English equivalent for 辛苦了 when the speaker is not the person being helped out

辛苦 in itself means 'to toil, to work hard'

辛苦了 does not translate as "Thank you for working hard for me!", it does not necessarily express gratitude for something that directly benefits the speaker.

Consider e.g. the following: a friend of yours who studies abroad returns home to your village and you meet him at the station, you can greet them with 路上辛苦了吧！ This could mean "That must have been an exhausting journey!", it doesn't mean "Thank you for taking this hard journey to see me." Or you could translate this as "You've come a long way."

Another situation, you visit some relatives and they ask you about your job. You tell them all kinds of things you do at work, you do your own tasks, you write report for your boss, you take phone calls, you supervise other people's work, you do this, you do that, etc. Your relatives could praise you with 你工作太辛苦了！ "You are working so hard!", just to praise your merits as a hard-working person. Your work will probably not benefit them at all, nevertheless, they praise your work ethic.

Third situation. You see your neighbors being busy in their garden, you ask them: 辛苦了，忙什么？ "Wow, what are you so busy with?". Your neighbors work won't benefit you too much, but you can be polite and show them that you admire their diligent nature.

Of course, if the situation makes it clear, that the speaker is benefited by the other person's work, the phrase can have a direct reference to this. E.g. a friend shows you around in their hometown, you can thank them: 你陪我太辛苦了！ 谢谢！ "You must be tired for taking me around, thank you!"


Do it while you can or "Strike while the iron is hot" in Chinese

“Strike while the iron is hot” in Chinese is 打鐵趁熱

鍛造鐵器必須在加熱鎔燒時進行。比喻做事必須把握時機、不要拖延。

Forging ironware must be done while the iron is hot. It is a metaphor that you must seize the opportunity to do things without delay.

"Do it while you can" could mean '機不可失' (chance is rare, so don't miss it) or 勿失良機 (don't miss a good chance)


1、— is too long.Not out on the left side of the 丿
2、㇏ is too heavy.It should be from heavy to light and sharp at the end
3、The second 丶 is also too long.It should be shorter.It corresponds to the first 丶

Case of 尽


1) Ensure correct proportions between all parts. Don't scrunch in. Don't squeeze down. Don't squeeze together.

2) Radicals should be smaller on top and thinner on sides. Don't make radicals the same size as the rest of the character.

3) Horizontal strokes appear much nicer if they go up at a slight angle.

4) Ensure vertical strokes don't go off at a weird angle and if there are multiple horizontal strokes make sure they are in harmony.

5) Top to bottom = thin to fat

6) Ensure left hand side radical height is similar in height to rest of the character (this has some exceptions).

7) Make sure second tier horizontal lines are long enough and longer than first tier horizontal lines.


Hi! What is the difference between 忙得过来 and 忙不过来

Put simply, they have opposite meanings.
1. Translations

你忙得過來嗎？ Can you manage your work?
我忙得過來。 I can manage my work.
我忙不過來。 I have more work than can manage.

2. The construction Vmain +得/不+ Vaux
得 indicates ability in the positive sense (Vmain +得+ Vaux), and 不 in the negative sense (Vmain +不+ Vaux).
Let's consider a simpler example where 得 and 不 are placed within another compound verb, 吃完 (to finish eating). 吃 (to eat) is the main verb, and 完 (to finish) is a verb that is at most auxiliary in nature. Here it helps indicate the extent of completion of the main verb.

我吃完飯。 I finished my meal.
我吃得完飯。 I can/could finish the meal.
我吃不完飯。 I cannot/could not finish the meal.

3. 忙過來
This compound verb is seldom (dare I say never) used without 得/不 inserted in between, but still one appreciates the invariable structure where the main verb 忙 (to be busy) is followed by the auxiliary verbs 過 and 來 (note nothing is advancing towards the speaker; it is merely a figurative way of saying someone has finished or done being busy. See more explanation of 來 as an auxiliary verb here.)
An example of Vmain +得/不+ 過 is 說得/不過去; if you say something is 說得過去, you mean that it is justifiable, passable (as if you could complete a justification for something).
4. Other Vmain +得/不+ Vaux examples

跟上 (to catch up) 跟得上 跟不上
他跟得上節奏。lit. He can catch up with the rhythm.
寫下 (lit. to write down) 寫得下 寫不下
這裡空間太小了，寫不下。 There is too little space here for me to write.

上, 下, 完, 過去, and 過來 are common auxiliaries.
5. What about 你忙不過來嗎？
The teacher could also have asked in the negative, but in it also lies the assumption or presupposition of the speaker that the student could not finish their work. Asking in the affirmative (which also includes 你忙得過來不？ where 不 acts as a question tag) is in general more polite.


What's the percentage of simplified characters in the most common characters?

according to http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4d3f04b40100ffxk.html
有学者王鼎吉统计：以国家语委、国家教委1988年1月26日联合发布的《现代汉语常用字表》为例，在3500个常用字中，有简化字1116个，占31.9%，即不到三分之一
there are 31.9% character undergo simplification in the most common 3500 characters.


How much faster is it to write Simplified over Traditional?

How much faster is it really to write simplified, given similar skill levels?

Basically, writing simplified characters (SC) can be faster than traditional characters (TC).

SC comes into stage primarily because of its handy characteristics. Some people really want to boost up the writing speed, among other personal reasons, and there's no such awesome typing machine like notebook today, so what can they do is fairly predictable, such as scribbling around, or just dropping some elements.
Speed of writing is cited as an advantage of simplified Chinese over traditional, which is especially important for schoolchildren, but are there any studies or measurements to this effect?

Provide you with my own experiment result here. I've timed and written the above Wiki page with its first two paragraphs in the introduction part, both SC version and TC version. There're 306 characters. It took me:

14 minutes 43 seconds (883 seconds) to write up the SC version or 2.9 seconds per character on average, and
21 minutes 36 seconds (1296 seconds) to write up the TC version or 4.2 seconds per character on average.

Didn't write pretty well, just everyday performance.

The scan of my writing

SC version script

汉字简化争论是一个讨论汉字之正式字体的话题。由于中国大陆、香港、台湾的使用习惯、文化认同及意识形态不同，而持续被提出来争论。汉字文化圈其他国家如日本、越南则较少关注这一争论。1这里所谓的“汉字简化”，主要针对的是中华人民共和国所推行的简化字，台湾和香港地区并不采用，并有普遍的激烈批评。本条目中的“繁体字”是中国大陆对传统汉字字体的称呼，在香港、澳门等地区也较常使用此名称，中华民国（台湾）官方称之为“正体字”[2][3][4]。现行中国大陆的简体字属于毛泽东时代下，为响应苏联国际化语言而推动汉字拉丁化（废除汉字）的政治性产物。简体字仅是废除汉字前的过渡性措施。[5][6]1985年12月，国务院决定将中国文字改革委员会改名为国家语言文字工作委员会，强调国家语委要“促进语言文字的规范化、标准化”，这表明拼音化道路已被放弃。[7]

TC version script

漢字簡化爭論是一個討論漢字之正式字體的話題。由於中國大陸、香港、台灣的使用習慣、文化認同及意識形態不同，而持續被提出來爭論。漢字文化圈其他國家如日本、越南則較少關注這一爭論。1這裡所謂的「漢字簡化」，主要針對的是中華人民共和國所推行的簡化字，台灣和香港地區並不採用，並有普遍的激烈批評。本條目中的「繁體字」是中國大陸對傳統漢字字體的稱呼，在香港、澳門等地區也較常使用此名稱，中華民國（台灣）官方稱之為「正體字」[2][3][4]。現行中國大陸的簡體字屬於毛澤東時代下，為響應蘇聯國際化語言而推動漢字拉丁化（廢除漢字）的政治性產物。簡體字僅是廢除漢字前的過渡性措施。[5][6]1985年12月，國務院決定將中國文字改革委員會改名為國家語言文字工作委員會，強調國家語委要「促進語言文字的規範化、標準化」，這表明拼音化道路已被放棄。[7]


it's stamps of p.r.c. governmental office.

don't do it

counterfeiting government stamp is an serious offence; in most of places in this world, it's criminal activities.

again, don't do it

edited.

@john frazer, CL is not an "underground / dark" site. imo, your comments are inappropriate. encouraging others to "recreate a stamp", may i ask, what's the moral?

about "what law in what jurisdiction prohibits that", here're:

provided by @frenzy li. in mainland china, the 中華人民共和國刑法　第二百八十條

  偽造、變造、買賣或者盜竊、搶奪、毀滅國家機關的公文、證件、印章的，處三年以下有期徒刑、拘役、管制或者剝奪政治權利，並處罰金；情節嚴重的，處三年以上十年以下有期徒刑，並處罰金。

https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/中华人民共和国刑法

in colonial era, there's a "forgery ordinance" in hong kong, which mentioned:

  forge or counterfeit the stamp or impression of ariy of the seals

http://oelawhk.lib.hku.hk/items/show/206

i hope that, this should provide enough info for you, to stop the thinking of "make a stamp that looks like an official stamp".

again, such act is an offence, don't do it.


When you use "临时", your point is "wasn't part of the plan".

When you use "及时", your point is "rapidly/promptly".

So if you replacing "好象是临时决定的" with "好象是及时决定的", it also works but the point will become to "They made the decision promptly" from "They made the decision that wasn't the part of the plan (of the meeting)".

