维拉

Translation based on Vala rather than middle-earth.

Wikipedia: Vala (Middle-earth)

  The Valar [ˈvalar] (singular Vala) are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. They are "gods" or "angelic beings"1 subordinate to the one God (Eru Ilúvatar); they are the most powerful of the Ainur who chose to go into the World (Arda) and complete its material development after its form was determined by the Music of the Ainur (Ainulindalë). They are mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, but were developed earlier in material published posthumously in The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth.

where the Chinese article translates to:

维拉：维基百科

  维拉 Valar，是英国作家约翰·罗纳德·鲁埃尔·托尔金的史诗式奇幻小说《精灵宝钻》中的种族，意思是“阿尔达大有力量者” Powers of Arda，女性的维拉则被称为维丽 Valier。维拉是精灵和人类眼中的诸神，他们是伊露维塔的意念创造出来的埃努，其中十五位力量最强大的埃努，协助伊露维塔统治阿尔达，被人类和精灵称为维拉。后来其中一名维拉被除名，成为了天魔王。

中土大陸

Wikipedia: Middle Earth

  Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of British writer J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. The term is equivalent to the term Midgard of Norse mythology, describing the human-inhabited world,1 i.e. the central continent of the Earth in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, take place entirely in Middle-earth, and Middle-earth has also become a short-hand to refer to the legendarium or its fictional universe.

and Chinese equivalent

中土大陸：维基百科

  中土大陆或中土世界（英语：Middle-earth），又译为中洲1，是出现在J.R.R.托尔金小说著作中的一块架空世界中的大陆和世界，这名称来自于古英语中的“middangeard”，字面含义是“中间的土地”，意指“人类居住的陆地”。在中土大陆发生的故事，有《霍比特人》、《魔戒》和《精灵宝钻》等。

alternatives to 中土大陸 include: 中土世界 and 中洲.

The History of Middle-earth is translated as 中土世界的历史

The Peoples of Middle-earth is translated as 中土世界的民族

see wikipedia's: 中土世界的歷史


How do I parse the Zhou Enlai quote 为了中华之崛起而读书?

You parsed the sentence correctly, and got the correct meaning for most of them.

之 means 的 (of). And 而 is a conjunction, to connect the two subsentences. It's not necessary but if you want you can take its meaning as and / and then / and yet ... to help understanding.

PS: The google translation is quite straightforward and correct.


How many supplies did Liu Bei have at Dangyang?

Yes, 兩 used to have many more meanings.
In the details section of zdic, there's the following additional meanings:

(4) 匹(长四丈)
归夫人鱼轩,重锦三十两。——《左传·闵公二年》
(5) 通“辆”。车一乘 [used for buses,carts,etc.]
武王戎车三百两。——《书·牧誓·序》
之子于归,百两御之。——《诗·召南·鹊巢》

Definition 4 shows that it's also a measure word for silk fabric, but in this context definition 5 would be more appropriate - it is indeed the same as the modern 辆. So "輜重數千兩" should mean "supplies of thousands of carts".


Similar characters:
师 shi1

帅 shuai4

I would imagine someone mixed them up accidentally.


Are there differences in writing between Chinese languages, such as Mandarin and Shanghainese

Let me answer the most general question first:

"even if the different languages are not mutually understandable when spoken, they are when written."

To a large extent, this is true - but for two different reasons. Before the modern era, this is true because "written Chinese" was based on classical Chinese; whereas the spoken languages were highly divergent from the written form. This is similar to the situation in pre-Renaissance Italy, where scholars wrote in Latin but spoke in highly divergent (mutually unintelligible) Italian dialects.

During the 1910s-1930s, when China was beginning to modernize, there was an influential literary movement to use "Vernacular Chinese" in place of "Classical Chinese" in writing, because the former was easier to understand for the vast majority of people, who were learning how to write and read for the first time. Of course, this created a problem - there are so many languages/dialects in Vernacular Chinese, so which one do we choose as the standard one? It was agreed, after about 20 years of (often bitter) debates, spanning across different regimes, that the Mandarin (Guanhua) dialect based in Beijing would be the standard form of written Vernacular Chinese. Today this is simply referred to as "Chinese" or "Standard Chinese".

So, yes - a person living in Shanghai, who only speaks Shanghainese, is generally able to write and read in a "written form" of Beijing Mandarin. You can see how this makes things difficult for speakers of non-Mandarin dialects - they speak with a particular grammatical structure and vocabulary, but have to write and read in a completely different way. Often, to make things easier, most non-Mandarin (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi etc.) regions of China have adopted non-standardized ways of putting their native vernacular languages into writing. This usually happens when using Mandarin Chinese would create confusion or ambiguity, or when the vocabulary and grammar they used is significantly different from Mandarin vocabulary. For example, the Shanghainese would write "再會" for "Goodbye", instead of "再見". In Cantonese, in particular, the written form of Cantonese is highly developed (partially because of Hong Kong's unique history) and widely used in place of Mandarin writing in non-official settings.

For the younger generation, regardless of whether they uses local vocabulary in writing, they usually understand Standard Chinese very well, since they learn it in school. So the mutual intelligibility goes one way - the non-Mandarin speakers can read Mandarin, but the Mandarin speakers usually cannot read local dialects. Summary:

Historical:

Spoken languages: Many

Written language: Classical Chinese

Modern:

Spoken languages: Many

Written language: Mandarin is understood by all; local varieties used by some

It may also be of interest to you that there are two different scripts for written Chinese - traditional and simplified. Traditional Chinese is used by people outside of mainland China (Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, overseas communities) whereas Simplified Chinese is used by those within.


How is it decided where 了 goes in 这时他得到了公众的支持?

My take on this is that, as you say, the aspectual 了 is placed after the final verb of the sentence, but I'm not aware of the existence of a hard rule for that. I would say it is mainly a matter of style. Maybe there are linguists here who can confirm this.

As for how to use 了 and where to position it in a sentence, this has been asked many times and you can find some pretty good and accepted answers here:
Tense and use of 了

  what is the difference between 这时他得到了公众的支持 and 这时他得到公众的支持了

The first one 这时他得到了公众的支持  is describing a completed action and sets the time in the past --> That time he obtained the support of the crowd.

The second one 这时他得到公众的支持了 describes a change of state (and tells nothing about time) --> This time he's got the support of the crowd.
Which implies that he usually doesn't have it.

However, since this last one example describes a change, the sentence with 得到 - which I perceive as a punctual event - plus the absence of a context sounds a bit weird to me.

So I'd prefer the first version any way.


刀, by definition, usually has a curved blade with one sharpened edge. Thus a Samurai's sword, a scimitar, and a machete all fall into the definition of 刀.

If it has a double edge, and it has a straight shape, it is usually a 剑.

双刃剑 is the standard translation of double-edged sword. There is no usage difference between Taiwan and the mainland.

In very rare cases, 两面刀 is short for 两面三刀, which describes a two-faced person who is secretly trying to harm the other.


There is a substantial difference between the following contrast pair:
a. 我能说汉语。
b. 我可以说汉语。
In a., neng 能 indicates that I have the ability to speak Chinese while in b. keyi 可以 implies that this action, my speaking Chinese can be carried out if asked or allowed.


Are too many 的s for multiple adjectives a problem?

Considering its mathematical context, I recommend this one:

  一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是一个具有m个顶点，n着色的Kr□Ks的诱导子图，例如：...

the first remaining 的 cannot be omitted because 具有m个顶点，n着色 modifies the properties of Kr□Ks and the second 的 constructs 是……的诱导子图.

However, our teacher may put it as

  记PLR(r,s,n;m)为一m顶点，n着色Kr□Ks的诱导子图，如：...

(The briefer the better for mathematicians lol)

EDIT:

Sorry I made unforgivable mistakes.
So, there's ambiguity, which is which concept m顶点，n着色 modifies.
However, it is not really ambiguous because Kr□Ks is a graph of r×s nodes and we usually don't care its chromatic number so we can infer that It's the induced subgraph that has m nodes and is n-colorable, but still we should try to put it in a clear way.
Now it should be

  记PLR(r,s,n;m)为Kr□Ks的一m顶点，n着色的诱导子图，如：...

But still

  一个PLR(r,s,n;m)是一个具有m个顶点，n着色的Kr□Ks的诱导子图，例如：...

is okay but ambiguous grammarly.


What is the difference between 经验 and 经历?

经历 stresses on the passive side, while 经验 on the active side. Like in a fire, it is not your intention to have such an experience because it is a disaster, but you get through it, so that is 经历， but when you tell others what you feel about or what you have learnt from it, that is 经验. That is my understanding, and hope it is helpful.


This question is really about: " when can we omit the possessive 的 "
的 1.(adjective suffix):
For example:

强大勇敢 (strong and brave)

强大勇敢的人 (strong and brave man)

You cannot omit the adjective suffix 的 and write 强大勇敢人

高大 (tall and big)

高大的人 (tall and big man)

You cannot omit the adjective suffix 的 and write 高大人
Adjectives that do not need adjective suffix can directly apply to the object.

For example 好(good) in 好女儿(good daughter)

的 2.(possessive):
我(的)衣服的鈕扣的顏色是白色的。 can be reduced to: 我衣服鈕扣的顏色是白色的。
(The last 的 is not omitted because it is not a possessive 的 but an adjective suffix 的.)
The same with your example sentences:

你(的)国家的医院好吗？can be reduced to: 你国家的医院好吗?

我(的)妈妈的房子很高。can be reduced to: 我妈妈的房子很高。

From user3a's answer:

The “的” before the subject is usually kept.
Others can be omitted, if possible.

I say it is wrong. The possessive '的' after a subject is usually kept, if it is a 'true possessive'(something you actually own) For example:  The possessive 的 in 我的車 cannot be omitted and make it "我車"
On the other hand, if the '的' is a 'relative possessive'(something you don't actually own) can be omitted. For example: you can omit the '的' in '我的母亲' and write 我母亲.
More example:
The possessive 的 in 这是我的太太; 他是我的女儿; 你的国家; 你的公司 can be omitted. You can write 这是我太太; 他是我女儿; 你国家; 你公司 (if you actually own the country or the company, then the possessive 的 should be kept)
Again with your example sentence:

我(的)妈妈的房子很高。 can be reduced to: 我妈妈的房子很高。

我(的)牛(的)角很长。 cannot be reduced to: 我牛的角很长。 or 我的牛角很长。

(you possess the cow and the cow possesses the horns, neither can be omitted.)


what's the best translation for English for the following words?

First Shrine/First try
Getting better at xxx/ Getting in the flow
Next Level Profficiency
Unbeatable


Why doesn't the Chinese language have a one character word for "young"?

It does. 少 means young. See 少不更事

There are also 幼 for children and 老 for old( you already know).
孟子 said: 老吾老以及人之老,幼吾幼以及人之幼


In ancient China, was there an equivalent of pinyin?

There was no equivalent of pinyin in ancient Chinese, because Chinese writing developed as a way of representing the spoken language—at first for special purposes (e.g., recording divination), and then later more generally.  If there had been pinyin in, say, the 商 Shang dynasty, they might well have used that instead of Chinese characters.  Why have the (as you say) more complicated Chinese characters at all, if you already have a perfectly good representation in the pinyin?

This sounds a little odd today, because we're used to the idea of Chinese characters, and pinyin is used as a way to indicate their pronunciation, but English gets by perfectly fine using only its equivalent of pinyin (normal English orthography).  Chinese could have done so, if they had had such a system, but keep in mind that the alphabet is a rather deep innovation, and it is by no means obvious, and we should not be surprised that they did not have such a thing around the inception of the Chinese writing system.

Probably by the Three Dynasties period, and certainly no later than the 隋 Sui dynasty, when the 切韻 Qieyun (the oldest surviving example) was created, people used 反切 fanqie as a way to express character pronunciations.  It should be emphasized that fanqie is not spelling as we normally think of it in alphabetic languages.  In principle, it divides Chinese character pronunciations into two parts—an initial and a rhyme—so that the character 東 dōng would be split up into d- and -ōng.

But these two parts would not be represented using new symbols introduced only for phonetic purposes, which would have been the beginning of a true spelling system.  Instead, two other existing characters would be selected, one that shared the initial, and one that shared the rhyme.  In the Qieyun, these characters were 德 dé and 紅 hóng, and so 東 was understood to have a pronunciation that shared the d- with 德 and the -óng with 紅.

To be sure, 東 is first tone and 紅 is second tone, but at the time of the Qieyun (Middle Chinese), both characters were level tone, and what we call level (first) and rising (second) tone are the result of a register split that happened in all four Middle Chinese tones, after the time of the Qieyun.  Mandarin preserves this split of the level tone, but only keeps one side of the rising tone in its third tone, one side of the departing tone in its fourth tone, and loses (in most areas) the entering tone altogether.  Other dialects, such as Cantonese, preserve most of the results of the split.

