们家有几口人"

"你家有几口人?" is asking the singular 'your family' (one single family as a unit)

“你们家有几口人?” is asking the plural 'you' (everyone in the family can answer this question. You as a member of the family, can answer this question on everyone's behalf)

"你的家中有几口人?" is asking the singular 'you' (how many people are in your family)

All sentences above are valid


Can I take this sign(一) out of these words 一丝不苟 and "不屑一顾 or no?

These are both idioms (成语) with fixed structures, so deleting the 一 (yī) = "one" would change the meaning, and make it nonsensical.  This also holds for Chinese words such as 一起 and 第一.

一丝不苟 basically means "[even] one thread not careless", referring to meticulousness.
不屑一顾 basically means "disdain [even] one consideration", or "disdain even considering it once".  However, here it's possible to just say 不屑 = "disdain".

So ordinarily dropping the 一 is not reasonable, and certainly so among fixed idioms.

However, in some non-idiom cases we can drop the 一, such as:

每一个人 can be shorted to 每个人, and
她是一个医生 can be shorted to 她是个医生, and even further to 她是医生.

In these cases it's different: we have a measure word (个) and it's possible to sometimes drop the 一.


What is the variant bā character for 巴掌?

「」 fulfils the statement 《說文》：‘��，��擊也。’ (check the Shuowen entry on zdic), and also everything else.

  耳巴，或作 “耳「」”。民國十八年《榮縣志·禮俗》：“《說文》： ‘獸足謂之番。’ 附袁切。古無輕唇音，番讀如班，今音如板， 手掌謂手番， 足掌曰足番，雙聲轉「」。《說文》： ‘「」，「」（批）擊也。’ 今「」掌、耳「」，北人强以刮字當之， 非也。”

Note,

Zdict lists「」with the third tone, not the first tone (bā). I can't confirm with an external resource about this tone.
北人强以刮字當之 is saying that there are multiple words for「耳巴」, like「耳光」,「耳摑」,「耳刮子」, etc.


Why is 之 used in 忍耐是幸福之门的一把钥匙?

之 and 的 are essentially synonyms for different contexts.

之 is mostly used in set phrases, idioms, proverbs, poems, etc. (Also math with percents and such: 百分*之*百 100 points out of 100. )

的 is more fit for colloquial contexts.

Since 忍耐是幸福之门的一把钥匙 "Patience is the key to the door of happiness" is a phrase, it is fit to use 之.


(Shanghai Wu) "但是, 晓得 个 伊 来仔." Is this correct?

In Chinese, clauses are often freely translated, since there is no such grammar structure. And the grammar of Wu Chinese is much similar with standard Chinese. I try to translate your sentence into both standard Chinese and Shanghai Wu.

But, she came here knowing (that this fight was hopeless).
(standard Chinese) 但是，她来这里的时候，就知道（这场战斗是没有希望的）。
(Shanghai Wu) 但是，渠（伊）来此地个辰光，就晓得（箇场仗是没啥希望个）。
/de zy, ghi le tshy di gheh zen kuaon, zhieu shiau teh geh zan tsan zy meh sa shi vaon gheh/

The following sentences which you intented to translate into are grammatically possible but less natural, and even less when clauses continue to grow.

(standard Chinese) 但是，知道（这场战斗没有希望）的她来了这里。
(Shanghai Wu) 但是，晓得（箇场仗没啥希望）个渠（伊）来仔此地。


I asked a few of my students about this, and they mentioned something about sex being bad, too.

In a nutshell, there's nothing that doesn't have some bad aspect to it, even the best things.

One student specifically mentioned the second variation, 男人不坏，女人不爱，没有后代: "if there weren't bad boys in the world, women wouldn't fall in love, and that would be the end of it, wouldn't it?".

As for the variations about the animals, maybe it's just for the rhyme. But the one about bad men/boys, you seem to have the right idea.


What topolects distingish between 娘 and 孃? Why?

孃 usually is used by people who live in southwest China, to refer women who are in the middle age. People in southwest China use it to call their older female relatives, or female strangers who seemed like in the middle age.

娘 means mom, but it usually used by people who live in North China. In South China, people call their mom as 妈妈

I'm a Chinese, and these are my experiences in using Chinese. Hope it helps.


Which is the additional stroke added to 末 and to 未? significance?

末 is logographically comparable to 本. The top stroke indicates the top branches of a tree, the end of the tree. Hence the meaning "end".

However, 未 is unrelated to both characters above, it is just a representation of a tree. It is one of the twelve earthly branches, and as such a character that once had some original meaning that is now lost to us; it has been abstracted to mean "not yet".


What is the proper word order when a sentence contains an adverb using 地 and a coverb phrase?

In Chinese you can also say "他会很诚恳地向你道歉" in this way: "他会向你很诚恳地道歉"

Then the order of coverb and adverb is the same as the sentence "父母应该把事情好好地告诉孩子."

Example: the following 2 sentences have the same meaning

coverb first, adverb after: 医生*对他*仔细地检查

adverb first, coverb after: 医生仔细地*对他*检查