Of cource "临时" has other meanings, such as "temporarily", which means a temporary solution which will be replaced by the formal one later on.


What semantic notions underlie 心 ('heart') with 惑 ('to confuse')?

I think we should start off from the more basic principles in language - hopefully this will give a better idea of how phono-semantic compounds work.

Remember that words have already long existed before writing was invented. What happens, then, if we want to write something down that hasn't been written before?

Now, Chinese characters, representing morphemes or words, have both meaning and sound: if we want to write down a meaning word confuse pronounced as† /*ɡʷɯːɡ/ with no existing character representation, we can

† Pronounced as is a description for convenience only - reconstructions are generally for the purpose of demonstrating historical phonological features and rules, not a guide to how words were originally pronounced.

Write it with a character which hints at the sound of the word using an existing character which sounds similar, e.g. 「或」;
Draw a picture which indicates the meaning confuse.

It is very clear that (2) cannot be employed too often in a practical manner across all the words in a language - so ancient scribes extensively employed method (1) to represent the language.

But hold on, 「或」 already represents a word meaning region or area! How shall we distinguish the word meaning confuse from region/area?

How about reminding the reader that the word referred to is an emotion, by adding the character for heart/mind/emotion, 「心」?

So now we get 「惑」, which is composed of a bunch of hints reminding the reader of a word that sounds like 「或」 (/*ɡʷɯːɡ/) and is an emotion 「心」.

To reiterate, the word meaning confuse pronounced as /*ɡʷɯːɡ/ already exists! In English, if I ask you for a word sounding like eight and is a kind of emotion, I expect you to know, with fair confidence, that I'm talking about the word hate.

I should only need to hint to you that the word is a kind of emotion, instead of needing to draw angry faces everywhere, and you shouldn't need to come back to me and tell me that there are a million different kinds of emotions; how does "emotion" reduce to the meaning "hate"?, because I've already hinted to you that the word sounds like eight.

How does this generalise to other characters? To use @TangHo's examples, we can still talk about emotions, and understand that

We know that there is a word sounding like 「奴」 which means angry. Let's remind ourselves of this word by adding 「心」, the hint for emotion, to get 「怒」.
We know that there is a word sounding like 「夗」 which means resentment. Let's remind ourselves of this word by adding 「心」, the hint for emotion, to get 「怨」.
We know that there is a word sounding like 「巩」 which means fear. Let's remind ourselves of this word by adding 「心」, the hint for emotion, to get 「恐」.
We know that there is a word sounding like 「己」 which means to envy. Let's remind ourselves of this word by adding 「心」, the hint for emotion, to get 「忌」.

In all cases, 「心」 does not mean anything other than a hint for emotion, and in all cases, the writer expects you to know what the word sounds like already. Characters do not exist in a vacuum; they refer to words which you are already expected to know.


《說文・彳部》

隱行也。从「彳」，「」聲。
「微」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*məj/), to travel [somewhere] under stealth. From semantic 「彳」 (to walk) and phonetic 「」 (/*məj/).

Strictly speaking, 「微」 is just a complexified character from 「」. Characters naturally become more complex over time for disambiguation purposes, as simpler characters tend to be used and reused for other senses or as rebus characters/phonetic loans, causing them to be overloaded with definitions and more easily subjected to shape distortions, and thus increasingly difficult to comprehend.
Since 「」 is the original character for the meaning small, slight, then in terms of glyph origins, 「微」 is built from semantic 「彳」 and doubly semantic and phonetic 「」 . 「彳」 is simply a semantic indicator appended on to 「微」 to extend the meaning small, slight to travelling under stealth.
So, all this begs the question - what exactly is 「」 supposed to be？

Glyph origins of 「」
商甲京都2146合集27996西周金史墻盤集成10175戰國・楚簡56.35九店楚簡篆人部說文解字楷
「」 is constructed from semantic 「髟」 (picture of a person with long hair) and semantic 「攵・攴」 (picture of a hand holding a hitting implement > to strike, to hit), inferring the meaning delicate, slight through the action of cutting off a full growth of hair into a more elegant and delicate state.
Shuōwén's

《說文・人部》

妙也。从「人」，从「攴」。「豈」省聲。
(/*məj/) [means] delicate. From semantic 「人」 (person), semantic 「攴」 (to strike), and reduced phonetic 「豈」 (/*C.qʰˤəjʔ/).

is probably a misunderstanding. 「豈」 may have originated from an alteration of 「壴」 (picture of a drum) into 「豈」 (beating of victory drums > triumphant music, now written as 「凱」), and Shuōwén has confused the top part of 「豈」 with the top-[left] part of 「髟」.

商甲甲2770合集27694西周金壴鼎集成1175春秋金王孫遺者鐘集成261戰國・楚簡性自命出49郭店楚簡戰國・楚簡1.011信陽竹書簡篆豈部說文解字西漢隸縱橫145馬王堆帛書三國・魏隸魏封孔羨碑　楷
For reference, shape derivation of 「豈」. Shapes 1-4 refer to 「壴」. Shape 5 is 「敳」, with the left-hand component as 「壴」 but the top-left part written as a rotated 「山」. This sets the scene for the confusion of 「豈」 and 「」 in Shuōwén. Forms 6-9 refer to 「豈」, which all inherit the (rotated) 「山」 shape.

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
李學勤《字源》
漢語多功能字庫
小學堂字形演變
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》


out of my expection. I have never thought.

There is a famous 对联

  客上天然居,居然天上客

There are customers visiting the Natural House, Unexpectedly, They come from the Heaven.


What is the difference between 看法 and 想法?

Think about a scenario: You and your group are asked to do a social survey, and you're going to pick up your topic by yourselves. So you called a meeting to discuss it. Everybody talked about their ideas(想法), and you vote for a topic.
Think about another scenario: At class, your professor played a piece of video about some hot news, and then he wanted you to talk about your own point of view(看法).
So, "想法" is usually used when there is some problem need to be discussed to solve. "看法" is usually used when people talked about their opinions about something happened or some social phenomenon.
"想" means you need to think and "看" means how you see this.
Yet in daily life, replace one with another won't make it a big deal, so people sometimes don't take the difference seriously, they just speak it out.
May this would help.


When you have 睡意(wanting to sleep), you would feel 昏沉(drowsy; unable to get everything clear in your mind, and that kind of mood). So, I think the word 'drowsy' can fit here.
Besides 'news', you could also interpret 消息 as 'message', 'information'.


How to distinguish between 为 and 给 when both means "for"

My feeling is:

That 给 is for doing something ''for'' someone.

I will buy it for you. 我给你买。

You will do the verb for someone else.

And 为 is more abstract

I am sad for you. 我为你伤心。

I'm not native but I don't think you could say:

我为你买东西。  X

我给你伤心。   X


Here are some things that I found:

http://www.bjshy.gov.cn/Item/64056.aspx:
Beijing Shunyi district in a job related to labor disputes: > 70 WPM.

http://ghj.fuzhou.gov.cn/ghjzwgk/rsxx/201504/t20150414_890668.htm
Fuzhou city/countryside planning: ~60 WPM

http://www.mohrss.gov.cn/SYrlzyhshbzb/fwyd/sykaoshi/zyhgjjgsydwgkzp/201401/W020140124568664734613.doc.
Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security: > 90 WPM for Chinese, > 220 Letters/min for English

http://www.gzjd.gov.cn/jdwsjb/xxgk_phoneweb/xxgkml_phoneweb/tzgg_phoneweb/qt_tzgg_phoneweb/20141104/detail-273178.shtml
Guangzhou Liwan District Public Security Bureau:>50WPM

It seems in general 50 WPM is kinda the minimum. And most places want more. I didn't find any info about certification.


一方面...另一方面 Can you use it with a positive and negative idea?

Please go to this link:
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_various_aspects_with_%22yi_fangmian%22

Thank you.


中風，中醫學術語，中醫認為這是外感風邪侵犯人體之後所造成的病證。

因為「風者，擅行而數變」，有許多症狀都被歸類在中風之下，但最主要的，有兩個意義，一是指因腦血管阻塞、出血而造成的病變，亦即現代醫學所說的中風

'中風' (suffer a sickness caused by 'something' in the wind)-- a term in Traditional Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine believed that it was a disease syndrome caused by external wind pathogens invading the human body.

Because "wind is invisible, move fast, and unpredictable", many symptoms are classified under '中風', but the most important one has two meanings. One refers to the pathological changes caused by cerebrovascular obstruction and bleeding, that is, Stroke in modern medicine

In the olden time, when someone fell ill suddenly without any apparent cause, people had to blam something invisible. The obvious choices were wind and evil spirit. A stroke had to be caused by something in the wind they thought.
For the same logic, when someone suffered a mental breakdown (發瘋 - get crazy), people might suspect the patient had 揰邪 (ran into an evil spirit)


Any time in doubt about how to put some expression into Chinese, check something like jukuu.com

她变了很多 in this case would fit. But 她变化很大 would also be OK.


见闻 is a noun word in the context, meaning "what one sees and hears; knowledge and information". Interpreting as "experiences" in this context is ok I think.

Your statement is correct:

  "since the lyrics are usually given with a linebreak after 见闻
  (jiànwén), it might be that 见闻 (jiànwén) is actually another noun
  going with 热吻 (rèwěn) to be the object of 赠 (zèng). "

Small tweaks on your translation 2: "You gave me too many experiences [and] warm kisses that couldn't be taken away."