Note that fanqie merely expresses the pronunciation of one character in terms of two others, so just as someone who is ignorant of English would find it difficult to learn it from a dictionary, someone who is ignorant of all characters cannot learn anything about the pronunciation of any character from fanqie "spellings".  (Also, as a side note, the Qieyun was not intended as a general-use pronunciation reference, but was rather dedicated to Classical readings.)  We might say that equivalence classes of initials and finals are generated by the fanqie spellings, but no explicit values are denoted.  That requires a set of specialized phonetic symbols such as an alphabet.

As far as the characters are concerned, they were not always so complicated; in many cases, the so-called "simplified" characters are actually the original form, and what we call "traditional" characters were later elaborations to distinguish two characters with the same pronunciation but radically (pun only partially intended) different meanings.

This came about in part because of the use of 假借 jiǎjiè, or borrowing, in which an existing Chinese character with (typically) a concrete meaning, and therefore a straightforward pictorial or representational depiction, was borrowed for another word with the same pronunciation.  One of the most (in)famous examples is 來 lái "come", whose character represents a wheat stalk, a meaning now captured by the character 麥 mài "wheat".  The simpler character was borrowed for the more common meaning, which led some people to speculate that there was a form lái that meant "wheat"—but in fact, the situation is simpler than that: The original character for "come" was 麥—note the presence of the foot radical at the bottom—so the two characters merely "switched places".

This kind of extended usage is fine if you only want to write something down to remind you of what you yourself meant, but if you want to convey something to someone else, it behooves you to specify it more precisely, which I suspect gave rise to the use of 形聲字 xíngshēngzì, or phonetic-semantic compounds, which account for the vast majority of Chinese characters (around 90 percent, depending on whose count you trust*).  The phonetic components of many of these characters were themselves compounds already, leading to a large nested structure and the array of complicated traditional characters you observe.  (This complication, by the way, is why on the mainland, you'll typically see traditional characters referred to as 繁體字 fántǐzì, to allude to their complexity, whereas Taiwan often refers to them as 正體字 zhèngtǐzì, to allude to their "correctness".)

In short, Chinese writing evolved organically, as the result of countless scribes working independently, and even with the efforts of the Qin dynasty to keep things straight, lots of characters were standardized that today seem pointlessly complicated.  Whether simplified Chinese measurably helps literacy is a different and difficult question to answer, because that too was done somewhat organically and not always consistently.

Hope this helps.  Some of this is just general knowledge, but a couple of (English-language) reference sources that I've found useful are

Ramsey, S. Robert, The Languages of China.
Schuessler, Axel, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese.

*Interestingly, the percentage varies from source to source, but there seems to be general agreement on how many characters are not phonetic-semantic compounds—about 1500—and so the variation in percentage arises almost wholly from how many characters are reckoned to be used in Chinese.


What is the most appropriate literal translation of 赚钱

赚钱 has multiple context in mandarin.

工作赚钱 ； work for living

做生意赚钱 ： making/earning a living from the trade

这生意很赚钱 ： the business is profitable

买一送二， 这次赚了 ： buy 1 free 2, what a gain.

So which context you are referring to ?

There are few more meaning as describe by zdnet on 赚, which carry specially meaning in various literature.


會講國語 vs. 講國語: when to use one or the other?

我會講國語 means you are able to speak Mandarin(probably be good at it), which is often used when explaining to someone if you can speak Mandarin. You might put 我可以講(一點)國語, in case that you might not be very good at it.

Compared with 我會講國語, 我講國語 doesn't imply whether you are good at it or not.

我講國語 is often used when asked what type of/how many languages you use or speak. For example,

A: 你講幾種語言 ?

B: 我講國語，英語，...

... ...

A: 你講什麼語言 ?

B: 我講國語

A side note: in mainland, we say 普通话 or 中文 for Mandarin. I heard TWN folks said 國語, and maybe HK folks as well.


How to say "If you would like to know any updates , you can always call or message me"

如果您想要了解后续进展的话，可以随时电话或邮件联系我。

Toosky Hierot's comment ”欲获知后续进展如何“ sounds a bit too literary to me. I think "如果您想要了解后续进展的话" is a more common way to say it, though I agree 进展 or 后续进展 is the right word choice here


Are "我在哪里可以买火车票" and "我哪里可以买火车票" both correct sentences?

"我在哪里可以买到火车票?" is the correct way to ask where you can buy the ticket, but in oral language "我哪里可以买到火车票?" is used quite often.

Actually there are 2 ways how "我哪里可以买到火车票"  can be interpreted. The first one is a question asking where you can buy train tickets. The second one is a statement meaning there is no place where train tickets can be bought. In oral language people will know what you mean by the context, the tone of your voice and your expressions.


What is the difference between 收了 and 收到了?

我收到了他的信。/ 我收到他的信了。
  I have received his letter.

Here, 收到了 usually indicates that something I received that was sent by other people actively. I just get it passively.

  我收了他的钱。
  I took his money. /  I accepted his money.

Here, 收了 just means I get his money. But you cannot tell whether the money is given by him actively or the money is given by my demand/request.


Why is there a 去 in 我们需要确保社交距离去保护您和我们的员工?

I also wondered people can use either '来' or '去' for 'to'  as in  用水来滅火 and 用水去滅火, and my impression is as follow:

来(to) emphasize the mean

[确保社交距离][来] 保护您和我们的员工 = To protect you and our employees with (the policy of) ensure social distancing

~

去(to) emphasize the objective

确保社交距离 [去] [保护您和我们的员工] = use (the policy of) ensure social distancing to protect you and our employees

Similarly:
用水滅火 = use water extinguishes a fire
用水来滅火 = extinguish a fire with water (stress 水 is the mean)
用水去滅火 = use water to extinguish a fire (stress 滅火 is the objective)
Edit:
Also, we use 来 when the object is close to you; we use 去 when the object is a distance from you
Example:
來我家 - come to my home
去你家 - go to your house
With this rule, we can apply it to your question
确保社交距离 [来]保护您和我们的员工 (保护您和我们的员工 is the goal right in front of you)
确保社交距离 [去] 保护您和我们的员工 (保护您和我们的员工 is a goal you set out to reach)
The two sentences basically mean the same, just from a different perspective


停得下 = [停 verb]+[得 potential particle]+[下 directional particle]

照得上 = [照 verb]+[得 potential particle]+[上 directional particle]

In 广场上停得下:

停 is the verb for "to stop / to park"
得 is the potential particle for "able to"
下 is the directional particle for "down"

  广场上停得下=  able to park down on the square

In 天安门照得上:

照 is the verb for "to take picture"
得 is the potential particle for "able to"
上 is the directional particle for "onto"

  天安门照得上 =  able to take picture of Tiananmen Square onto(the camera)

There are only two potential particles. They are "得" and "不" , so it is easy to remember. You potentially, either able to, or unable to preform an action (verb)

There are many more directional particles such as " up, down, in, out, "
we choose different directional particle depend on how a verb act on an object.

For example:

放上 (lay upon) - 放得上 / 放不上 (able/unable to lay it upon )

丢下 (drop down) - 丢得下 / 丢不下 (able/unable to drop it down)

插入 (insert in)- 插得入 / 插不入 (able/unable to insert it in)

取出 (take out) - 取得出 / 取不出 (able/unable to take it out)

*There are too many particles to explain them one by one. You just have to memorize each of them.


What is the difference between 很, 十分 and 非常?

很 = very

很 謝謝 你 = Thank you very much
你 很 厲害 = You are very good.

非常 = 十分 = extremely

十分/非常 謝謝 你
你 十分/非常 厲害

Word by word:

非-常 = extra-ordinary, ab-normal
十分 = 100 percent


好久不见＋了＝OK or wrong? What does the "le" add?

Technically speaking, 好久不见 and 好久不见了 are both acceptable; 了 completes the implicit meaning of "no see" as "have not seen" but can be omitted.

IMHO, the two are more or less interchangeable and it is merely a personal preference of which to use (I prefer the later as well). Nevertheless, from my experience, people usually use the former in relatively formal context. As to myself, I use 了 as a modal particle in this context, as in "Sigh/Wow/Damn, it's been long". I feel that it somehow extends or emphasizes the feeling at the moment.

On a side note, "long time no see" is commonly believed as originated from Chinese-speaking communities in the States, i.e. it is seen as Chinglish (Please forgive my language).


What does 这些地方 mean in this dialogue about health checks?

In this context, '这些地方'(these places) refers to 'areas' on a human body.

For example:

'upper arm area' (上臂一带)

'left wrist and left lower palm area' (左腕及左掌底部一带)

'neck and spine area '(颈椎一带)


Meaning of 纷纷 (fēnfēn) referred to 雨 (yǔ)

Baidu Baike's page on 清明 has a vernacular translation of the line:

  清明时节雨纷纷

which goes:

  江南清明时节细雨纷纷飘洒

Here 雨纷纷 has been rendered as 细雨纷纷.

细雨纷纷 is defined in ABC as:

  a steady fall of drizzling rain

while KEY defines it as:

  steady drizzle

雨纷纷 itself is very poetic, but it is well known enough that most people would be aware of its existence and usage. The entire first line of the poem, in fact, shares the same status. Sometimes you will see or hear it quoted.

Unless the situation calls for it, there is no real reason you would want to go around sounding like a bard and it would be quite off putting to most people listening to you.

For normal everyday conversations, 细雨纷纷 would do just fine.


They are auxiliary glyphs (輔助字形).

For example,

According to the wikibooks the rules to input them are as follows.

  倉頡字母單獨成字時，取一碼即可。
  The basic glyph (radical) that forms a word just takes ONE code.
  For example, 日 is input with the key "A".

  輔助字形單獨成字時，則須依拆碼規則拆碼。
  An auxiliary glyph that forms a word should be decomposed according to the rules of decomposition.
  For example, ⺜ is split into 冂(B), 一(M) and 一(M).

However, there are two more requirements in order to input them.

It is coded in Unicode.
(otherwise you have to make your own fonts)
The input method engine you use includes it.
(or you can make your own table)

For example,

⺜, ⺝ and 冃 are encoded and can be input with the keys BMM.

 must be decomposed into 囗(W) and 丨(L).
Since it is not encoded, it cannot be input directly.


http://baike.baidu.com/subview/199191/8163691.htm gives a plausible answer: it refers to a remote possibility of a thing X happening.  Sort of "among the ten thousand and one things that could happen, one is X."  Far back in ancient and classical Chinese,  the ten thousand things are a proverbial way to express all that happens in this world.  But I did not find sources giving any specific classical source for 万一 meaning "just in case."


Can someone help me to read this seal (Characters identified: 江山如此多嬌)

江山如此多嬌, The country, the mountains and the rivers, are so overwhelmingly beautiful; 引無數英雄競折腰。It draws numberless heroes bow giving their curtsy.


How is this commode style toilet seat called in Chinese?

坐便椅 can be the name you want, in a decent way.

In addition you can find it in Aliexpress. Some big pharmacies also offer these.


Is "⤒" (UPWARDS ARROW TO BAR) (U+2912) not easily confused with "不"?

No, it will never be confused, bacause 不 is not always used as a sign in public （因为“不”不太会当作一个符号来使用的）.


What are the earliest examples of "simplification"?

On a system level, there was never a movement of simplification until the early 20th century. Chinese characters developed from less refined writing techniques and simpler shapes to more standardised writing styles and characters with more complex structures. This is because simple shapes have two (possibly related) problems:

They're too easy to confuse with other simple shapes;
You can only make so many simple shapes, and there isn't enough of them to represent the basic units of the language.

Chinese characters thus naturally piled on more components to existing characters to make enough distinguishable characters to represent the language sufficiently. Simplifications are therefore relatively rare, and are only one kind of process of how characters have changed in general. Exclusive simplifications (which make a former character obsolete) are close to nonexistent.

This being said, one can sometimes find individual characters that were known to be unambiguously simplified at one stage from a previously more complex character. I'll show two examples, the first which people would be more familiar with but doesn't really fulfil the criterion earliest, the second to actually fulfil this criterion (in an approximate sense).

「与」

「与」is ultimately a corruption of「牙」. As is already known,「与」is a simplified variant of「與」.

春秋金⿱止高君鉦鋮集成423戰國・楚簡106曾侯乙墓竹簡篆舁部說文解字今楷

西周金⿸尸⿱罒丌敖集成4213戰國・楚簡語叢3.9荊門郭店楚簡篆牙部說文解字東漢隸斥彰長田君斷　今楷

「與」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*m-q(r)aʔ/) is comprised of semantic four hands「又又」and phonetic「牙」(/*m-ɢˤ<r>a/).