Differences in reading difficulty between Taiwan and Hong Kong newspapers?

A historical reason,maybe.
There's a lot of immigrants from the Chinese mainland in Taiwan, those immigrants speak Mandarin.
Hong Kong people speak Cantonese,same as Guangdong,which is different from Mandarin.


初中 is the last three years of the nine year compulsory education. 高中 is high school or gymnasium. 中学 comprises both of them, altogether six years of middle school (as opposed to primary school and higher education).


人 is an appositive of 他们. You can just delete it without changing the meaning!


What is the difference between 经营模式vs。商业模式

The main difference is the scope besides their definitions. Business models can be very different, say between service and manufacturing. But operation model could be the same for different businesses, say retail stores for car parts and used furniture. Operation model could have bigger scope like network of dealerships, but it's somewhat defined by the business model - selling cars.


Would an ancient chinese be able to understand today's language?

I would argue that mutual intelligibility between Chinese speakers 2200 years apart would be essentially nothing, for the spoken language. I say 2200 years as the emperor in the film is the Dragon Emperor, or Qin Shi Huang, who lived 259 to 210 BC and founded the Qin dynasty.
To give you an idea, Old Chinese (~1250 BC to 25 AD) did not have tones (Old Chinese), while tones are as important as vowels to communicate meaning in Modern Chinese (Importance of Tones). Also, many of the modern varieties of Chinese are mutually unintelligible (Varieties of Chinese), and speakers 2200 years apart have to deal with both the language changes over time and the likelihood that they would not be speaking the same variety of Chinese. See this link for more information on sound changes overtime for Chinese. We also have not been able to properly reconstruct the sounds of Old Chinese, so even someone very educated in Old Chinese may not be able to understand a native speaker of Old Chinese without significant barriers.
Another interesting question is, if the spoken language could not be understood, what about the written language?
The biggest barrier along this route would be whether the person from 2200 years ago was even literate. If it is a randomly chosen person, they were probably not literate and thus there could be no written communication whatsoever.
The second barrier would be whether the modern person was literate. The literacy rate in China in 1949 was less than 20% (The Chinese Struggle for Literacy), so this may be a problem in and of itself.
If both the ancient person and the modern person were literate, I would agree with Tang Ho that written communication may be possible. I would also argue, though, that it would still be difficult and there may not be many modern people who would have the knowledge to be able to pull this off in the 1940s, unless they were highly educated. The first barrier would be the script. Chinese characters had various scripts in use over time, and they are very different from the modern script (see this example from Wikipedia). The Qin dynasty did have a standardized seal script (Seal Script) that is known today, but I have heard that Modern Chinese native speakers today have a hard time reading seal script (though a larger fraction of literate people may have been able to read seal script in the 1940s). So, unless the modern person from the 40s was both literate and educated well-enough to be able to read the seal script, they would have a hard time reading whatever the ancient person wrote. Other barriers include the very different grammar of Old Chinese to Modern Chinese, various variants of characters, and the changes in the meanings of characters over time. These are not insurmountable barriers, given sufficient education (and given what I believe was the knowledge level in the 1940s), but still difficult as a whole, I would say.
Granted, if the person encountered the Dragon Emperor because they were a high-level member of an archaeological dig/society that was seeking to revive the Emperor (as I think occurred in the movie), I could easily see that they would have sufficient education to figure out the writing of the Emperor. This is assuming that the Dragon Emperor was literate, which I presume would be the case for the Emperor of the Qin dynasty. Given enough time, and assuming that the Emperor was patient enough and willing to teach, a person from the "Revive the Dragon Emperor" society could maybe eventually figure out how to speak Old Chinese with the Emperor. I am not sure that this would be possible in the time frame shown in the movie, however.


Haha, it is difficult even for a native to decipher very cursive or bad handwriting. Basically, when we read, we are only certain about some of the characters and then deduce other characters based on rough shape, context, or other clues.

As for writing, elementary students in low grades are assigned to repeat writing one character for ten or more times in a row. Chinese students are required to write instead of type for most of their tasks, so, after years of writing, people find their accustomed ways to make shortcut. However, most spontaneous writing styles are far from beautiful or even decipherable. In high school, teachers usually make practising handwriting compulsory. The copybook is the most convenient tool for practice. You write on semi transparent paper and emulate standard calligraphy. It's feasible actually. Many students improve quite a lot after several months of practice.

EDIT:

Though my handwriting is not that good, but I believe it is something average in the sense of immaculateness.

My primary school composition. Posted here as a reference of typical style of newbies.


As a native Chinese speaker, I seldom hear people say"他很快就会回来。"
Because without the word "的" it sounds weird and unnatural.
There is no meaning of “的” in the sentence.
I think “的" use in the ending of this sentence is just make the sentence better.


谈恋爱 = fall in love
谈情说爱 = romancing (what people who fell in love do)

'Romance
a. To court, woo, or try to arouse the romantic interest of.
b. To have a love affair with.

你的水准能跟四爷谈情说爱。
base on your level(quality), you can romance the fourth lord.


Classical Chinese Literature - What languages could be written with it? And why?

As far as I know, classic Chinese is not used to "write" these languages as you think. Classic Chinese was just used as an "international" language among surrounding countries, like English nowadays. Take the Japanese Language for example.

In ancient times, the Japanese had their own language, but they didn't have a writing system. Of course, China was powerful back then and exerted influence over the surrounding countries. Japan also imported Chinese characters and culture, especially during the beginning of the Tang Dynasty (唐朝) in China.

After learning Chinese characters, some Japanese scholars started to use characters to note the pronuciations for Japanese words, something like the PinYin system, as now we use Latin letters express Chinese. However, every character had its own pronunciation and meaning, so the Japanese created their own "letters", now called "hiragana" and "katakana", based on Chinese characters. For example, the "hiragana" "あ" comes from the character "安", "か" from "加". They look similar, right?

This also happened to Vietnamese. The Vietnamese created their Vietnamese characters(喃字) based on Chinese characters.

Nowadays, the Koreans don't use Chinese characters(but some characters are still used, especially in solemn situation and law), the Japanese still use them, and the Vietnamese quit thoroughly because the French instituted the use of a Roman alphabet during the colonization period.

So I think the answers to your questions would be:

None. They developed their own writing system based on Chinese characters and borrowed a lot of words from Chinese
Since characters are used as writing system and letters to note the pronunciation. Grammar is not the point
Meanings for some characters changes through time. Furthermore, grammar also changes, so if you want to learn classic Chinese, you'd better learn mordern Chinese first. After you learn mordern Chinese, it won't be so hard for you to learn classic Chinese

I suggest everyone who wants to learn Chinese: you might as well learn some classic Chinese. Although we don't speak in Classic Chinese, there are many words(especially idioms) from classic Chinese, such as "多行不义必自毙"，“退避三舍”,“秋波”。Also, you can read some classic poems to get a feeling of classic Chinese.

Edit: More explanations on point 2.

To clarify how the claiss Chinese were imported and affected Japanese. Imagine the steps below.

STEP 1: Japanese had their language, so they could say: "この山は　高い" (This mountain is high), but they could not write this sentence.

STEP 2: They got to learn classic Chinese, and they(especially the nobels) decided to use classic Chinese for communication, because Chinese culture was so attractive to them. Now the classic Chinese worked as a popular foreign language, like English nowadays.

STEP 3: Some Japanese scholars thought:"well, Chinese seems good, why not create our writing system based on it?", and eventually they invented the "hiragara" and "katakara", by abstracting the Chinese Characters. For example, now they have "こ" from “己” and "の" from "乃“ and so on.

STEP 4: Now they could use these "letters" to write down the sentence. It could be like this(without any characters): 　この　やま　は、たかい, but it's not so conevnient because they had to divide every word in writing.

STEP 5: "Hey, we have learnt Chinese. In Chinese, “やま” is "山", and character "高" means high, in our language, it's たかい. Why not use characters to simplify the writing system?", Japanese might think this way. Of course, in Japanese, an adjective has serveral kinds of conjugations, but that doesn't matter, because only the suffix(い) should change, the stem(たか) won't change, so they just used the character “高” for the stem and everything works well. I.e. the negative form of "高い" is "高くない".

So I think you understand why importing characters won't affect the grammar.


What is "Nordic hamstring curl" in Chinese?

诺迪克腘绳肌屈伸动作
Doesn't seem to be widely used but it is a translation used by 北京体育大学图书馆, but I am not sure if that means anything or not.
 国际体育科教资讯服务 【科技前沿】

采用新式腘绳肌测试仪可减少运动损伤发生概率
昆士兰科技大学9月29日报道，最近昆士兰科技大学（QUT）的研究人员研制出了一种具有突破性的仪器。该仪器可以帮助顶尖职业运动员评估并减少腘绳肌损伤风险。该仪器为目前全世界唯一一种可以在诺迪克腘绳肌屈伸动作（Nordic hamstring curl）中进行肌肉力量测量的便携式装置。 [国际体育科教资讯服务]

研究团队首次证明腘绳肌损伤风险是可以通过测量运动员进行诺迪克屈伸动作时腘绳肌的力量来进行量化的。腘绳肌力量提升10牛顿可以将腘绳肌损伤降低约9个百分点。澳大利亚的一些重量级俱乐部已经开始使用原型设备，而该研究团队也已经开始在橄榄球联盟、NRL、板球以及A-联赛（足球）俱乐部中开展相关初期测试。

Original information is from here:
[PDF] 国际体育科教资讯服务 - 北京体育大学图书馆

诺迪克腘绳肌屈伸动作（Nordic hamstring curl）

edit:
Beijing Sport University From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beijing Sport University (BSU) (Chinese: 北京体育大学) (formerly Beijing University of Physical Education), founded on November 1, 1953,3 has contributed greatly to the sustainable development of Chinese sport and physical education and has enjoyed the fame as one of the key sport universities in China.