「牙」was a common phonetic loan for「與」in the Warring States period to the Han Dynasty. Over time,「牙」suffered some shape changes into「与」inside the character「與」(changes outside as a stand-alone character resulted into the modern form of「牙」instead). This leads on to the Shuowen erroneously describing「与」as a component of「與」, and「与」as a separate character from「牙」:

戰國・楚簡語叢3.9荊門郭店楚簡篆勺部說文解字今楷

《說文》：＂與，黨與也。从舁，从与。，古文與。＂ ✘✘ (「与」is not a separate character from「牙」. Should be 从舁，牙聲)
《說文》：＂与，賜予也。一勺為与。此与與同。＂ ✘✘ (Shuowen shouldn't have this entry at all)

The current form of「与」is a result of an incorrect shape analysis from Shuowen (hence why using Shuowen to demonstrate glyph evolution without checking  modern publications on the subject can lead to serious errors), and is really just「與」, inclusive of its corrupted「牙」component, stripped of its four hands「又又」.

  As mentioned earlier, Chinese characters piled on more components to existing characters to make enough distinguishable characters to represent the language sufficiently. 《荊門郭店楚簡》語叢3.9 is an example where「牙」is used as a phonetic loan or rebus for「與」. What happens when you start using phonetic loan characters? You need another character to represent the original meaning, here demonstrated by piling on more components on to「牙」to distinguish its uses.

  戰國・楚簡165曾侯乙墓竹簡隸定「」

  「」is a precursor to「齖」, which has even more components; what looks like「臼」in this character is a shape-approximation of the same picture which forms the bottom part of「齒」.

「⿻人一」(Simplification of「伐」)

Exclusively found in Shang Dynasty oracle bones, the simplified form was dropped relatively quickly.

商甲前7.15.4合集6540商甲佚328合集6363正

「伐」(to behead > kill > attack) is a picture of a person「人」and a dagger-axe「戈」, where earlier forms deliberately drew the blade of「戈」across the neck of「人」, emphasising the meaning to behead.

西周金大保簋集成4140春秋・楚金南疆鉦集成428秦簡日書乙種128睡虎地秦簡今楷

In the simplified form (佚328 and others), most of the shape of「戈」is removed, with only the blade across the neck remaining. The following is a text sample to demonstrate the usage of this shape.

  《殷虛文字丙編》502

  The following text contains both「伐」and its reduced form「⿻人一」, both shown in red. Reading order given by circled numbers ①—⑭.

  甲午卜，爭鼎（貞）：羽（翌）乙未用羌？用。（之）日⿱隹（陰）。

  (Jiǎwǔ [甲午] day divination [卜]) Oracle Zhēng [爭] asked [貞]:

  "On the day of yǐwèi [乙未] in the period of yì [翌], sacrifice [use, 用] a  Qiāng person?"

  (Divined a positive result) "Confirm sacrifice [用]."
  "That [之] day [日] is cloudy/overcast [陰]".

  甲午卜，爭鼎：羽乙未勿⿻⿰目目（瞿）用羌？

  (Jiǎwǔ day divination) Oracle Zhēng asked:

  "On the day of yǐwèi in the period of yì, don't [勿] sacrifice a Qiāng person?"

  鼎：羽乙未用羌？

  Asked:

  "On the day of yǐwèi in the period of yì, sacrifice a Qiāng person?"

  乙未卜，（賓）鼎：以⿱戈止（武）芻？

  (Yǐwèi day divination) Oracle Bīn [] asked:

  "Will the farmers [grass cutters for animal feeding, 芻] be brought over [以] from the land of Wǔ [⿱戈止]?"

  以⿱戈止芻？

  (Asked again:)

  "Will the farmers be brought over from the land of Wǔ?"

  鼎：弗（其）以⿱戈止芻？

  Asked:

  "Will the farmers not [弗] be brought over from the land of Wǔ?"

  㞢（侑）于唐子，「伐」？

  (Asked:)

  "To return favours [侑] to [于] our ancestor Tang [唐子], shall we conduct a beheading [伐] ritual?"

  鼎：乎（呼）取⿱子止，「⿻人一」？

  Asked:

  "Beckon [呼] someone to grab [取] a sacrificial person [⿱子止] for a beheading [⿻人一] ritual?"

  鼎：（燎）于土（社）？

  Asked:

  "Conduct a bonfire [燎] ritual for the regional gods [社]?"

  㞢于父乙？

  (Asked:)

  "Return favours for our ancestor King Fùyǐ [父乙]?"

  鼎：（王）㝱（夢），隹（禍）？

  Asked:

  "The king [王] had a dream [夢], will there be disaster [禍]?"

  不隹？

  (Asked:)

  "Will there not [不] be disaster?"

  鼎：（疒）罒（目）？

  Asked:

  "Will the king suffer an eye [目] disease [疒]?"

  鼎：弗罒？

  Asked:

  "Will the king not suffer an eye disease?"

References:

杜忠誥《說文篆文訛形釋例》
季旭昇《說文新證》
劉翔・陳抗・陳初生・董琨　編　李學勤　審訂《商周古文字讀本》
何琳儀《戰國古文字典：戰國文字聲系》
小學堂
中華語文知識庫

漢字源流

國學大師

郭沫若《甲骨文合集》
中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》
張秉權《殷虛文字丙編》

中國哲學書電子化計劃

宋・徐鉉等奉敕校定　漢・許慎《說文解字》

漢語多功能字庫


She identify herself as 姐姐 to show she is “powerful” or “knowledgeable” in doing whatever you don’t know how to do. Sometimes you call a female 姐姐 for showing respect. Even for people younger than you, they may still identify themselves as 姐姐, because 妹妹 is too flirtatious. However, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to call a female 姐姐 when you know she’s clearly younger than you (not in your situation, as she has called herself 姐姐). And, females don’t like to be called 阿姨 by strangers even though they’re much older than you, so 姐姐 is a safer bet.

Another popular term to call young females (even though they might be younger than you) is 小姐姐, which has a lot meanings than it used to be. So the use of it depends on context, but generally I treat it as a nickname for young beautiful females. Pls be careful using it though. A lot of materials online you can search about.


Distinct terms for 'authentication' and 'validation'? Both seem to be 验证

authenticate ＝ 核实

authenticate here means to prove your identity

validate ＝ 验证

captcha is 验证码


Here is a full translation of your conversation.

  A: 我从没去过中国。
  B: 你对中国文化有什么看法
  A: 正如我说过的，我从没去过中国。

As you can see, "like I said" is "正如我说过的" in Chinese. A word-to-word translation would be

  "like"  ⟶ "正如/就如/就像"
   I      ⟶ "我"
  "said"  ⟶ "说过的".


The sentence structure of the following sentence

零部件的更换
零部件=(mechanical, electrical, etc) part; 更换 = replace/replacement (it can be a noun), so 零部件的更换 = replacement of parts
坚固性= ruggedness
Have you noticed the structure 在...上 used here? It means "with respect to; regarding; in terms of", so the sentence may be split into (I think 零部件的 modifies 更换以及坚固性 here):

在[零部件的(更换/以及/坚固性)]上也有所优化
There are some optimizations regarding the replacement and ruggedness of parts.


How come the first tone in the character of 边 in the word 东边 is not written?

In Chinese, there is the neutral tone (轻声) which does not have any tone marks.

In the word 东边, the "边" can be pronounced with a neutral tone.


Is the visual similarity of the simplifications 華→华 and 畢→毕 a coincidence?

I think they just, by coincidence, happen to look similar, (to some people I suppose) In any case they sound completely different from each other with no similarity in meaning.

Just like 友 & 发.


What is the Chinese word for a Chinese lantern?

灯笼 means lantern in the general sense, that is, a portable lighting device or mounted light fixture used to illuminate broad areas.

The hot air balloon you described is 'sky lantern', which is called 天灯 (sky lantern) or 孔明灯 (Kongming Lantern) in Chinese.


What's up with this mixed simplifed and traditional album cover?

There is no Simplified Chinese in the first image.

The PRC straightened the strokes of some cursive characters and defined them as new characters. This kind of definition is nonsense; a Latin-alphabet equivalent would be to make up a new character which straightens the curvature of

and call it a "different character" from F.

The proper transcription of that text is

李劍鴻
望海崗

where we recognise that the writing is in Traditional Chinese semi-cursive or cursive:

The extraction you've provided in the question is not a consistent transcription, but actually just finding the closest Ming typeface character encoded in Unicode with character forms restricted to Chinese-language fonts. If we don't restrict ourselves to Chinese-language fonts, for example, your transcription of 「海」 would look like

which is the Japanese shape instead. Even though 「海」 highly resembles the Japanese standard, we're not claiming that the artist is using Shinjitai, right? These are just semi-cursive handwriting forms.


Dictionaries suggest 透 (tou) is pictophonetic where 秀 (xiu) provides the sound. Is this through a classical chinese pronunciation?

Pronoucing them in Cantonese will make sense to you.

透，tau3
秀，sau3


Note: I use trad.Chi so 號 is the same as 号

When you talk about a date, you can use 號 when you are talking casually with people, for example:

  今天是幾多號？
  今天是十五號。

You can use 日 when you're writing (eg. diary or notes) or saying something formal:

  十二月八日

Both has the same meaning.

[!] If you use them for other meanings, they are totally different.


What is the verbatim translation for "都什么时候了" ?

都。。。了 indicates past/completion of an event with an emphasis on time, and sometimes it's equivalent of  don't you see

都（下午2点）了，你还没吃午饭呐？
You didn't have your lunch yet? Don't you see it's 2 PM already?


I only heard some folks from Taipei have said 我han4你 to mean 我和(he2)你.

In standard mandarin, 和 is pronounced as he2.


This totally works colloquially.

One of the most famous slogans in Chinese is: 为人民服务 (Serve the people!) - there is not a single Chinese person who doesn't know this.

Likewise you can always 为 XXX 服务, this should be very easily understood by almost anyone.

edit: maybe it would just sound a little pedantic...you wouldn't exactly say that there's two people serving you in English, though, would you...


I am glad to see this interesting question. The omission is really one of the most confusing but fascinating parts of the Chinese language. My explanation would be almost similar to your first one.
There are two omissions in this example. One is the omission of the subject. The other is the omission of the verb.
除了价格以外，（我）（对）其他的都（感觉）很满意。
Except for the price, I feel very satisfied with every other thing.

除了...以外 - except for
价格 - price
我 - I
对...感觉 - feel
其他的都 - every other thing
很满意 - very satisfied


01 灵牙利齿 （伶牙俐齿）
02 天作之合
03 借尸还魂
04 回光返照
05 路有冻死骨
06 似模似样
07 人海茫茫
08 归心似箭
09 无情对
10 自惭形秽
11 人质
12 位高思危（居高思危）
13 明知故问
14 太极
15 不言而喻
16 西天
17 罪犯
18 称臣纳贡
19 国之将亡，必有妖孽
20 不攻自破
21 道听途说
22 重阳
23 服从
24 唇亡齿寒
25 死路一条
a 六神无主
b 称孤道寡
c 位极人臣
d 门当户对
e 西贡
f 说服
g 行尸走肉
h 人人自危
i 非攻
J 灵魂
k 形影不离
l 前路茫茫
m 国破家亡
n 利润
o 敬而远之
p 视死如归
q 伤亡惨重
r 心知肚明
s 必经之路（必由之路）
t 光阴似箭
u 无人问津
v 合成照
w 罪孽深重
x 花样年华
y 冒犯


How do I say "I just went to the shops"?

刚=刚刚=刚才=just=just now
去=go
去过……了=went

啊，我刚才去过商店了，但是忘了买牛奶
or
啊，我刚刚去过商店，但是忘记买牛奶了


Is the "to" in "Let's meet from 4 _to_ five", 到？

到 is OK. You could also use 至. 到 is more colloquial. In many cases they are interchangeable, for example: 从古到今/从古至今（from ancient times to the present）, 直到此刻/直至此刻（up to now）. But you could only say 自始至终（from the beginning to the end），从这到那（from here to there） because 自始至终 and 从这到那 are kinda like set phrases.


Is there a difference between 有趣 and 有意思?

有趣 - fun
有意思 - interesting

To break the vocabulary literally, we have 有/趣 and 有/意思. The word 有 carries the meaning similar to "there is something" or "it has something". 趣 can be interpreted as "fun". 意思 can be translated to "meaning".

So, these two vocabularies can be broken down literally as:

X有趣 - there is fun in X / X is fun
X有意思 - X is interesting


Your understanding (highest [Internet] traffic) seems correct, given that it is used on an e-commerce site.

But I want to point it out that it is not a standard/correct word. Chinese have a lot of freedom in coining new words but not all of them are fine ones. Of most IT-related idioms, 超 is translated from hyper, so we have 超链接(hyperlink), 超文本传输协议(HyperText Transfer Protocol), etc.

Nobody can give an exact meaning of 超流量平台 because it is not a standard IT idiom published by 全国科学技术名词审定委员会（China National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies ）. That's why I said in my previous answer, it is just an ill-devised fancy word.


If you learn the context, you will notice it is more complicated than the probable duplicate answer links.

  Context 1 : 我不喜欢黄（色）的，我喜欢白（色）的。

This shows a preference for particular stuff with attributes other than the color, color is used to highlight the choice, and that is why 的is used. E.g. there are white and yellow candies in different flavors. Instead of specifying the flavor, one may use their color to indicate the choices.

  Context 2 : 我不喜欢黄色，我喜欢白色。

This shows explicit preference in color. E.g. there are two pairs of pants that look exactly the same, and the person likes the white color.

Though in daily life, both can be used interchangeably in an ambiguous way. However, for a writer, this will give explicit characteristic to the character in their writing.


what exact image is the basis for the 圭?

「圭」 does not come from a depiction of a tablet. That meaning of jade tablet is a semantic extension.

時期字體
字形
參考資料

—
A
—

商甲

乙6776合集11006

—
B
—

商玉璋

殷墟玉璋

西周金

師遽方彝集成9897

春秋金

旨於賜戈集成11310

戰國・秦石刻文

詛楚文

東漢隸

華山廟碑

楷

「圭」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*[k]ʷˤe/, jade implement) had two origins: A) the blade-head of a ceremonial jade dagger-axe 「戈」 (/*kʷˤaj/), and B) semantic 「士」 (bladed weapon > soldier) with simultaneously semantic and phonetic 「戈」.

For reference, Shāng-era forms of 「戈」 inscribed with an emphasised blade-head:
商甲屯南2194　商金戈觶集成6054

Series A) doesn't survive in the modern writing system; for Series B), later on, 「士」 was doubled, and 「戈」 was omitted. The 「士」-shapes were eventually corrupted into 「土」, forming 「圭」.

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
李學勤〈從兩條《花東》卜辭看殷禮〉
陳劍《說殷墟甲骨文中的「玉戚」》
小學堂

字形演變
金文

王輝《殷墟玉璋朱書「⿹戈士」字解》
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》


Is 视死如归 seen as "See death as returning home"(Respect to someone who died) or "Not afraid of death"(arrogance)

Both definitions are correct.
多功能成语词典 explains:

解释 视:看待;归:回家｡把死看作像回家一样｡形容不怕死｡多指为了正义事业而勇于牺牲自己的生命｡

视: treat ;归: returning home. to treat death the same as returning home. To describe being fearless in the face of death. Refers mostly to bravely sacrificing oneself for a righteous cause.
They also give an example sentence:

例句 面对敌人的屠刀,革命先烈视死如归,大义凛然｡

A, more literal, translation would be something like:
Facing the butchers knives of the enemy, the martyrs to the revolution treated death as returning home, righteousness abounds.
Another translation you can have a look at from A Chinese-English Dictionary:

刘胡兰临刑时, 大义凛然, 视死如归。
Liu Hulan faced the executioner's ax with a fortitude that commanded admiration and respect.

This phrase is mostly seen in connection with martyrdom and warfare.
Some other definitions that might help:
ABC

face death unflinchingly

Oxford

meet one's death like a hero

CC-CEDICT

1 to view death as a return home
2 to not be afraid of dying
3 to face death with equanimity (idiom)

I doubt you'd ever use this phrase to console anybody, even if you did it'd be strange unless they were dying for some big cause or fighting in a war.
There is an antonym: 贪生怕死 which CC-CEDICT defines as:

1 greedy for life, afraid of death (idiom); craven and cowardly
2 clinging abjectly to life
3 only interested in saving one's neck


Could 看不起 work as the Mandarin equivalent of 睇唔起?

Is 看不起 a valid way of expressing 睇唔起

It is a direct translation

瞧不起/ 看不起 in Mandarin = 睇唔起 in Cantonese

瞧得起/ 看得起 in Mandarin = 睇得起 in Cantonese

瞧不起 is more colloquial; 看不起 is more literary


It's not polite or appropriate, but has been used so much by teenagers on the internet that it has become quite acceptable on social media. Middle-aged people will consider it a very bad word to say.

A more appropriate substitution for it could be "懵圈". However, both words should never be used in an official context.

And yes, 逼 is a substitute for 屄 and is more commonly used.(Both characters I've rarely used before answering the question...)


A和B很像 and A跟B很像 mean the same thing, where you make a comparison between A and B. You can also say A像B.
A和B像 is like a incomplete phrase, where you put A and B together as one unit, but not to compare with each other. In order to make it complete, you might have to engage a third party to compare with A and B, like: A和B像C. A和B像C means both A and B are similar to C.
However, A和B像 can be natural in some context. E.g

Tom: A和B一点都不像！
Jim: 不！A和B像！

Basically, when we say A和B很像, our tone is natrually put a bit emphasis on 很. So, we are clear what the speaker is trying to convey. Without it, it could be interpreted as both. As you can see from above example, even A和B像 could be natural if you put more emphasis on the word 像. But with 很, you make it a lot easier.


Why is my translation different from theirs?

我不想要你因为我变得消极。
I don't want you to become demoralized because of me.

If you want the meaning 'because you make me depressed' try 2.

我不想要你因为你让我变得消极 。
I don't want you because you demoralize me.

In 3. I think you are just trying to apply the type of syntax you know to Chinese.

从早安后的早餐,到晚餐后的晚安。
From breakfast after Good Morning till Good Night after dinner.

If you take out the adjectives from 3., you have:
4. 从早餐到晚安
from breakfast till Good Evening

从早安后的早餐,到晚餐后的晚安。

  Why didn't it translate to: From morning after breakfast, till dinner
  after Good Night.

after breakfast is : 早餐后 but you have 'after Good Morning' = 早安后
after dinner is 晚餐后，after Good Evening is 晚安后


what does it mean when you use "作“ as a measure word for people?

It's not a measure word. It means act as; be.

作丈夫的 could be translated literally as The people who act as husband, or just The husband.


Actually your interpretation is not exactly correct(Although pretty close). The sentence means 400 yuan will be approximately sufficient(still probably a little bit too high or too low) to buy the stuff.

This is quite an oral expression(more commonly seen in northern China). But you can interpret it this way: “拿下来” means "get/fetch/catch something", a connotation which can also be expanded to "buy something"(e.g. get the ownership of something). In this sentence, “下来” can be seen as a shorthand for “拿下来”. And therefore “下不来” is "unable to get", the "不" in the sentence signifying negation(cannot, unable to). And the whole sentence therefore is "Without (at least) 400 yuan you cannot buy it". This should now make sense to you.


How to explain the structure of "将在外，军令有所不受。"

This is classical Chinese, not modern Chinese.
Normally in Classical Chinese 所 stands for an omitted object of a verb.  所 + Verb means ‘Verb 的东西 (the thing that is verb-ed), which is equivalent to a kind of relative clause marker (RM) in English ‘what/that is Verb-ed’. It makes the sentence passive.
The 有 just means 有.
In modern Chinese I would write it as: 如果将军在外面大战，朝廷的命令有可以不被将军接受的。
On Baidu I found this explanation:

原义为：将军出征在外，由于敌情复杂，战场情况瞬息万变，所以可以依据实际情况对皇帝的命令适当的随机应变，不一定生搬硬套。
释义为：作事情应掌握实际情况，根据现实作出适当的判断和行动。

(If you are reading these texts, your Chinese should be good enough to understand the explanation :-) ).


When should one use a mixture of simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese?

For calligraphy, you can ignore the rules for simplified Chinese characters, especially writing in cursive form like 行書 and 草書.
"Simplified Chinese characters" is the product of political decisions. Some simplified characters are just from their variants. Some are from cursive forms with strokes straightened. Some are from invention with phonetic components. Some might be from simplification in Japan. Some might be from lazy invention. Some might be from strange reasons.
Before the mandatory use of "simplified Chinese characters" in mainland China, people are free to use whatever character variants they like.  There is no such bipolar division on "simplified" and "traditional'. The division later is mainly for printing materials and formal form. Cursive form do not have such bipolar distinctions.
You might think some in the picture are "simplified characters" but actually this kind of cursive form exists long before the creation of "simplified Chinese characters".  It is not the mixture of "simplified characters' and "traditional characters" in calligraphy sense.


How to give a number describing a "kilometer per hour speed limit"?

Firstly, for the example you provided, you may say 那条路限速50英里 then I will know it is 50 miles/hour

secondly, in China the default unit is kilometers per hour for speed limit, so if you want to say "that road has a 50 km/h speed limit" you can just say 那条路限速50


What is a one-character translation of the English word "Freedom"?

Question: 古文中哪个字有自由不受约束的意思啊？ (Gǔwén zhōng nǎge zì yǒu zìyóu bu shòu yuēshù de yìsi a) - Which word in Ancient Chinese means Free and/or Unfettered?

Source: Bai Du

It appears there aren't single words, in modern and ancient Chinese, that have a denotative meaning of "Freedom". There are however, connotative words that can mean "free" or "to set free" in context.

放 (Fàng) - Put, Release, Free, Lay

  放出 (Fàngchū) - Release, Set Free

  放心 (Fàngxīn) - Free your heart, don't worry

  放松 (Fàngsōng) - Set loose, relax

More ancient words for "free":

  恣 (Zì) - Do as one pleases, free (From: 恣肆 (Zìsì) - Unrestrained)

  逍 (Xiāo) - Leisurely (From: 逍遥 (Xiāoyáo) - Free and unfettered)

  逸 (Yì) - Free, Leisurely (Common in names)


question about the usage of 返 (Cantonese)

番

[5] [粵] [adv] back; again; afresh.

放幾日假 = take a few days off
Depend on context
放番幾日假 (1) = take a few days off again
Similar example: 一年冇返工，而家返番 = A year without going to work, now I am going (to work) again
放番幾日假 (2) = take a few days off back (for compensation)
Similar example: 舊年冇去旅遊，今年要去番次 = Didn't travel last year, have to travel one time back (for compensation) this year

返

return; come/go back


It is indeed related to the terrestrial (earthly) branches, and in a 24-hour day,「子時」represents the time of day between 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM.「子正」, as noted in the question, specifically represents midnight (12:00 AM).

Unfortunately, there is no convenient mnemonic or etymology that you can use to make a connection between「子」and midnight, but I doubt that midnight shows up very often anyway as a meaning (unless you're into traditional Korean timekeeping?).


How would you say, "Don't let price interfere with your happiness" in Cantonese?

"咪俾個價錢掃你興啦!"

咪 = 唔好 = Don't
俾 = allow / let
"個" .... It sounds more natural with this quantifier
價錢 = price
掃你興 ~= 減低你嘅樂趣 ~= 影響你嘅樂趣 = interfere with your happiness
"啦" .... It sounds more natural with this interjection


Originally, you had two separate characters (zdic links):

粘 = zhan1 = (v.) to stick
黏 = nian2 = (adj.) sticky

The usage distinction still remains, but it is now acceptable to use 粘 for either word. Unihan lists the characters as semantic variants.


how to say "projected numbers" in chinese (mandarin)?

First, translate to English:

"kindly provide me with the full year numbers up to october, we will use it to project for the full 12 months."

Please provide me with the figures for this year up to October, we will then use that to estimate the values for the whole year.

Given that, it can't be toooo hard to translate， though my Chinese is none too hot.

Please provide me with the figures for this year up to October,
请提供今年到十月的数据，

we will then use that to estimate the values for the whole year.
然后我们会用这些数据来估计整年的使用。

Something along those lines.


Here 啁 is a phonetic loan for 嘲, 'to mock', as in 嘲笑, so the phrase 或啁之曰could be translated "Someone mocked him, saying..." Using one character for another because they are pronounced similarly is common in older works.  You could compare it to the situation in earlier English works where the same word is often spelled different ways, even in the same sentence.

I doubt there is any regular semantic relationship between 啁 in the sense of 嘲, and 啁 in the sense of 'noisy'. As the comment by nee.wong notes, although phonetically similar, they are still pronounced differently. In fact, 啁 meaning 'noisy' usually occurs only in onomatopoeic phrases such as 啁啾 zhoujiu or 啁哳 zhouzha.


Number of Characters an Average Imperial Times Scholar Knew

(For reference only)

秦漢時代 古人如何識字？

  據了解，在沒有普及教育時，這批識字之人大多是世襲官員，在家裡受教育。
  他們在秦與西漢稱為「史」、「卜」及「祝」。
  按照職掌任務不同，基本上他們懂三千、五千或七千字，還能背誦文獻。

It is understood that, in the absence of universal education, most of these literate persons were hereditary officials who were educated at home.
They were called 史, 卜 and 祝 in the Qin (221–206 BC) and the Western Han (206 BC – 9 AD) Dynasty.
In accordance with the different tasks, basically they understood 3,000, 5,000 or 7,000 words, and recited the literature too.

However, 张德芳 said 当时要做“史”得识九千字, which roughly translates into:

  At the time, to be a 史，one needed to know 9000 characters.


Why does the construction of 要是…的话 mean "if"?

If you find these kinds of things puzzling, I suggest you try and download 现代汉语八百词. It gives meanings and uses of a lot of these constructions. As Huang says, these constructions mean just what they mean.