I would imagine that they have good enough credit to trust the material they put out.


How to say "it's a function of ..." in Chinese?

In daily conversations, we do not use "甲是乙的函数", instead, we do use "甲取決於乙" for something that we think is crucial.

在日常口語中，的確不常使用"甲是乙的函数"這種用法，可以考慮使用"甲取決於乙"這種翻法來表達某個關鍵因素。

Translation of the sentence said by the former Bulls coach Phil Jackson:

  肯定是教練... 你的精力取決於你做什麼。當教練時，你是透過腦力參與比賽。


When should I use 经验 and when should I use 经历?

As a Chinese, I think “经历” would be a better choice.

“经验”

“经验” often refers to some knowledge or work experience，for example，“I am expert in programming and algorithms”，then  I can say “根据我的经验，我可以给你一些编程技巧”.

“经历”

“经历” refers to some personal experience during life，study，work，travel and so on. For example，“I have a good travel to China”，then I can say，“我曾经在中国有一个美好的经历，根据我经历的事情（或者根据我的经历），我认为大多数中国人都比较腼腆而友好”.


simplified characters not derived from chart 1 and chart 2 of 简化字总表

The reason for why 汹 and 踪 being not listed in the 简化字总表 is:

  They have been already used in the old times as variant characters with the same meaning, so they were listed in 异体字整理表 (Chart of Variant Characters). Although they are usually considered as simplified characters (even by native speakers sometimes), they are actually traditional characters.

For example, you can find 汹 in 康熙字典

  【汹】《集韻》與洶同。 Jiyun: the same as 洶.

And you can find 踪 in 彙音寶鑑

  【踪】仝蹤，踪迹。 The same as 蹤, means 踪迹 (trace).

So for your question:

  "How consistent is the method of simplification, why publish those lists if they are not used consistently, are there any other characters which have a simplified form not derived from chart 1 and 2?"

I would say if you want to distinguish variant characters between mainland China and Taiwan / Hong Kong, it is better to learn 异体字整理表 (Chart of Variant Characters) as well.

BTW, good guess for 從->从 => 蹤->.

 is also a variant of 蹤, though it is not usually used today.


Is ㄙㄨㄚˋ (sua4) for the character 嘴 from another Chinese dialect or language?

紲喙 (suà-tshuì)

  合口味。
  Palatable

  形容東西合胃口、好吃，一口接一口，愈吃愈想吃。
  The term describes that the food is so delicious that you want to eat more.

紲 is a substitute character (替代字) and means "continue".

source: 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典


When handwriting 黄 (huáng; yellow) is it incorrect to have a disconnected 草 (cǎo; grass) radical on top?

Neither the PRC form「黄」nor the ROC/HK form「黃」contains「艸・艹」. The top of the PRC form「黄」is written as「龷」.

商甲甲806合集32509商甲京津636　西周金耳尊集成6007

「黃」originally depicted a person「大」with a swollen chest/abdomen as a kind of deformity/sickness, indicating the meaning weak, feeble; a mouth「口」was added to the top later, emphasising the person sighing in distress. The word that「黃」originally represented is now written as「尪」.

The modern descendant shapes from the above are:

ROC/HK form:

東周・秦石鼓汧殹　今楷・臺標　今楷・港標
PRC form:

秦簡睡・秦34　東漢隸張遷碑　今楷・陸標

As can be seen, there was never a「艸・艹」component in the character.


I'm chinese and I don't quite understand you sentence. My guess is that it is supposed to be

  我去叫出租车 （I'm going to call a taxi）

Perhaps in some local tongue they use 要 and 叫 interchangeably in this occasion, but this is by no means standard.


“The (n) you asked me to (v)”

  你叫我(v)嗰個(n)

Example:

“The (bag) you asked me to (buy)” = "你叫我(買)嗰個(袋)"

“The (person) you asked me to (kill)” = "你叫我(殺)嗰個(人)"

  嗰個你叫我(v)嘅(n)

Example:

“The (bag) you asked me to (buy)” = "嗰個你叫我(買)嘅(袋)"

“The (person) you asked me to (kill)” = "嗰個你叫我(殺)嘅(人)"

  個 is the classifier for the noun, replace 個 with other classifier when necessary

For example:

你叫我做嗰(件)(事)

嗰(件)你叫我做嘅(事)

The classifier for  '事' is '件', not '個'

  In many cases, you cannot transfer English grammar directly into Chinese  sentence, this is one of them "嗰個袋(that bag) 你叫我買 (you asked me to buy)" is not grammatical in Chinese


What is the meaning of "比一比" in 一件件新衣向身上比一比?

比 in most context means "to compare" e.g. 比大小 (compare the size)

But in the sentence, "一件件新衣向身上比一比" , '比' means 'to cling to or 'lie next to' (in order to compare or match)'

It is very common for a person to pick up a new clothes and  'cling' it to his body to check if the size and the style is for him

You can see it more clearly without reduplication of '比'

"把那件新衣往身上比一下, 看看大小是否适合"


A highway IS a public road, so there is no problem calling it a 公 (public) 路 (road).
Let's step back a little and consider this: If you break down the English word "highway" into "high" and "way", a learner coming from a different language background may well be wondering why. Since a highway is not necessarily high in elevation, why call it a "highway"? And why call some roads "freeway", when they are not really free? I have been on many freeways that charge you a toll to use.
When learning a language, it's important to realize that this is an entirely different system that has developed over time into what it is now, mostly independent of other languages. True, some languages are related and have certain things in common, but we must not assume that something that you've accepted in your language has to be true in another, especially when the two languages are as different as Chinese and English.
I think your question itself is a bit Anglo-centric. The fact that highways are called "highways" in English isn't necessarily derived from logic, as I tried to show above. It is just a word that has developed over time to denote a road that is mostly used by motorists, has few traffic lights, allows a higher speed than other city streets ... etc. The fact that this same road is called 公路 in Chinese probably came about in a similar manner. Note I say "probably" because I have not delved into the etymology of the word 公路. The point I am trying to make is, when you learn words in a new language, it's better, and easier, to just accept the term, without analyzing its components from the perspective of your native language.
Finally, a note about the comment you made. You asked: "but aren't most roads public? so wouldn't it be difficult to differentiate between roads?" No, it would not be difficult to differentiate between roads, because other roads have other words designated for them. For example, a city street is 街 or 街道, a back lane is a 巷 or 後巷. When coining a word in a language, it does not have to be a strict logical process in that when I choose the word "public", I need to exclude everything that isn't public. It's great to be curious, but looking at every single word as something to query from the standpoint of your native language will be futile and incredibly frustrating.
Happy learning!


How to translate properly 还是 and 算了 in this sentence?

In these contexts: 还是 means 'still (after all)' in comparison to a previously mentioned or implied known object; 算了 means 'just (simply)'
还是城市好 = (after all) the city is still better
享福算了 = just (simply) enjoy life
More example:
还是工作重要 = work is still more important (after all)
干脆辞职算了 = simply just resign
Example of 还是 in another context (followed by a verb instead of a noun):
(还是)放弃(算了) - (better off) (just) give up


Graded Mandarin Chinese podcasts or e-books

小王子 (Xiao3 Wang3 zi: Little Prince), 还游世界八十天 (huan2 you2 shi4 jie4 ba shi2 tian: Around the World in 80 Days) by 企鹅 (qi3 e2: Penguin) books were pretty interesting books.

They aren't too packed with useless ChengYu (idioms), and tell a nice story (They also have some pictures... Which I find really helpful in pairing with Chinese to remember). You can download them on your smart phone and read them there.

If you have Android, download the Hanping Pro for like $.99... will help you with any characters you don't understand.

I'd also recommend you read some 漫画 (man4 hua4：Manga)... The pictures along with the words are great for learning.


Mountains and Waters, as between them,
And speaking of which, there is no end;
High is a mountain, another one higher, always,
Deep waters there is, one deeper still, always.
Something like:-
天外有天，一山还比一山高


Well you can 吃酒，or 吃喜酒 at a wedding, but that involves eating and drinking.

zdic has: (4) 饮;喝 [drink]。如:吃血(饮血酒);吃茶(喝茶)

A song about human nature.

一个和尚挑水吃 When you're alone you have to help yourself.
两个和尚抬水吃  2 people can cooperate
三个和尚没水吃呀  when there are 3 people, each thinks, 'Why should I do it? Let them do it.'
三个和尚没水吃
没水吃呀

Edit: thinking about oil, which is a liquid，I was just reading an article about 副食品:

食用油大战，使人们吃上了精炼洁净的瓶装油。


Is there a word for grandparents(collectively)?