On page 594 of 现代汉语八百词 it says (the page number will depend on the edition you download):

要是 yào.shi

［连］表示假设；如果。

a) 用于前一小句。

～看见《汉英词典》，替我买一本 | ～他不去，你去吗？

b) ‘要是...’后可加‘的话’。‘要是...的话’可用在后一小句。

～有人问的话，说我在老马家 ｜ 坐船去好，～来得及的话

c) 要是 ＋ 名。

～别人（＝如果换了别人），这事不一定能办成 | 老同学聚会真不容易，～去年，咱们还聚不齐呢！

Meaning is roughly:

yào.shi

[Conjunction] expresses hypothesis; if.

a) used in first clause.

If you see a "Chinese-English Dictionary", buy one for me | If he doesn’t go, will you go?

b) 的话 can be added after 要是. '要是…的话' can be used in the second clause.

If anyone asks, tell them I’m at Ma’s place | It’s good to go by boat, if you can make it.

c) 要是 + noun.
If someone else (= if it were someone else), this matter could not necessarily be accomplished | It’s not easy for old classmates to get together, if [it were] last year, we couldn’t have done it!


If 衔 means 'hold in the mouth', why bother adding '在嘴里'?

What is being held? Majority of Chinese VP especially less common ones are disyllabic or as in the present case monosyllabic verb combined with adverbial preposition phrase (介词短语),if object makes clear that mouth is involved there is no need to mention it, e.g. (bkrs examples) 燕子衔泥│他衔着一个大烟斗,衔环相报(wounded bird holds ring),


Is There A Way To Say "Fro" (as in afro/fro) In Traditional Chinese?

Simplified Chinese“爆炸头”
Traditional Chinese“阿福羅頭，爆炸頭”


Verify/correct my sentence: 虽然 我喜欢去露营, 我不没时间去最近 还有我没有有人去跟。

When a sentence is started with a 虽然 (although), it is always followed by a "but" (但, 但是, 不过, 可是)

  虽然 我喜欢去露营 但

~

  Unlike in English, time is mentioned at the beginning of a clause,

  虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 最近...

~

  Most of the time, the subject 我 only need to be mentioned once in a sentence.

  虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 最近

~

  我不没时间去 - '不没' is a 'double negative'- delete '不'

  虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 最近 没时间去

~

  却  usually follows 但

  虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 最近 却没时间去,

~

  还有我没有有人跟。

  It is correct that 还有 means "also/ and" but in this case, use '也' make better connection between clauses in the sentence.
  omit 我
  跟 (with) should follow by the subject and verb [go with me]=[跟我去]

  也没有人跟我去。

Correct grammar:

  "虽然 我喜欢去露营 但 最近 却没时间去, 也没有人跟我去。"

Simplify: (You only need the verb '去' once)(没有 can reduced to 没)

  "虽然 我喜欢露营 但 最近 却没时间, 也没人跟我去。"


擦脸 is not a single word but a verb (擦 cā: wipe) plus a noun (脸 liǎn: face) that serves as an object. "擦脸应该用什么毛巾" means "what kind of towel you should use to wipe your face [dry]".


Is there a single English word equivalent that means 人各有志?

I can't think of a single word.

The phrase for the meaning you're describing is De gustibus non est disputandum, or sometimes colloquially "to each his own".

This is not however the literal meaning of 人各有志. The most analogical word is aspiration in English; e.g. "each man has his own aspiration".


How many stroke does Chinese Traditional Word "蕭" have?

have a look of this pictures:

10th stroke is:

11th stroke is:

12th stroke is:

14th stroke is:

15th stroke is:

16th stroke is:

voila, 16 strokes :)


A city is located east/north/west/south of a country; what is the correct Chinese grammar for that?

A在B的东边 has two meanings，one meaning is that A is inside of B, another could be outside of B.

The first one can be stated more clearly as: A在B的东部，and the second one as A在B的东边上（也可用：A在B的东面）。

However, if you say A在B的东边，most Chinese will judge which mean by the context or by further questions. So you do not need worry too much


What are these characters on old brass stamps?

These characters are engraved in seal script. The first stamp says 知(智)者樂, a line from the Analects meaning those who have wisdom are happy. The second one has degraded too much to be identified, with character components missing from the bottom character in the stamp, although the top character or character component is 竹 (bamboo).

知

「知」is comprised of

「矢」a phonetic component;
「口」(mouth), a semantic component.

「矢」originally depicted an arrow like that used in archery. The seal script version comes from a transformation of the loop-shape at the fletching into a horizontal line.

The last sample is directly linked to the seal script form:

「口」originally depicted a mouth:

This shape is directly inherited by seal script:

Oracle bone, bamboo slip, bronze, and seal script forms of「口」will all look something like the above, with the corners of the mouth clearly drawn. The current form「口」is a clerical script innovation, so do not get this confused with other things written like「口」now, but were clearly distinguished in seal script and earlier:

者

The basic shape of「者」in seal script remains the same at the bottom as regular script, with most samples using「曰」. The top is subject to wildly varying shapes, and in this stamp the relation is most easily demonstrated by a Qin script sample:

(Top) Stamp image, horizontally flipped to imitate its real appearance on a writing medium; (Bottom) Qin script sample.

樂

「樂」depicts a musical instrument made from silk threads and a wooden structure. It is comprised of

「幺」(a small amount of silk), a semantic component;
「木」(wood), a semantic component;
「白」a non-obvious phonetic component.

「木」and「白」in seal script are relatively similar to their appearance in regular script.
「幺」is the top of「糸」, which depicts several loops of silk threads ending in some frayed thread ends, and the identification is explained in another SE answer.
Note that in this stamp,「白」is moved to the top of the character, presumably to fit the character into the thin rectangular frame. This is a relatively drastic change.

竹

「竹」originally depicted branches and leaves off a bamboo plant:

Later on, the branches were separated, leading on to the seal script form


How to translate/understand "还不" in "还不是因为爱"

It's translated as “actually", "really", "just"; it is used to show your emphasis. It's a very tricky expression because it has no negative meaning, while it has a negative look (不).You usually use this word in a sentence as a response to show your disagreement with the speaker.

You and your friends go hiking in a big mountain, and you get lost. Fortunately, you have a GPS device, and it helps you get out of the adversity. When you are safe, one of your friends says, "Thank goodness!". You would say,

  这还不是因为我带了GPS导航仪。= It is really because I took the GPS navigator along.

Here, You imply that he should thank you!Not thank goodness!.

And another one would say

  还不是我叫你带上的。=It's I who asks you to take it along.

Now,he wants everyone to know that they should thank him :)

  还不是因为爱。= (It is) really because of love.

I also want to show you the negative form of this expression, you would say:

  这还真不是因为爱。= This is really not because of love.


How do you say "Take the next right" when giving directions

You can say "你在 Fedex 那邊拐右" or "你往前走到 Fedex, 再拐右"

Edit: Oops, Sorry that I overlooked "the next right".  Then it should be "你往前走, 在 Fedex 之後的(十字)路口拐右."


Can a 为什么 question be rhetorical in Chinese?

你为什么要浪费钱？standalone doesn't look it, whilst 你为什么浪费钱？does.
你为什么浪费钱？can be a blame or scolding, implying that there is no reason for you to waste money hence it's a rhetoric.
Also, Tone and context play important roles.  Your original sentence might be a rhetorical question if the proper tone is applied in a proper context.
However, the native speaker you asked has some point there.  为什么 is kind of on the borderline.  You can interpret both ways sometimes.
It's worth to mention that 为什么不xxx  is a common rhetorical device.  E. g.

A: 你要吃吗？
B: 为什么不呢？

A: 你会去吗？
B: 为什么不去呢？


KEY defines 茜纱 as:

  qiànshā
  red yarn

So, yes, 茜 = 红 here.

David Hawkes English translation in The Story Of The Stone Volume 3 reads:

  rosy-misted casement

Yang Hsien-Yi & Gladys Yang's translation in A Dream of Red Mansions Vol. 2 reads:

  madder-gauze window

It seems as if H. Bencraft Joly never translated this portion of the book.


Do the names 远宁, 温宁, 文宁, or 玟宁 sound good for a male character?

There's a webpage http://name.renren.com/ where you can input Chinese names and get statistics.  As names by themselves:

远宁: 人人网上姓名为 远宁 的用户共有 26人，其中 女生42.31%， 男生57.69%
温宁: 人人网上姓名为 温宁 的用户共有 563人，其中 女生50.62%， 男生49.38%
文宁: 人人网上姓名为 文宁 的用户共有 543人，其中 女生52.85%， 男生47.15%
玟宁: no hits

and if we append a random surname, say 李 or 王:

李远宁: 人人网上姓名为 李远宁 的用户共有 40人，其中 女生52.50%， 男生47.50%
李温宁: 人人网上姓名为 李温宁 的用户共有 2人，其中 女生0.00%， 男生100.00%
李文宁: 人人网上姓名为 李文宁 的用户共有 267人，其中 女生63.67%， 男生36.33%
李玟宁: no hits
王远宁: 人人网上姓名为 王远宁 的用户共有 42人，其中 女生26.19%， 男生73.81%
王温宁: 人人网上姓名为 王温宁 的用户共有 3人，其中 女生100.00%， 男生0.00%
王文宁: 人人网上姓名为 王文宁 的用户共有 281人，其中 女生57.65%， 男生42.35%
王玟宁: no hits

Clearly 玟宁 is a poor choice.  Also 温 is interpreted as a surname.  It seems 文宁 is the most reasonable from the list.


What words or expressions could be used to say someone is/looks handsome?

These are some idioms which may be an answer to the question:

眉清目秀 (mei qing mu xiu) This literally means: "(His/this Man's) eyebrows are clear and (His) eyes are beautiful."

玉树临风 (yu shu lin feng) This literally means: "(Men are/He is like a) grown jade tree which has faced the wind."

英姿挺拔 (ying zi ting ba) This literally means: "The handsome appearance (of Him/this Man) is outstanding."

帅气逼人 (shuai qi bi ren) This literally means: "The handsome attitude (of Him/this Man) is daunting."

Chinese idioms, usually, only consist of four characters. And all of the above given examples can be used to refer to a handsome man.

Be aware, though, that these are formal expressions, so, they are literary and are likely to be interpreted as being corny when used in an informal context.


What is the etymologically correct character for the Min-Nan words for meat (bah)?

The Austronesian hypothesis for the origin of Min Nan bah (as quoted on English Wiktionary, as of June 2020), comes from Deng Xiaohua's 1994 paper 〈南方漢語中的古南島語成分〉 ("Proto-Austronesian in Southern Chinese Languages"). I have attached an image here from a secondary source:

I see that the 16/17th century (Zhangzhou / Philippine) Hokkien-Spanish dictionaries are reported to have already had 肉 pronounced as bah (in their romanisation, bâ'). Hence this orthographic convention has had a relatively long time-depth compared to the other characters used for it.
What makes the connection harder is the lack of available cognates in other Min branches like Min Dong, Min Bei. If we believe Schuessler's link with 脢, which according to the 說文解字 means "back meat", that wouldn't necessarily rule out an Austronesian connection.


Should tone sandhi be written in pinyin?

Tone Sandi rule should merely apply to spoken. In written, you should always put original tones in any forms of exams except that those exams are testing the rule itself.

In fact, I doubt most of natives are aware of the existence of Tone Sandi indeed. But they do apply the rule naturally in practice. I suggest you study by phrase, not by character. That way you will know how each character will be used and the way to pronounce in practice.


Cantonese song 不可一世 - what is the spoken part at 2:02?

「點呀？又有邊個覺得唔滿意呀？」(in Mandarin: 什麼? 又有誰覺得不滿意了？) = "What? Who else feel dissatisfied?"
「我地呀！」(我們啊) = "We do!"
乜哥乜哥 (some big shot) is the one being arrogant
In Hong Kong, people often nickname a government department head 「一哥」, e.g. 「警隊一哥」 means Head of the police department.
Since this song is dated. I don't know who they were specifically referring to, Most likely someone in power at that time
Edit:

「不可一世」歌曲创作背景 (background of the creation of the song "Insufferably Arrogant")
Beyond在香港成名后前经理陈健添就更加变本加厉的密密麻麻安排商业娱乐性重的工作，陈健添还因经理人佣金和分红和Beyond起纠纷，Beyond早已厌倦陈健添这种为利是图处处算计的人压榨逼迫, 以及他安排下过的违背意愿的奉迎生活，他们写的《不可一世》是讽刺逼迫控制他们越紧的经理人陈健添，而不是陈健添口中所说的讽刺电视台高层。所以，Beyond就决定在1991年12月尾合约结束时就不再与陈健添续约。

So, The Beyond were dissatisfied with their manager 陈健添  who pushed them very hard toward the commercial and entertainment side of the business at the time (I suppose they felt they were more artists than showmen) . They wrote this song to satirize him, eventually they parted way with him after the end of their contract


Can someone please translate this picture into english for me?

Large lettering:

約翰娜
Johanna

First column to the right:

丙申年
Year of bǐngshēn

Far right column (best guess):

壯樂
Strong and Joyful (probably an art name)

Bottom right seal:

張月英
Zhāng Yuèyīng, probably the artist name

Left seal:

吉祥如意
Good fortune at one’s desire


Learning resources for Minjiang dialect (岷江话)?

There are some audio resources you can find online.

Four recital audios in 乐山方言 by a native speaker, which maybe useful for audition.
A community of 岷江话：there are some resources

This is my first answer in the community, if my answer is not appropriate, please let me know. Thank you.


Questions ending with 么: Do 么 and 吗 have the exact same meaning?

么 at the end of the sentence can both have the meaning of 吗 or that of 嘛. If you look-up 吗 and 嘛 in 《现代汉语词典》 么 is mentioned as alternative (but the pinyin is still ma!). 吗 and 嘛 seem to be newer variants of 么.
These last years I've seen it used a lot in songs, on QQ and Weibo. Especially young people use it, but they often pronounce it me.
I've found a very interesting (but not always very accurate) "homework" about 么 and 吗.
Apparently at the time 鲁迅 (Luxun) it was used systematically used by most writers.
In the article the author give this example “孔乙已，你当真不识字么？” (but actually this contains an error, 鲁迅 actually wrote "你当真识字么", and in the same story there is the more famous sentence "你读过书么？").
Other famous writers such as 茅盾 and 曹禺 also systematically used 么. New editions of there books still often have 么 instead of 吗 and this usage hasn't completely disappeared.
么 was apparently already used during the Qing and Ming dynasties, but during the Spring Autumn Period they used 乎.


What does this handwritten phrase mean? (Characters identified: 见有广告的他特别高兴)

It was ”见有广告的他特别高兴“, when seeing the commercials, he is especially happy.


Is it known to which bird species 雎鸠 refers?

雎鸠 https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9B%8E%E9%B8%A0
今江东呼之为鹗 (is called 鹗 in Jiangdong today)
好在江渚山边食鱼。(like to hunt fish in river and mountainside)
《毛诗·传》日：鸟鹫而有别 (similar to eagle but different, and we know hawk and osprey look similar but smaller than eagle)

From Google Translate:

鹗: osprey
osprey: 鱼鹰; 鹗; 雎

Based on the search results, 雎鸠 or 雎 is "osprey" ("fish hawk" seems like it's nickname) . Since zoology is a recent thing, what the author described, might be some kind of small sized raptor bird that hunted nearby river, very likely been osprey or fish hawk (if they are not the same thing)


Is there an idiom that means to make big claims but have little evidence to support them?

Not sure If 言过其实 can fit. it means a statement surpassing the fact.

or 夸大其词？ it means represent beyond the bounds of truth; make an overstatement;


Is 看怎麼理解? a generalized expression for "it depends" in Mandarin? How about for Cantonese?

看怎么理解 is okay, but it wouldn’t be appropriate in all cases because 理解 is, in of itself, quite specific.

A more general phrase for 看怎么理解 would be:

  看你怎么看

(P.S.: adding a 你 in between sounds a lot more natural)


What are the advantages / disadvantages for learning tones with Pinyin vs with Gwoyeu Romatzyh?

In general, I think too much importance is ascribed to which transcription system is used. Students' ability to distinguish, pronounce and remember tones depends on many factors and the way the tones are written is just a very small part of it. Even if there was a difference between systems, it would probably drown in other factors.

The question of tonal spelling (i.e. including the tonal information in the spelling of the word rather than using diacritics) has actually been researched experimentally. Scott McGinnis (1997)[1] compared two classes taught with either Hanyu Pinyin or Gwoyeu Romatzyh. They were tested on reading tasks and the accuracy of their tonal production was assessed by native speakers. The study found that the Gwoyeu Romatzyh group actually performed worse than the Hanyu Pinyin group.

Personally, I think the problem is that tones are often treated as something extra, even optional. Not by all, but by far too many. Some teachers don't grade an answer as wrong if the tone is wrong (or left out) but the initial and final are correct, or they don't deduct as many points for tonal errors as they do for spelling errors. Students often ask "do we have to remember the tones too?" and at one point an intermediate student asked me if I was serious when I said that he had to learn all the tones (his tones were terrible and it turned out to be because he had just ignored them).

So, changing transcription system to Gwoyeu Romatzyh will not help. The little evidence we have suggests that it won't and there's nothing else that suggests that it will. Yes, it's good to treat tone as an integral part of a word, but you can achieve that by consistent and persistent teaching or learning methods instead. Therefore, using Pinyin is the best option since it's by far the most well-spread and accessible system.

Going off on a tangent, I do think that it's worthwhile for students to learn more than one transcription system after they have already learnt their first. I think that this is good because it breaks the strong grip of orthography. Seeing the same sound written with different letters or symbols may lead to new insights into that sound. I have no research to support this, but it was like that for me and I know many others who have had similar experiences when learning a second transcription system, regardless of which one it is.

[1]: McGinnis, S. (1997). Tonal spelling versus diacritics for teaching pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese. The Modern Language Journal, 81(2), 228-236.


What is the difference between 宏伟 and 雄伟?

'雄' implies 'masculine'
'雄伟' emphasizes the masculinity of the object (we often project human characteristics onto inanimate objects)
'宏' implies 'grand; great, vast; magnificent' but doesn't contain the 'masculinity' aspect.
Sometimes we want to project masculinity onto an object, and '雄伟' would be the word for it.
雄伟身材 is a good example. We don't say 宏伟身材 because 'vast and grand' is not the descriptions for a human body, but 'masculine' is


The structure is <贪[人之有]者> <残>.
"贪 人之有 者" can be translated as "he who is lust for other people's possessions".
But I am sorry I don't know the exact meaning of 残 here. Maybe it means "harm", "impair" or "to be bad".


Can a neutral tone appear on a non-final syllable?

Taking the definition of "word" as "an entry in CC-CEDICT", the answer to the first question is Yes.

I have a little script (I could share it if there's any interest) that I adapt to go through CC-CEDICT, looking for words that match a few criteria. Here's the output I got for 2-character words starting with the neutral tone:

  nb matches: 8

  nb tone patterns: 5

  4   5, 5

  1   5, 1

  1   5, 2

  1   5, 3

  1   5, 4

  5, 1   嗯哼 嗯哼 [en5 heng1] /uh-huh/

  5, 2   個頭 个头 [ge5 tou2] /(coll.) (suffix) my ass!/yeah, right!/

  5, 3   得很 得很 [de5 hen3] /very (much, good etc)/

  5, 4   的話 的话 [de5 hua4] /if (coming after a conditional clause)/

  5, 5   出來 出来 [chu5 lai5] /(after a verb, indicates coming out,
  completion of an action, or ability to discern or detect)/

  5, 5   著呢 着呢 [zhe5 ne5] /comes at the end of the sentence to indicate
  a strong degree/quite/rather/

  5, 5   起來 起来 [qi5 lai5] /(after a verb) indicating the beginning and
  continuation of an action or a state/indicating an upward movement
  (e.g. after 站[zhan4])/bringing things together (e.g. after 收拾[shou1
  shi5])/(after a perception verb, e.g. 看[kan4]) expressing preliminary
  judgment/also pr. [qi3 lai5]/

  5, 5   麼麼 么么 [me5 me5] /kissing sound (slang onom.)/

Note: the output starts with some statistics (number of matches, number of tone patterns) along with the different tone patterns (aka tone contours) ordered by frequency.

There are too many 3-character words containing a neutral tone not at the end for me to put them here - there are 445 of them - but here are the first lines of the output of my search.

  nb matches: 445

  nb tone patterns: 22

  49   4, 5, 4

  48   1, 5, 4

  29   2, 5, 4

  27   2, 5, 2

  26   3, 5, 4

  26   4, 5, 3

  25   1, 5, 1

  23   2, 5, 1

  21   1, 5, 3

  21   3, 5, 3

  18   1, 5, 2

  18   3, 5, 1

  18   3, 5, 2

  17   4, 5, 2

  16   4, 5, 1

  14   4, 5, 5

  13   1, 5, 5

  13   3, 5, 5

  11   2, 5, 5

  10   2, 5, 3

  1   5, 3, 3

  1   5, 4, 5

  1, 5, 1   吃不消 吃不消 [chi1 bu5 xiao1] /to be unable to tolerate or
  endure/to find sth difficult to manage/

  1, 5, 1   吃不開 吃不开 [chi1 bu5 kai1] /be unpopular/won't work/

  1, 5, 1   吃得消 吃得消 [chi1 de5 xiao1] /to be able to endure (exertion,
  fatigue etc)/to be able to afford/

  1, 5, 1   吃得開 吃得开 [chi1 de5 kai1] /to be popular/to be getting on
  well/much in demand/

  1, 5, 1   夾肢窩 夹肢窝 [ga1 zhi5 wo1] /armpit/also written 胳肢窩|胳肢窝[ga1 zhi5
  wo1]/

  1, 5, 1   媽媽桑 妈妈桑 [ma1 ma5 sang1] /mama-san, middle-aged woman who
  runs a brothel, bar etc (loanword from Japanese)/madam/

  1, 5, 1   尖子生 尖子生 [jian1 zi5 sheng1] /top student/

  1, 5, 1   書記官 书记官 [shu1 ji5 guan1] /clerk of a law court/

  1, 5, 1   梔子花 栀子花 [zhi1 zi5 hua1] /cape jasmine (Gardenia
  jasminoides)/

  1, 5, 1   椰子汁 椰子汁 [ye1 zi5 zhi1] /coconut water/

  1, 5, 1   椰子貓 椰子猫 [ye1 zi5 mao1] /Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus
  hermaphroditus), also called toddy cat/

  1, 5, 1   歐巴桑 欧巴桑 [ou1 ba5 sang1] /older female/woman of mature years
  (Japanese loanword)/

  1, 5, 1   滴答聲 滴答声 [di1 da5 sheng1] /tick (tock)/

  1, 5, 1   玻璃心 玻璃心 [bo1 li5 xin1] /(slang) overly sensitive/butthurt/

  1, 5, 1   玻璃杯 玻璃杯 [bo1 li5 bei1] /drinking glass/

  1, 5, 1   玻璃砂 玻璃砂 [bo1 li5 sha1] /siliceous sand (geology)/

  1, 5, 1   玻璃鋼 玻璃钢 [bo1 li5 gang1] /glass-reinforced
  plastic/fiberglass/

  1, 5, 1   生意經 生意经 [sheng1 yi5 jing1] /knack of doing business/business
  sense/

  1, 5, 1   眵目糊 眵目糊 [chi1 mu5 hu1] /(dialect) gum (in one's eyes)/

  1, 5, 1   胳肢窩 胳肢窝 [ga1 zhi5 wo1] /armpit/also pr. [ge1 zhi5 wo1]/also
  written 夾肢窩|夹肢窝[ga1 zhi5 wo1]/

  1, 5, 1   芝麻包 芝麻包 [zhi1 ma5 bao1] /sesame bun/

As for the second question about the neutral tone being lexical or sandhi, I think the answer is "lexical". I'm not aware of any sandhi rule governing the neutral tone.


因為十進制在中國已被使用了很長的時間，故比較少分數字詞；其中只有「半」作為單字詞，於中國古代應用如下。
Because the decimal system has been used for a long time in China, there are fewer fractional words.
半 is the only single word, which was used as follows in ancient China.

1/2 one-half 半、中半
1/3 one-third 少半、小半
2/3 two-thirds 太半、大半
1/4 one-fourth, a quarter 弱半
3/4 three-fourths, three quarters 強半

中國數字分數系統中，稱呼分數時，先稱呼分母，後稱呼分子。
In Chinese fractional system, the denominator is addressed first, and then the numerator.

例如：其亡者三二 (Two-thirds people died)。

Source: 中文數字


The only correct answer is "TA MA DE".

This is the equivalent version of "F**K" in Chinese. I never hear people pronounce as "Di".

Thinking it in other way, it will be too soft and feminine if it's pronounced as "Di". It supposed to be strong and speak with hatred.


Is this an awkward ordering of words? (Cantonese)

機 is not the object, It is part of the verb phrase "開機" - "turn (machine/ device) on"

Just like "吃飯" is a single verb phrase, where 飯 is not an object.

The sentence is grammatical. Just too wordy.

[(重新) + verb + (過)] is a set structure meaning [(from the start) + verb + (again)] e.g "重新做過" (from the start do it again)

The awkward part is 一次 is kind of redundant, "Do it again" already indicated "do it one more time" , you really don't need  to add "一次" (once) in this sentence.