Unlike brothers; sisters (兄弟; 姐妹), Chinese don't have a collective word for 祖父母 (grandparents from father's side) and 外祖父母 (grandparents from mother's side)
If you had to write grandparents and didn't know if there are maternal or paternal grandparents, you can write  父母的父母 (the parents of one's parents), which encompasses one's all four grandparents
We do have a collective word 祖輩 for 'ancestors' and great grandparents are included in this term so you don't have to write 父母的父母的父母 for it
Edit:
祖父輩 (Grandfather's generation) encompasses the whole generation, which includes grandparents and granduncles


What is the original text to the quotation of “The Burbank of Humanity”?

I've dug a bit on the internet. There's a couple other books with this phrase, though it really sounds like a hearsay or a funny anecdote rather than an actual quote.
The book "Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam" mentions "the Burbank of Humanity" three times:
In the first one, the quote isn't attributed:

"the Burbank of Humanity, the Chinese called him"

In the second one, it refers to an unspecified Chinese Press (italics also in the original text):

it was here the Chinese Press hailed their new visitor as "the Burbank of Humanity"

The third one is just echoing that nickname, but in a different context.

Another book, "The Roguish World of Doctor Brinkley" also mentions the "Burbank of humanity" but without reference to Chinese sources. In the following excerpt it seems it's talking about an american journalist:

The early 1920’s marked the beginning in the United States of the new craft of public relations counsel. Brinkley with his Ballous, Flowers and others, was quick to avail himself of the services of various gifted members of the new profession; and who else, but a press agent, would have had the thought, or the nerve, to call Doctor the “Burbank of humanity”?

Baidu is also of no help. First, the name of Luther Burbank seems to be rendered inconsistently in Chinese. I can find at least three versions: 路德·貝本, 卢瑟·伯班克 and 路德·伯班克. Then, we have the problem of whether "Burbank of Humanity" is a direct translation of a Chinese phrase, or the liberal interpretation of some other periphrasis. I have a hard time believing it could be the former, since this kind of noun juxtaposition (e.g. the "poor man's lobster") is not typical of Chinese.
Anyway, even assuming the quote "Burbank of Humanity" is a direct translation, what would it look like in Chinese? Maybe “人类之伯班克” or “人们之伯班克”? Neither these two, nor several other variants, yield meaningful results on Google or Baidu.
Moreover, I doubt that the Chinese press (whatever it may be) would ideate such a monicker at the time Brinkley was said to be in Asia (mid 20's), as for it to appear in press, it would require Chinese readers to understand it in the first place. So this raises the question of whether Luther Burbank, an american botanist, was so renowned in China at that time to warrant calling someone else (a huckster), the "Burbank of Humanity".

In conclusion, I'm led to believe that the quote is anecdotal at best, if not an editorial embellishment altogether.


Numbering for mobile verification call to China in Chinese

The translation for "your verification code is 1234" in Chinese should be

"您的认证码是 一 二 三 四" or "您的认证码是 1 2 3 4" in your code.

Note：

“1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10”

are pronounced as "yi1 er4 san1 si4 wu3 liu4 qi1 ba1 jiu3 shi2" in Chinese.

are written as "一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十" in Chinese.


How can I convert Chinese characters sketched with my mouse, into computerised characters?

There are many online OCR input websites. For example:

http://www.yibizi.com/html5/ (neat and fast, without ads, but seems only working inside China)

I strongly suggest you install a client software rather than using a website because many websites are full of ads. And many of them are only working in some particular browsers, like infamous IE series.

Sougou Pinyin (wikipedia page) is the most used Input Method in China. I am also personally using this on my MacBook Pro. It has Windows/Mac version. You can get the software by clicking the links in the Wikipedia page.

With it, you can click "手写输入" to input by "drawing":


Can you do the same with 不如?

No, you can't. 不如 means "not as"

"一根香蕉不如一个苹果贵(一元)"
"A banana is not as expensive as an apple (by a dollar)"
It is ungrammatical in either Chinese or English.
"A banana is not as expensive as an apple" doesn't matter it is ten cents less or one dollar less

It has to be "一根香蕉不如一个苹果贵" (A banana is not as expensive as an apple)
When we use [(A) not as (adj) as(B)]. e.g. [(a duck) is not as (heavy) as (a goose)], we cannot make it specific, because a goose can be heavier than a duck by wide range of degree
you cannot put a specific amount/number after "鴨不如鵝重" and say ""鴨不如鵝重30％" ; you can only say "鵝一般來說比鴨重30％" (a goose in general is 30% heavier than a duck)


How is a speaker introduced at a Chinese mathematics conference?

欢迎来自南开大学的Rebecca Stones（中文叫李蓓），她将谈论＂枚举偏拉丁矩的四种方法＂．

It should be the same as other conference, I guess. Normally, the words 欢迎 somebody will be put at the last sentence. Or the session host will say "让我们欢迎" somebody, or "下面有请" somebody "上台". And if the speaker is someone that important but not all the audience know, the host will also introduce the speaker's title and achievement a little bit.

It's hard to predict other people's words, but let's try a simple:

  下面一位演讲者是来自南开大学的Rebecca Stones， 她的中文名是李蓓。她目前任教于南开大学计算机与控制工程学院，主要研究方向是xxx。曾经在xxx期刊发表过xxx论文。今天她将给大家介绍“枚举偏拉丁矩的四种方法”，让我们欢迎李蓓（有请李蓓/有请李蓓上台）。


任性 (caprice).
The internet slang 任性 is short for expression 有钱就是任性 (Baidu Baike), which refers to the phenomenon that rich people make "capricious" decisions because they can afford to make up any negative consequences with money, and sometimes they deliberately make poor decisions only as a setup to show off their power of wealth.
Another common variation of this phrase is 有钱，任性.
A popular English translation for this expression is "rich is bitch" or "rich as a bitch".
For the usage in Li's work report, here is a reference: http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2015-03-07/115431579527.shtml

“任性”从去年开始成为内地网民的流行语。他们用这个词来讽刺富人的娇生惯养和随性而为。
据香港《南华早报》网站3月6日报道，李克强总理在全国人大会议上作政府工作报告时使用网络流行语“任性”，引起内地网民的关注。
谈及简政放权时，李克强5日表示，“有权不可任性”。此话立刻引发网络热议，被网民无数次分享。

《人民日报》微博称，报告起草组负责人透露，这句表述是李克强亲自加入报告里的。
“有权不可任性”3月5日占据中国各大新闻网站的头条，成为多数媒体解读李克强政府工作报告的醒目标题。


I've eaten and cooked this dish many times before, and either "soy-braised pork" or "pork braised in soy sauce" would be how I would describe it to an English-speaker (the '肉' in this dish refers to pork, normally pork belly).


Meaning of a text on a teapot (Characters identified: 石泉槐火)

The characters are 「石泉槐火」, which refers to the passing of winter and coming of spring. Specifically,

「石泉」 means flowing of springwater (i.e. the melting of frozen rivers and streams)
「槐火」 refers to a fire ritual involving the burning of the Chinese Scholar Tree (Styphnolobium japonicum)

In Ancient China, it is said that the monarchs conducted fire rituals involving the burning of different types of trees during the year, to protect against seasonal diseases.

《周禮・夏官》

司爟：掌行火之政令，四時變國火以救時疾。

Rites of Zhou, Offices of Summer

Officers of the fire rituals are in charge of the royal court's decrees on conduct involving pyromancy, changing the Tree-burning Ritual throughout the year to mitigate the spread of seasonal illnesses.

Later commentaries of the Rites of Zhou specified the seasonal trees to be burned:

春取榆柳之火， 夏取棗杏之火， 季夏取桑柘之火， 秋取柞楢之火， 冬取槐檀之火
During springtime, elms and willows are burned; in the summertime, jujube and apricot trees are burned; towards the end of summer, mulberry trees are burned; during autumn, oaks are burned; in the winter, scholar trees and rosewoods* are burned.
*The specific type of tree referred to is uncertain.


I think 渗透 and 渲染 are juxtaposed here, so

  permeated (渗透) by a backwash (渲染) of millenia of spiritual culture

should be

  permeated and rendered by millenia of spiritual culture


What function does the「」-shaped component have in characters like「」and「傷」?

Chu bamboo texts show 「偒」, but it's not certain if it has anything direct to do with 「傷」 (they might have represented the same word, but their formation is not the same).

The phonetic component of 「傷」 and 「」 (basically, their right hand side) is reduced from the right hand side of the character 「⿸㫃昜」 (see last three entries here).

「㫃」 depicts a flagpole with an attached flag, and this has now been corrupted into what looks like 「方」 (remnant of the flagpole) and 「」 (remnant of the flag) as a component, in characters like 「旌」, 「旗」, 「旋」, etc. 「」 in 「傷」 and 「」 is from the top right of 「⿸㫃昜」.

References:

裘錫圭《文字學概要》


I think 請回收利用/请回收利用 can apply to lots of stuff as well, for example, plastic bottles, tins, cans, glass and so on.

If you really want to be specific about recycling paper, you can try

請回收廢紙/请回收废纸 = Please recycle used/unwanted paper

or

請回收紙張/请回收纸张 = Please recycle paper

Note that the above Chinese examples are written in Traditional/Simplified.


What's wrong with saying 染眉毛 (rǎn méimao) to mean "color eyebrows" when 染头发 (rǎn tóufa) means "dye hair"?

I see nothing wrong with 染眉毛. You could also say 给眉毛染色 and everybody would understand.

着色眉毛 sounds odd. The common way to say 着色 is 给...着色, and 给眉毛着色 for this case.