Either 你要重新開過機 or 你要重新開一次機 (you have to start from the beginning and turn the device on again) would flow much more smoothly


Chinese equivalent of the English word candid

The Chinese equivalent of "candid" is "坦白"(tǎn bái) or more formally "坦率"(tǎn shuài):

  中国外交部发言人洪磊表示，河相周夫与中国外交部副部长张志军之间的讨论是坦率和深入的。

(source http://www.voachinese.com/content/china-japan-20120925/1514644.html)

  外交部副部长张志军与日本常务副外相河相周夫今早在北京举行钓鱼岛问题磋商，外交部在官方网站上发出新闻稿，以「坦率深入交换了意见」来形容这次会谈。

(source http://en.1688.com.au/site1/news/cn/2012/09/25/369457.shtml)


Some issues with your translation:

一贯（的） means typical/consistent, not one thing. In this sentence, 一贯批判手法 could be translated as typical/consistent criticism
The original sentence focused on the criticism itself instead of the phenomenon of "the Chinese media being critical of democracies"

IMHO, a better translation would be,

  The writer first mentions typical criticism of the Chinese media on the Western World’s democracies.


It refers to 阿彌陀佛, the Amitabha Buddha.

You describe the colloquial usage of the term quite accurately.

Most of the time, the term is used not to refer to the Buddha itself, but to create comedic effect in speech.


Opposite of constructions using 得 (must / have to)

You are correct in that 不得 is not the correct negation for 得 (děi). The generally recognized negation for 得 is 不必 (bùbì), although 不需要 (bùxūyào) and 不用 (bùyòng) are perfectly fine as well; you could also use 无须 (wúxū).


What is the difference between the two characters of 自己?

自 self (adv)

Examples:

自動(self move/ automatic)
自尊(self respect)
自助(self help)

動(to move), 尊(to respect) 助(to help) are all verbs, therefore 自 has to be an adverb

  己 [1] [pron] oneself; one's own; personal

視天下事為己任 (see the world's affair as one's own responsibility)
視為己出 (treat as one's own child)
己所不欲勿施於人 (do not impose on others what oneself do not wish to be imposed upon)

己 is a pronoun in all three examples above.

  自己 oneself; self (i.e. 我自己 = myself)

~

  but I do know that to know self is 知己, is one more the person and the other a different feature like a soul?

知己 (to know oneself)

知己者 (the one who know me/ confidant) often shortened to 知己

A famous quote from 《戰國策‧趙策一》: 士為知己者死  (A dignified man would die for the one who truly know him)

'know' here means 'truly understand'


1 冒出来 literally means to pop up, to suddenly appear. In this context, it means to become popular. For example：最近几年冒出来了很多互联网公司，他们的增长速度让人吃惊。

2 回归  here it  means come back to former situation. For example: 他们的心情最终会回归平静的。


I hope I've understood you correctly and that by traditional Chinese you meant classical Chinese, or 文言文.

Assuming you have pretty decent knowledge in modern Chinese, you can start, like all Chinese students do nowadays and ancient elites likewise, from recitation and memorization of classical works. 古文观止, literally meaning "stop reading any more classical works after this collection", is a selection, sorted chronologically roughly by dynasty, first published some hundred/two hundred years ago. I suggest you start with essays written in relatively more modern eras.

Good luck and have fun.
ps: there are of course some countably many (not in the mathematical sense) old syntactic as well as morphological (e.g. character "overloading", 通假字) rules that one should always know and that we were also taught after primary school, but I can't help you there because to me, these rules have already become innate and can't be enumerated without omission. But I do know that some Jesuits pastors who visited Chinese back in Ming dynasty have left some valuable notes, many of which titled as something similar to grammaticae sinicae. They were on google books some years ago, not sure if they still are.


Grammar for counting in Chinese (for non-native speakers of Chinese)

Regarding arabic numerals: I think modern usage sees arabic numbers to be generally acceptable. However the context of the material, or even the region, may influence whether they're commonly used or not. For example, in metropolitan areas you might commonly see phone numbers or prices expressed in digits, whereas in more traditional material you probably wouldn't. You may or may not be able to get away with this in your project.

Regarding 两 vs 二: 两 is generally used as "two" for specifying a number of objects, whereas 二 is used as the digit, such as in a phone number. See this question for more on this distinction.

Regarding the classifier: As far as I'm aware, there's no such rule as 1-6 uses this classifier, 7-9 uses this, etc. The classifier is determined by the noun. In your example, the classifier for cats (猫） is 只. For house (房子) you can use 栋.

The classifier for people is (usually) 个. Perhaps more importantly, 个 can be used as the catch-all classifier in casual language, or when an obscure noun has a classifier that you simply cannot remember. Again, whether you can use this "shortcut" will depend on the specifications of your project. In more formal situations, the correct classifier is preferred.

If you have a finite list of nouns in your project, you could spend some time looking up the relevant classifier for each noun.

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php specifies the classifier in the dictionary entries, denoted by the "CL:" text.

Hope that helps!


Why is Zhenya Wang's surname in English "Wang" but sometimes pronounced "Wong"?

Pronunciation ≠ Spelling!
It's very important to distinguish spellings from pronunciations, so I'm using IPA throughout my answer. I don't know how you pronounce "wang" or "wong", but it's very likely that the closest pronunciation available in your dialect of English is neither of them.
Chinese pronunciations
I'm basing my IPA off of the Wikipedia help pages on IPA for Mandarin and IPA for Cantonese.

The Mandarin pronunciation of 王 (ignoring tones) is /wɑŋ/. I'm assuming this is the correct pronunciation of the politician's name.
The Cantonese pronunciation of 王 (ignoring tones) is /wɔːŋ/.

Chinese transliterations

The Pinyin (standard transliteration for Mandarin) spelling of 王 is "wang".
The Jyutping (standard transliteration for Cantonese) spelling of 王 is "wong".

English pronunciations
There are many dialects of English, and they have wildly divergent pronunciations. I'm basing my IPA choices off of this chart. If you're confused about what the "TRAP vowel" or "CLOTH vowel" mean, see this article on lexical sets. They're by far the easiest way to talk about English vowels.
I give the concrete pronunciations for RP (Received Pronunciation), GA (General American), and AuE (Australian English).

If "wang" is interpreted as having the TRAP vowel (i.e., the same vowel as "bank" or "hang"), then:

RP = /wæŋ/, GA = /wæŋ/, AuE = /wæŋ/
This pronunciation is not the correct pronunciation of the politician's name.

Some people who are more savvy to transliterations and loan words might approach "a"s in unfamiliar foreign words as being the PALM vowel (i.e., same vowel as "father"). Then "wang" becomes:

RP = /wäːŋ/, GA = /wɑŋ/ or /wäŋ/, AuE = /wɑːŋ/
This is the best match to the Mandarin pronunciation available in the given dialects.

Almost certainly, "wong" will be interpreted as the CLOTH vowel (i.e., the same vowel as "long" and "wrong").

RP = /wɒŋ/ or /wɔŋ/ (free variation?), AuE = /wɔŋ/
About half of GA speakers have /wɔŋ/ and half have /wɑŋ/.
Almost all of these are not correct, as they have a rounded vowel. Only the cot-caught merging speakers of GA have a good match to the Mandarin.


I originally had this as a comment but it seems like it has become an answer.

Confucianism likes to talk about the separation of man (人) and beast (禽), so that would be the crux of the first sentence, i.e.: separating the human and animal worlds.

立天地心 should be talking about setting a standard or a principle for heaven and earth, there are many translations that put similar ideas as: ordaining a conscience for Heaven and Earth.

In relation to your edit:

There are a couple of well-known translations for 为天地立心，为生民立命， 为往圣继绝学，为万世开太平

  To ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth
    To secure life and fortune for the people
    To continue lost teachings for past sages
    To establish peace for all future generations

another would be:

  To ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth
    To secure life and fortune for the populace
    To carry on lost teachings of ancient sages
    To build peace for posterity


As a native Chinese speaker, I would say "恐怕" is used most frequently in the context where the speaker expresses his belief that something he does not wish to happen might happen. For example, the coach of L.A. Lakers may say "恐怕 Kobe 不能再打籃球了", i.e. "I am afraid Kobe will not be able to play basketball anymore".

Nevertheless, like in English, "恐怕" sometimes can be used to express conceding attitude. For instance, we may say "恐怕你在這點上是錯的", i.e. "I am afraid you are wrong in this point".


要 and 药

  Both of these are pronounced in the same way. In latin they are spelt Yào and Yào.

99% correct.  When 要 means "to request" it is pronounced yāo.  Although, most of the time 要 is pronounced yào.

  I thought each word had four tones.

Incorrect.  There are four/five tones in Mandarin (mā mǎ má mà ma), but individual characters are pronounced using just one. Each character in modern Mandarin has a single-syllable pronunciation comprising of an "initial", a "final", and a "tone".

Indeed, there's only a small number of possible pronunciations of individual characters (listed here: left = initial; right = final [and you can apply any of the tones]), so many characters are homophones.

How do we know what someone is saying?

Most words in Chinese consist of two characters (not one), e.g., 天气 (tiānqì) = weather.  There's a lot more possible two-characters combinations.
Many words with single-character forms 菜 (cài) = "vegetable" (among other meanings) also have longer, more precise forms 蔬菜 (shūcài) = "vegetable" (no other meanings).
Whoever is speaking is aware of the potential for ambiguity, typically familiar with commonly misheard words, and phrases sentences accordingly.

Usually the most confusing one is shì:

  是 事 市 式 试 室 世 视 适 示

These are all always pronounced shì, and they all arise fairly early in one's Chinese studies.  But they're usually combined with other characters:

是 (shì) = "to be"
事情 (shìqing) = "matter"
城市 (chéngshì) = "city"
日式 (Rìshì) = "Japanese style"
尝试 (chángshì) = "to try"
办公室 (bàngōngshì) = "office"
世界 (shìjiè) = "the earth"
电视 (diànshì) = "TV"
适合 (shìhé) = "to suit"
表示 (biǎoshì) = "to express"

So we can deduce the meaning of "shì" from the word it belongs to.


Characters for ben1 ben1 meaning 围巾 or 围嘴?

It is just a guess:
围巾 is a scarf; 围嘴 is a bib, also known as 圍兜.
围巾 and 围嘴/圍兜 are two different things.
But the pronunciation /ben1/ gave us a clue. You are probably thinking of 'bib'
Bib  ( 圍兜 )
'Bib' sounded like 'ben1' in Mandarin. What you are looking for is probably a loaned word for 'bib'
If it is a loaned word, the character itself might have nothing to do with the actual item.
The only character that is pronounced as/ben1/  in Mandarin is 奔 /ben1/; /ben4/
It is just my guess, but to indicated  this loaned word  奔 is related to 'cloth' a 巾 radical might be added to 奔 and make it looked like this:

or this:

user3306356 wrote:

衯衯 could also be a possibility.

Yes, most loaned words are just sounded like the original foreign words. It could be some other similar sounding words in this case.
More importantly, I have no proof that it is actually a loaned word. We need someone who know the history of this item to give a definite answer.
Edit:

In Cantonese, 'bib' is called 口水肩--  often shortened to just '肩' /gin1/ , which is the only single character that can mean 'bib' in Chinese (Cantonese).
'肩肩' would be a baby talk.
However, it is pronounced /jian1/ in Mandarin


What I can tell you is that this kind of structure is to express emphasis.

'她惊讶得说不出话来' has the same meaning as '她惊讶得话都说不出来'.
But the latter uses the inverted pattern, which is always used as for emphasis.

'说话' and '出来' in this kind of situation do not overlap. What's more, '出来' stresses the act of speaking.
It may be translated as 'I even can't work this simple question out.'

If you still don't understand, don't hesitate to ask.


What is the difference between 都没有 and 不都有?

都不是 this means all of them are not EX:他们都不是中国人 means none of them is Chinese

不都是 this means not all of them are他们不都是中国人 means not all of them are Chinese (some of them maybe Chinese)

都没有 All don't have EX:我们都没有钱 means none of us have money

不都有 not all have EX:我们不都有钱 means not all of us have money

我们不都有钱 sounds a little strange, it could be 我们不是人人都有钱.


「了」是象形字嗎？  Is 了 a pictograph?

丁福保所編的《說文解字詁林》收集了（清）王筠《說文句讀》中關於「了」的解釋。
丁福保's 《說文解字詁林》 collected (Qing Dynasty) 王筠's 《說文句讀》, which has explained 了.

筠 [ ㄩㄣˊ | yún ]
句讀 [ ㄐㄩˋ ㄉㄡˋ | jù dòu ]

圖一

  《集韻》引，無「象」字。然，「象形」二字竝當删。
  （完整文見圖三藍線）

竝 ＝ 並 [ ㄅ〡ㄥˋ | bìng ]

意思是：《集韻》在引用《說文解字》的「从子無臂象形」時，沒有包括「象」這個字。
也就是：「从子，無臂形」。
而王筠認為應該連「形」字都不取。
亦即：「从子，無臂」。
It means that when 《集韻》 quoted 从子無臂象形 from 《說文解字》, 象 was excluded.
That is 从子，無臂形.
王筠 thought that 形 should be removed too.
That is 从子，無臂.

註：《集韻》是北宋時，仁宗命丁度等人編寫的官方韻書。
Note: 《集韻》 was an official rhyme book compiled by 丁度 and others under the 仁宗's order during the Northern Song Dynasty.