Can I use "我知道“ to say I know some kind of food?

Usually don't use 我认识 on food, if someone ask you whether you know of some kind of food, if you have eat it once or more, you can say 我吃过那个. or if you ever heard of it, you can say 我听说过，但是没吃过. If you want to eat, you can say 我们可以吃吃, if you don't, just say 我不想吃 or 我不喜欢吃那个.
If you are on table, and someone show you a kind of food, and ask you do you know it, he may ask you 你知道这道菜是什么吗？Then you can say 我知道 or 我不知道，and 我认识 or 我不认识 can also use here. But, this is not a polite action, man usually don't ask others not close enough for this sentence. Ask for 吃过这道菜没有 is a more common question.


Both sentences are correct. The word "人" is added to add emphasis to the physical location of the person.

You can take 你现在在哪里？ to mean "Where are you now?"

And 你现在人在哪里？ to mean "What is your current physical location?"

The former is normally used when the asker and the subject are within the same locality (e.g in a shopping mall). The latter is often used when the asker and the subject are far away from each other (e.g. in different countries).

A corresponding response to 你现在在哪里？ is 我现在在XX。

A corresponding response to 你现在人在哪里？ is 我现在人在XX。


事不師古而能長久者﹒非所聞也

事 : working, you may shortcut it to governing in this context

不 : not

師 : learn, or imitate

古 : past

而 : and

能 : can be

長久 : long time

非: not

所聞: heard, maybe recorded

so, the verse is roughly:

[if the] governing (事) is not (不) imitate (師) to the past (古), and (而)[such governing] can (能) [last] long time (長久), it's unheard (非所聞).

that 淳于越 suggested that nations not using feudalism, would not last long.

some underlying asumptions:

in ancient china, both 商 dynasty (bc 1571 - 1046)  and  周 dynasty (bc 1046 - 770) used feudalism. compare to spring and autumn period (春秋), and warring states (戰國) period, these two dynasties lasted 400-500 years, which was a long time.

the related text in 秦始皇本紀, would started from "始皇置酒咸陽宮"

  仆射周青臣進頌曰：「他時秦地不過千里，賴陛下神靈明聖，平定海內，放逐蠻夷，日月所照，莫不賓服。以諸侯為郡縣，人人自安樂，無戰爭之患，傳之萬世。自上古不及陛下威德。」

then one of the master 淳于越 refuted:

  博士齊人淳于越進曰：「臣聞殷周之王千餘歲，封子弟功臣，自為枝輔。今陛下有海內，而子弟為匹夫，卒有田常、六卿之臣，無輔拂，何以相救哉？事不師古而能長久者，非所聞也。今青臣又面諛以重陛下之過，非忠臣。」

last, the prime minister 李斯 suggested:

丞相李斯曰：「五帝不相復，三代不相襲，各以治，非其相反，時變異也。今陛下創大業，建萬世之功，固非愚儒所知。且越言乃三代之事，何足法也？異時諸侯并爭，厚招游學。今天下已定，法令出一，百姓當家則力農工，士則學習法令辟禁。今諸生不師今而學古，以非當世，惑亂黔首。丞相臣斯昧死言：古者天下散亂，莫之能一，是以諸侯并作，語皆道古以害今，飾虛言以亂實，人善其所私學，以非上之所建立。今皇帝并有天下，別黑白而定一尊。私學而相與非法教，人聞令下，則各以其學議之，入則心非，出則巷議，夸主以為名，異取以為高，率群下以造謗。如此弗禁，則主勢降乎上，黨與成乎下。禁之便。臣請史官非秦記皆燒之。非博士官所職，天下敢有藏詩、書、百家語者，悉詣守、尉雜燒之。有敢偶語詩書者棄市。以古非今者族。吏見知不舉者與同罪。令下三十日不燒，黥為城旦。所不去者，醫藥卜筮種樹之書。若欲有學法令，以吏為師。」

you may treat the text as argument of "feudalism" vs "totalitarianism"

the text maybe further elaborated, if you need :)

have fun :)


「地」 is not a particle here. The word for rag mats is translated as the two-character word 「地席」, literally mat (席) for the floor (地).

  ...舊地席的气味

  ...smelt (气味) of (的) ... old (舊) rag mats (地席).


Can I always write the 艹 (grass radical) with three lines only?

Two notes:

艹 is 4 strokes in Taiwan and Hong Kong only. It is less helpful to think of it as a "traditional"/"simplified" difference, as among other standards which use "traditional characters" (e.g. Korean Hanja), it is also 3 strokes.
歡 does not strictly contain 艹; it is historically written with 卝, commonly known as 羊頭. In modern times, the distinction may be relaxed, and many fonts may display it with 艹. Please refer to this Quora answer detailing what kinds of characters contain 卝 rather than 艹.

To "write things correctly", you need to understand what kind of regional Han character standard you're adhering to and look up the character in their official list. Otherwise, you should stick to the most recent common ancestor of all Han character standards, which is the Kangxi Dictionary standard.


What's the difference between 老公 (lǎo gōng) and 丈夫 (zhàng fu)?

What is the difference between 老公 (lǎo gōng) and 丈夫 (zhàng fu)?

老公 is a 昵稱 (pet name/ nickname) for husband; 丈夫 is the formal term of husband.

In any official document, you will only see 丈夫 and never 老公 as the term of 'husband'

It is similar to "dad vs. father" ; "mom vs. mother" in English

Since 老公 is a pet name, it is often used to address to the male half of a couple, doesn't matter if they are actually married or not


留(下) is your best bet.

Here's an example from Oxford C-E:

  我留下20块钱，下剩的给你。
  I'll keep 20 yuan and the rest is for you.


Placement of characters in a simple question

Both你午饭要吃什么？and 午饭你要吃什么？are right

These two sentences all mean what do you want to eat

“你要去哪里吃午饭 ”is correct in grammer，but it means where do you want to have lunch，it does not means what do you want to eat

吃午饭，你要去哪里？Although we can understand what the sentence mean,we simply don't speak this way

你在哪个地方要吃午饭？should be: 你要在哪个地方吃午饭？


How to translate 实时新闻定制和推送系统 to English?

Real-time news subscription and notification system.


usage of 'L' in colloquial cantonese utterances

From 廣東粗口五大字

撚:

讀作nan2。此字乃是假借字，「撚」字是指把玩、揉搓、撥弄等的動作，在部份場合下不被視為粗口，例如「撚手小菜」即解成拿手小菜、「撚雀」則是飼養雀鳥。

當用作粗口時，正寫為「尸」字裡加個「粦」字，[發音為 lan2]，俗寫為「門」字裡加個「能」字，即是「」字。當作為粗口時，則解成下列意思：

名詞，「陽具」的意思 (Noun: "penis")

語氣助詞，只用於加強語氣，用於句子中；(Modal auxiliary words, only used to strengthen the tone and used in sentences)

助詞，用作顛倒句子原本意思，可視為反語。

近年網民使用時，有時為避免出現粗口字，會以英文字母「L」代替。 (In recent years, netizens sometimes use the English letter "L" instead to avoid swear words.)

點解觀塘咁(L)塞 = 點解觀塘咁(撚)塞 = Why is Kwun Tong so (damn) congested
'塞' is short for '塞車' (be congested)-  of traffic
We also use:

'小' for '屌'

'忍' for ''

'狗' for '㞗'

'西' for '屄'

'實' for '杘'


What is the polite way to respond to a sneeze in Chinese?

From Wikipedia: [which funnily enough has a Responses To Sneezing page]

Usual Responses and Notes

  多喝点水 (Duō hē diǎn shuǐ), 一百岁 (yì bǎi suì), 保佑你 (bǎo yòu nǐ) or 长命百岁 (chánɡ mìnɡ bǎi suì); frequently, listeners do not comment on the sneeze.

meaning:

  "Drink more water","May you live for a hundred years.", "bless you." or "May you live to one hundred years."

sneezer reply:

  呵呵,不好意思 (bù hǎo yì si)

meaning:

  "He he (No meaning, just smile politely)","Excuse me."

tl;dr: frequently, listeners do not comment on the sneeze.

Here's some info on Cantonese

Usual Responses and Notes

  大吉利事. Sneezing in Southern Chinese culture means that someone is speaking ill behind your back.

meaning:

  "A great fortunate occurrence."

sneezer reply:

  唔好意思

meaning:

  "Sorry."


勇 character on soldiers' uniforms in movies

This is more of a history question.

勇 is short for 乡勇, which roughly means "militia". They are temporary soldiers recruited from the local population in times of need, and are usually disbanded soon after. Soldiers wearing 勇 on their uniforms was a Qing dynasty thing though; they stood in contrast to the elite Banner Armies and the professional Green Standard Army, both of which could be lifetime occupations.

In movies, you might see Qing soldiers wearing uniforms with either 兵 or 勇 written on it. Those with 兵 would probably be from the Green Standard Army, which was usually employed as a police force, although theoretically Bannermen could be wearing this uniform as well. Those with 勇 would be the militia.

In most cases, 勇 would be of inferior quality to 兵. There is also a connotation of loyalty - as 勇 are raised by local authorities, they tend to be less loyal to the Imperial regime than their local masters. Things were different during and after the Taiping rebellion, where the 勇 were transformed into a standing army called the Xiang Army. The fact that these soldiers were - like their 勇 predecessors - loyal only to their own commanders would foreshadow the Warlord Era, where many of the warlord armies could trace their origins back to various Xiang armies.