朱駿聲的《說文通訓定聲》也沒有包括「象」字。
朱駿聲 also excluded 象 in his 《說文通訓定聲》.

圖二

為什麼有這麼多的學者專家都删掉「象（形）」字？
Why did such many experts and scholars delete 象（形）?

大概只有一個解釋，就是他們不認為「了」是象形字。
The only explanation might be that they did not consider 了 as a pictograph.

那是哪一種字？  What category does it belong to?

再看《說文句讀》後文。
Let's look at the subsequent contents in the 《說文句讀》.

圖三

  《後漢書˙孔融傳》曰：「小而了了」，則「了」字屬事，不屬物，安得有形可象？許說「了，尦」，亦是事也。

尦 [ ㄌㄧㄠˋ | liào ]

意思是：「了了」是指很聰明這件事，不屬於物體，根本沒有形體可以描繪。
許慎所說的「了，尦也」，也是指小腿交叉這件事。
It means that 了了 refers to "very clever", which is not an object, so there is not a physical shape to depict at all.
了，尦也 mentioned by 許慎 also refers to the thing or affair of crossing the shanks.

再看《說文通訓定聲》後文。
Let's look at the 《說文通訓定聲》 again.

圖四

  手之攣，曰「了」，脛之縶，曰「尦」。从子無臂，指事。
  （轉注）凡物結糾紾縳不伸者，曰「了戾」。
  （叚借）為憭。

攣 [ ㄌㄨㄢˊ | luán ]
縶 [ ㄓˊ | zhí ]
紾 [ ㄓㄣˇ | zhěn ]
縳 [ ㄓㄨㄢˋ | zhuàn ]
叚 [ ㄐ〡ㄚˇ ｜ jiă ] ＝ 假
憭 [ ㄌ〡ㄠˇ | liăo ] ＝ 瞭
縛 [ ㄈㄨˊ | fú ] 大陸可能讀四聲

束縛手臂稱為「了」，束縛小腿稱為「尦」。
「了」是從「子無臂」而來，屬指事字。
又被轉用來解釋物體糾結不直的樣子，稱為「了戾」。
也被「瞭」借用為「明白」的意思。
To bind arms is called 了. To bind shanks is called 尦.
了 is derived from 子 by removing the left-right stroke, and is one of the simple indicatives (ideograms).
了 is also transfered to explain the twined and bound appearance of an object, said 了戾.
In addition, 了 is borrowed by 瞭 that means "to understand" or "clear".

《說文解字詁林》也收集了饒炯的《說文解字部首訂》。
《說文解字詁林》 also collected 饒炯's 《說文解字部首訂》。

圖五

  指事......
  以尦說了，蓋因類爲釋。......是以，朱駿聲說：「手之攣，曰『了』，足之縶，曰『尦』；从子無臂，指事」，是也。
  若从段玉裁說「象其足了戾之形」，其事屬足，而篆省反在手，何能見其爲足之了戾乎？

此文就說得很明顯了，一開始就直接定義是指事字。
The statement is very clear, which directly defines 了 as one of the indicatives at the beginning.

用「尦」來解釋「了」，是用類似的形狀來解釋。
所以，朱駿聲會有如此說法，是這個緣故。
To explain 了 with 尦 is based on the similar shape.
Therefore, this is the reason 朱駿聲 explained it as above.

如果是依段玉裁的說法「象其足了戾之形」，這是在說足。
然而篆文省去的卻是手。
段玉裁怎能知道它是足之糾結呢？
If it is in accordance with 段玉裁's statement, 象其足了戾之形, this talks about the LEGS.
However, the ARMS are omitted in the seal character.
How could 段玉裁 know that it was the twined and bound appearance of the LEGS?

意思是說，如果是象形字而不是指事字，段玉裁不能用足之糾結來解釋臂之省略。
It means that if it is a pictograph rather than an indicative, 段玉裁 could not explain the omission of the ARMS with the bound appearance of the LEGS.

所以，這些學者認為「了」應該是指事字。
Therefore, these scholars believed that 了 should be one of the indicatives.


For 佩, what semantic notions underlie "to wear" and "to admire"?

According to 辞源 (see pictures below): wear something --> keep something on one's body --> remember something by heart --> respect and admire something
It turns out that 佩 and 服 are actually very similar. Both mean both "wear" and "admire".
Also, I just noticed that originally the object of 佩/佩服 is a thing, not a person. So you 佩/佩服 a person's courage, virtue, etc.
The example sentences in 《现代汉语词典》《现代汉语规范词典》 are still used in that way:
这种精神可敬可佩。
我真佩服他那种锲而不舍的精神。

But of course, nowadays you can also just 佩服 a person.
这姑娘真能干，我不禁暗暗地佩服她。


Modern vocab. "selfie", "troll" and "spam"

selfie n. (also selfy, pl. selfies)

  自拍 n./vi. (adj. 自拍的. Also specifically 自拍照片 (selfie photo) or 自拍视频 (selfie video))

    n. 这是他的自拍。
    vi. 他正在自拍。

troll n.

  (Mainland China) 喷子 n.

  (Taiwan) 白目 / 白爛 / 小白 n.

Note: As the Internet slang is widespread, 喷子/白目/白爛/小白 are all acceptable in Chinese regions. However, the term 小白 in mainland China now can mean 菜鸟 (newbie, green hand), for example

新来的小白，请大侠指教。

Then it's an almost neutral word.

spam n.

  垃圾 + 邮件/短信/信息 n.

The spam in English includes unsolicited bulk messages in all kinds of media. However in Chinese it's more specifically said 垃圾邮件 (and something else like that).

phishing scam n.

  钓鱼骗局 n.

I checked some websites and found 钓鱼骗局 is used both in mainland and Taiwan for "phishing scam". However personally I don't meet the word 钓鱼骗局 much. More specific words like 钓鱼网站, 网络钓鱼 (Taiwanese 網路釣魚) appear more common. Anyway, the core word is phishing (钓鱼), the derivatives are based on it.


i would suggest "freudian slip"

if it's fate, destiny related, maybe "oracle slip", or "divine slip"

in which slip referred to the "一語"

have fun :)


What to use when referring to the character 格

Go to http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php

Search 格 by Chinese word. You will find many compound words with 格

The following are the most common ones

  風格, 品格, 人格, 嚴格, 資格, 價格, 規格, 體格

You can say 風格的格, 品格的格 ... and so on

You can also use terms like 格局, 格鬥, 格調, 格式. To clarify which character you meant to say, the examples you used just need to contain 格, it doesn't matter where it is in a compound word

To make it extra clear, you can even use four characters idioms like

'格' as in "格格不入"

'格' as in "別具一格"


我去：When used to express strong emotions, it can be to yourself or others.
For example: annoyance, anger, loss, surprise, envy, etc., which is close to the meaning of "我靠".


English text of 穆天子傳 (Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven)

Brill lists three translations:

Translations

Eitel, E.J. “Mu-t’ien-tzu chuan.” China Review 17 (1888): 223–40; 247–58.

Cheng Te-k’un. “The Travels of Emperor Mu.” JNCBRAS 64 (1933): 124–42; 65(1934): 128–49.

Mathieu, Rémi. Le Mu tianzi zhuan, traduction annotée, etude critique. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1978.

Presumably with the first two being English and the third being French.

E.J. Eitel's translation entitled Mu T'ien-tzu Chuan (Muh-T'ien-Tsze Chuen) -or- The Chronicle of Mu, Son-of Heaven was split into two parts and both are hosted on the Hong Kong Journals Online section of the Hong Kong University website.

Part one: translation by E.J. Eitel in 1888 in China Review 17, no. 4, PP. 223-240 pdf.

Part two: translation by E.J. Eitel in 1888 in China Review 17, no. 5, PP. 242-258 pdf.

As for the Cheng Te-k’un translation the best I've got so far is found in the Classical Chinese Literature: From antiquity to the Tang dynasty
edited by John Minford, Joseph S. M. Lau

The Wheels of His Chariot, The Hoofs of His Horses Selections from The Travels of Mu, Son of Heaven
Translated by Cheng Te-k'un

Starts on page 59:

On the day mou-yin the emperor made his way to the west, marching on as far as the Yangyu Mountain, where in ancient days Wu Yi, the God of the River, had established his family, the house of Hezong. A member of this house, Bo Yao, welcomed the emperor at the Yanren Mountain, offering as presents a piece of silk ...

It's only selections but they say the full length is:

This also matches the, more specific, Brill tag. It seems to be split between journals, much like the Eitel translation, and it should be found in:
Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

volume 64 (1933): pages 124–142;

volume 65 (1934): pages 128–149.

Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (皇家亚洲文会北华支会会刊) has combined and "photocopied" (read:re-printed(?)) all 75 volumes of their journals and you can get it on Amazon for ￥25,900.00.
But really you're only looking for the 33rd volume in the new printings because it contains:

第三十三册
N.S.VOL.LXIV（1933）
N.S.VOL.LXV（1934）

Volumes 64 and 65 of the original journals.


Almost any yes-no question can be formed simply by placing 吗 after a statement.

statement: You can pour me some water. (你可以给我倒些水。)
question: Can you pour me some water? (你可以给我倒些水吗？)
statement: You can go running tomorrow with me. (明天你可以和我去跑步。)
question: Can you go running tomorrow with me? (明天你可以和我去跑步吗？)

Also, when asking someone to do something, you can use the pattern "Do something 好吗？"

给我倒些水好吗？
明天和我去跑步好吗？

Here 好吗 can also be 行吗/可以吗


What language is this, Simplified Chinese, or...?

Simplified Chinese.
But to me this doesn't sound like nice spoken language, maybe because it's translated from bable or somewhere else.


Brass & Marble Chinese Bring Money Tea Pot (Characters identified: 大明宣德)

The characters are

大朙宣德
Emperor Xuāndé of the Míng Dynasty


Are pleonasms like 尷尬 common, where at least two compounds share the same semantic component?

Actually the second character 尬 can be used alone.

和我老婆讨论这种事情真的很尬 = It's really awkward to discuss this thing with my wife

In the example above using 尬 instead of 尴尬 gives basically the same meaning.
The word derives from the pronunciation of 间界 in Chinese Wu, which is "gāngà" (note that tones in Wu are not 100% identical to Mandarin). It appears also in the Mandarin chengyu 半间不界, which dictionaries will list with the pinyin "bàngānbùgà", meaning "不深刻，肤浅不彻底".
Then in Wu, the word apparently had shifted in meaning and signifies also abnormality, deviation, etc. and awkwardness.
In Mandarin the characters 尴尬 have been used to represent those sounds (attested as early as the 说文解字) with a better semantical effect, as the semantic component 尢 depicts a person with a limp leg.
In conclusion, even if it appears pleonastic today, the etymology seems to be pointing in a different direction.

As for other words composed of two characters with the same semantic compound and similar in meaning, there's several. A few that come to mind:

坍塌 to collapse (坍 and 塌 both meaning "to collapse")

忐忑 nervous (忐 and 忑 actually not used alone)

惆怅 melancholy (惆 and 怅 both with the meaning "depressed")

魑魅 and the chengyu 魑魅魍魉 chīmèiwǎngliǎng, demons and monsters (literally a bunch of 鬼)


她做练习做得很多 is grammatical. 得 (degree particle) should be followed by a degree and 很多 is indeed a degree.
Strictly speaking, 得， 的 and 地 have different functions, and should not be confused,  however, it has become a common practice for many Mandarin speakers to use them all interchangeably, so 她做练习做的很多 or 她练习做的很多 is also acceptable because 的 here is not a noun modifier but a replacement of 得 (verb modifier)


Translate 'suffered for your sanity' in precise chinese

'suffered for' = '因~而受苦'

'your' = '你的'

'sanity' = '理性'

insanity = 疯狂 (n). The opposite of '疯狂' is '理性' (rationality) or '清醒头脑'(sound mind)

  "suffered for your sanity"

"因你的理性而受苦" or "因你的清醒头脑而受苦"

  Yumi Tada wrote: make sense.but not like a song lyrics

You can give up some accuracy for style and wrote:

" And how you suffered for your sanity" -- "你何以因清醒而受罪"


Meaning of "建一个国内的飞机场，也能翻回去" and "美国不会对标建墙的"

"墙" isn't a real wall here, but a "Internet wall". It made by governments, its target is forbiding the citizens explore some special sites on Internet. Chinese government has one, it forbids the people in China Mainland to connect to Google Search, Facebook, Twitter and some other sites. Some sites in this list are erotic, or about gambling, or Chinese government doesn't like it because there are always some anti-China things on those sites. The author of this article wants to say that the US government won't build a wall like what China has. If the US build it, the people in the US can't download WeChat or QQ or some other Chinese applications that forbid by the ban of the US government, and can only use some special ways to "climb over" it, such as using VPN.
"飞机场" is an argot, it means hosts in other areas. The people who use VPN connect to it to "climb over" the "Internet wall". So this sentence means "build a host in China to climb over the ban to get some special things on the Internet from China".