Further information here: http://history.sina.com.cn/bk/mqs/2013-12-18/145264781.shtml


What is the role of '之' in '為之' ? As in "未經許可而出口黃金就為之犯罪"

Odd example, knowing where it came from would help. It is definitely not classical Chinese. (就 is never an adverb in classical Chinese and who would write classical Chinese in this context?) It is also definitely not Mandarin. As the OP observes, it is frequent in Cantonese. Alas, my Cantonese is almost non-existent. But, looking up the phrase in the Cantonese Wikipedia, there are numerous examples which seem very similar:
相撲係日本傳統運動，由兩位肥獅大隻嘅人紮馬對打，推跌對方就為之贏
最後邊隊入得多啲就為之贏
手牌入面明暗牌同其他人捨牌(含加槓)或者本身嘅摸牌組成「五搭一對」就為之胡牌
進攻一方如果有三名球員出局嘅話，咁就為之完成一局（inning）
etc... So for sure it's not a careless mistake.

It seems to mean the same thing as 叫做 or the more literary form 稱之為. (Or perhaps it is more like 算是...?)

As for the grammatical structure, 為之 must be v-o. 為 is very unlikely to mean 'be' here, since 之 is never used as a 表語 (predicate of a copular sentence). Functionally, 之 is being used as in 稱之為; it is the object of a verb.

Summary: looks like a Cantonese way of defining technical terminology.


the verse in the book of rites (禮記), chapter 曲禮上:

謀於長者・必操几杖以從之

i would interpret it as:
[in situation of | if | when] seeking advice (謀) from (於) an elder (長者)・[one] must (必) hold (操) [readily] the “arm rest” & staff (a strong stick or pole) (几杖 —> 憑几 & 手杖); for the purpose of (以) attending to (從之)
https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&id=9489
so, “從之” refer back to the “elder” that one’s seeking advice from.
btw, an “arm rest” (憑几) is a tool, when people is sitting on a mat, on floor, for putting their arms on it for resting, something like this:

have fun :)


Do all schools in China teach in Standard Chinese (普通话)?

Based on my own experience, Not!

Although the schools are asked to use the Mandarin in classroom, there are still many schools that doesn't follow this rule. I was born in a little city in west China, and I had never spoken in Mandarin, before I went to the university.

In big cities, schools follow this rule, while in small cities, especially in the poor areas, many teachers are local and can't speak Mandarin very well, how could they teach the students in Mandarin? Of course, it'a trend that more and more teachers speak in Mandarin in classroom. At present, if you want to be teacher in China, you have to pass the Mandarin exam to get certified, so more and more young teachers can speak Mandarin, however, there are plenty of old teachers who can not as well.


How to say "the fish's home is the water"

yes, 鱼的家是水。is juvenile and awkward,

but still need associate specific context，

it's ok if in story of children，or just express thought，

in Chinese will say fish live in water


What character could be made with these radicals?

I think it's a 卉

  huì
  各种供观赏的草的总称
  花～|奇花异～。
  Which means general term for a variety of
  ornamental grasses.


It means “about the beginning of February ”
”二月头的样子” means “大概二月初”


"便利商店" (biànlì shāngdiàn) vs "便利店" (biànlì diàn)

It's a PRC vs. Taiwan thing. It's like American English vs. British English. You'll find many words are different in Taiwan.


A noun becomes a verb, this phenomenon exists in many human languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthimeria

For example,

- How can I contact you?
- You can message me. / You can send me a message.

"message me" in Chinese is "发短信给我" or "给我发短信"

"发" is the verb but "短信我" make sense too.

If you speak "你可以短信我", Chinese people can understand very well.

BUT, "短信我" is rarely to be used.

Why? Because 短信 hasn't been using for a very long time, so it's still a noun, whereas 视频 has been using for a very long time, so 视频 is becoming a verb little by little, which is the abbreviation of "发起视频通话" or "发起视频聊天".

When people started to use the mobile phone a lot, Internet became famous at the same time too. At that time, a Chinese company Tencent developed a software, named QQ, which is similar with Skype. QQ was so hot that everyone used it. At that time, Chinese people kept saying "你可以Q我" to express "you can send me a message by QQ". You see, QQ, which is just a name of a product, became a verb too.

Basically, if a verb is too complex or too long but used a lot, people gonna try to simplify it. That's it.

So it's hard to say when nouns can be used as verbs, you need to live with Chinese people, immersing yourself in the Chinese culture, then you are able to answer this question...

The good thing is, any language is a very stable system, no need to worry a lot about these kinds of changes, these changes are extremely slow, you have enough time to learn about them.


Writing critique request: Zhou Ziwang's father takes her to the "doctor"

Here is my edition. Some are real grammar mistakes, some are more native way of phrasing. You can study it first, to see what you can discover on your own, and then ask specific questions on items you can't figure out

我妈注意到我当时变胖了，她想要帮我减肥但是长期以来的饮食习惯改不掉。
(当时)我妈注意到我变胖了，想要帮我减肥，但(我)(始終)改不掉长期以来的饮食习惯。

~

难道说 ，我已经患有饮食失调了吗？我妈终于要求我总是忙于工作的爸爸帮我的忙，因此我爸带我去看医生。
难道说 ，我已经患有饮食失调了吗？(最后)我妈终于要求我(那个)总是忙于工作的爸爸帮忙。 (就这样)，我爸带(了)我去看医生。

~

虽然我说“医生”，但即使到现在我也不确认。
虽然说(是)“医生”，但到现在我也(不敢肯定)(那人真的是医生。)

~

我问道，“老爸，我们去看医生吗？妈妈已经带我去看过了，但是没用”。
我问道: “老爸，我们去看医生吗？妈妈已经带我去看过了，但是没用”。

~

我爸犹豫地答道，“噢，这位医生不一样” 。 那么神秘的一句话！怎么“不一样”呢？ 现在我对那情况了解得更清楚，
我爸犹豫地答道: “噢，这位医生不一样”。 (当时我心想): "(真是)神秘的一句话！怎么'不一样'呢？" (到了)现在我(才)更(清楚了解)(当时的)情况，

~

但是当时我才是小女孩。我经常去看医生，也相信我爸， 没想到那件事影响我那么久。
但当时我(還)小。(而且)经常去看医生，也相信我爸， 没想到那件事(對我的)影响(會)那么(深)。


The "来", "come" here acts as a form of "invitation", inviting someone to give an opinion or judgement.
Like, "come, give us your view on this matter"


What is the best way to explain "plausible deniability" to a Mandarin speaker

According to this article

  在经济学领域，有一个概念叫既可以把它理解为‘合理推诿’(Plausible deniability)，也可以直观理解为“事后推卸责任的可能性”。

the exact translation of plausible deniability is 合理推诿. It can also be explained by 事后推卸责任的可能性 (the possibility of shirking responsibility after something bad happens).


Where does the middle name go in a name that has been translated into Chinese?

Very easy, just use Wikipedia to find examples, such as:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is listed as 沃尔夫冈·阿马德乌斯·莫扎特 on Chinese Wikipedia
Johann Sebastian Bach is 约翰·塞巴斯蒂安·巴赫 in Chinese.
Thomas Alva Edison is transliterated as 托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生 by full name in Chinese.

We could continute, but you see the pattern: [first]·[middle]·[last]

Two more observations:

(1) Sometimes the name to which the middle initial(s) of a person resolve(s) to is/are not known, in other cases, they are just a middle initial, e.g. Harry S. Truman (or Harry S Truman), which in Chinese is written as 哈里·S·杜鲁门, with the Latin letter between the Chinese characters. A bit odd, but remember that Chinese will use just the last name to refer to a foreign person, e.g. 杜鲁门, so the awkward "mixed" form will probably be used only once in a text (when the person's full name is introduced.)

(2) In other cases, when a person's middle name is not known, Chinese might use a character to replace the middle initial, this is commonly seen with Russian (Ukrainian, etc.) personages. Technically, the Russian middle name is a patronymic name, i.e. not the same as the Anglo-Saxon/Western middle name and middle initial, but from the Chinese point of view the issue is similar. Even if a Russian person's full name (given name + patronymic name + family name) is known, it's still rather long, especially when you need to fit that onto a television screen, e.g. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is 米哈伊尔·谢尔盖耶维奇·戈尔巴乔夫, which is quite intimidating, especially in Chinese characters. Because most Chinese won't know how to type the (Cyrillic) first letter С [not the same as Latin capital letter C] of Sergeyevich (Сергеевич), they will adopt a different, easier solution: 米哈伊尔·谢·戈尔巴乔夫, i.e. shorten the patronymic name to the first character of the Chinese transliteration.


Does pronunciation of a vowel change with tones?

First, it is important to distinguish between the phonemic pronunciation and the phonetic pronunciation. The first represents how native speakers interpret sounds, the latter interpret how the sounds are effectively performed.

The Pinyin final -iu is phonemically pronounced /jəu/, not  /iou/ (reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Allophones). When combined with the Pinyin initial l-, that Pinyin final becomes the Pinyin syllable liu, phonemically pronounced /liəu/.

Anyway, much more important to a language learner is the phonetic pronunciation. The phonetic pronunciations of -iu may be [jəu], [jou] or even [jo̝u] (vowel O raises due to assimilation to the adjacent high sounds /j/ and /u/), which sounds similar to /ju/. The latter is the pronunciation in the audio recordings of the Pinyin syllable "liu" in the provided Pinyin table. The same also occurs in the audio recordings of the other Pinyin syllables with the final -iu.

Regarding the 3rd tone pronunciation of a Pinyin syllable with the final "-iu", when pronounced in isolation, it falls ([jo]) and then rises ([u]); in this way, this tone has an effect of separation and therefore tends to block the vowel assimilation that I mentioned before. That's why the [o] sound is heard in this tone and barely heard in the other tones in the audio recordings of the provided Pinyin table.


What is the meaning of 忚 and how is it pronounced? -- (a logical argument)

忚 (u+5fda) is rarely used in the past, it did appear in several books.

the latest one, with english explanation, was in early 18th century, in robert morrison's "a dictionary of the chinese language", volume ii, part i (page 139 of pdf file):

㦒(u+3992)忚: insultingly neglectful

https://archive.org/details/p1dictionaryofch02morruoft

then, its' earliest appearance in literatures of yore, was in 輶軒使者絕代語釋別國方言　卷十, by 揚雄, of 漢 dynasty (page 79 of pdf file):

眠娗﹒脉蜴﹒賜施﹒茭媞﹒譠謾﹒㦒忚﹒皆欺謾之語也﹒楚郢以南﹒東揚之郊通語也

"欺謾" is roughly deceive, disrespectful

https://archive.org/details/06050580.cn

its' next appearance was in 廣韻　上平聲　卷第一﹒齊韻第十二 (page 31):

忚　欺謾之皃 (貌)

https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/pickup/view/category/categoryArchives/0500000000/0511000000/00

back to your question, i don't think that this character was used in 論語.

康熙字典 was published in 1716; so it's about 300 years old :)

about the argument:

Now, therefore, the only (or most) logical meaning
of 忚 is [he/she/it] for children and babies.

well, it's not. i would say that

他　he 也﹒從人﹒也聲
她　she 也﹒從女﹒也聲
祂　god 也﹒從示﹒也聲
牠　it 也﹒從牛﹒也聲

so, these four are 形聲字.

lastly, i think that most 小學類　字書 had the character "忚", and, explained it; though in literary chinese, and printed in traditional script.


Yes. The two words are actually applied differently.

活 is applied in a more abstract sense. Such as to live in fear (活在恐惧之中), to live in this world (活在这世上). This has more to do with survival or staying alive.

住 is applied in a physical sense. Such as to live in this house (住在这屋里), to live in this place (住在这地方). "Stay" would be a good alternative to "live" for better clarity of the meaning. This has more to do with accomodation.


There is no big difference between these two sentences. 个can be deleted.


How do the words in 让我不断想不敢再忘记你 piece together (from the song Mouse Loves Rice, 老鼠爱大米)?

Maybe you could break them down like such to get a better understanding:

  让我不断想, 不敢再忘记你

In the first clause, “不斷” is an adverb, meaning "continuously; without stopping", that applies to “想”. That leaves us a meaning of "continuously thinking (of you)".

In the second clause, you forgot to include “不敢” here, so the meaning should be "not dare to forget you again".


Ludi wrote:

  according to our book, reduplication of the verb makes the predicate complex, fulfilling the requirement for (把)字句

Reduplication of verb imply the verb is in 'a slight degree', 'a casual manner' or 'tentative manner'

Examples:

吃 = eat

吃吃 =  (slightly/ casually) eat

试 = try

试试 = (slightly/ tentatively) try

The first part of the sentence '外邊很冷' is a reason; the second part of the sentence '快把大衣穿穿 is a request/ command, you can switch the positions of the 'request/ command' and the 'reason' and the meaning would be the same. '快把大衣穿穿, (because) 外邊很冷'

Since this sentence request/ command  the object to do something definite, it shouldn't be in reduplication form that implies it is in 'slight', 'casual' or 'tentatively' manner

user3a is correct:

  外邊很冷，快把大衣「穿上」

把 is not an important factor in choosing reduplicate the verb or not.
You shouldn't  reduplicate 穿 in "外邊很冷，快穿上大衣" neither.


When 少 is used in someone's name, is it always pronounced shào？

Because shào and shǎo has different meaning. shǎo means few/little, and shào means young. When used in names, it is usually intended to address a young person respectfully.

As a given name or as a part of given name, shǎo is very uncommon, yet shào is not. 少 as surname is also uncommon.


Why don't Cantonese speakers write their own language?

Why not write in written Cantonese?

Cantonese speakers are not unwilling to write their own language. Nowadays, written Cantonese is often used in lyrics, instant messaging, social network, advertisements and billboards. It is also gaining public attention as the Government of China wants to ban it.

There is a Yue Wikipedia site containing 40,000+ articles written in Cantonese. However, written Cantonese is almost always used only in informal writings.

For formal writings, standard written Chinese is being used. It is taught in school to write in standard written Chinese (i.e. written Mandarin). It is because Mandarin was chosen as the basis for standard written Chinese as they had the largest number of speakers during the language reform.

  No matter which dialect one spoke, one still wrote in standardised Mandarin for everyday writing. However, Cantonese is unique amongst the non-Mandarin varieties in having a widely used written form. (Wikipedia)

Standard written Chinese is understood by speakers of all varieties of Chinese. Even so, there are some variations in vocabularies in different countries (see example).

Standard written Chinese can be spoken in Cantonese.

(It is interesting to know that, historically, written Cantonese has been used in Hong Kong for legal proceedings in order to write down the exact spoken testimony of a witness, instead of paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese.)

Side reading: Language policy of Hong Kong

The language policy of Hong Kong is  兩文三語 (Bi-literacy and Tri-lingualism), which includes:

Written: Chinese & English
Spoken: Cantonese, Mandarin & English

Standard written Chinese is normally referred as "Chinese" (中文) or "written Chinese" (書面語) instead of "Mandarin Chinese".

For spoken Chinese (口語), Cantonese (Yue Chinese, namely 廣東話 / 粵語) is the de facto official spoken variety of Chinese in Hong Kong & Macau. It is influential in Guangdong province, and is widely spoken among overseas communities.

On the other hand, Mandarin Chinese (namely 普通話 / 國語 / 華語) is the official language of China & Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore.

Further reading

  Before the 20th century, the standard written language of China was Classical Chinese, which has grammar and vocabulary based on the Chinese used in ancient China, Old Chinese. However, while this written standard remained essentially static for over two thousand years, the actual spoken language diverged further and further away. Some writings based on local vernacular speech did exist but these were rare. In the early 20th century, Chinese reformers like Hu Shi saw the need for language reform and championed the development of a vernacular that allowed modern Chinese to write the language the same way they speak. The vernacular language movement took hold, and the written language was standardised as Vernacular Chinese. Because they had the largest number of speakers, Mandarin was chosen as the basis for the new standard.

  The standardisation and adoption of written Mandarin pre-empted the development and standardisation of vernaculars based on other varieties of Chinese. No matter which dialect one spoke, one still wrote in standardised Mandarin for everyday writing. However, Cantonese is unique amongst the non-Mandarin varieties in having a widely used written form. Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong was a British colony isolated from mainland China, so most HK citizens do not speak Mandarin. Written Cantonese was developed as a means of informal communication. Still, Cantonese speakers must use standard written Chinese, or even literary Chinese, in most formal written communications, since written Cantonese may be unintelligible to speakers of other varieties of Chinese.

  Historically, written Cantonese has been used in Hong Kong for legal proceedings in order to write down the exact spoken testimony of a witness, instead of paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese. However, its popularity and usage has been rising in the last two decades, the late Wong Jim being one of the pioneers of its use as an effective written language. Written Cantonese has become quite popular in certain tabloids, online chat rooms, instant messaging, and even social networking websites; this would be even more evident since the rise of Localism in Hong Kong from the 2010s, where the articles written by those Localists media are written in Cantonese. Although most foreign movies and TV shows are subtitled in Standard Chinese, some, such as The Simpsons, are subtitled using written Cantonese. Newspapers have the news section written in Standard Chinese, but they may have editorials or columns that contain Cantonese discourses, and Cantonese characters are increasing in popularity on advertisements and billboards.

  Written Cantonese advertising banner in Mainland China
  It has been stated that Written Cantonese remains limited outside Hong Kong, including other Cantonese-speaking areas in Guangdong Province; e.g., (Snow, 2004). However, colloquial Cantonese advertisements are sometimes seen in Guangdong, suggesting that written Cantonese is widely understood and is regarded favourably, at least in some contexts.

  Some sources will use only colloquial Cantonese forms, resulting in text similar to natural speech. However, it is more common to use a mixture of colloquial forms and Standard Chinese forms, some of which are alien to natural speech. Thus the resulting "hybrid" text lies on a continuum between two norms: Standard Chinese, and colloquial Cantonese as spoken.

Some Cantonese Learning Resources

Cantonese Basic Course: https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/FSI/fsi-cantonese.html
粵語審音配詞字庫
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/
《粵語音韻集成》電子版 http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton2/
粵語空中課堂 http://www.chiculture.net/0604/html/b05/0604b05.html
粵語網路課堂 http://www.ilc.cuhk.edu.hk/Chinese/pthprog1/index_flash.html
粵語學習中心 http://www.clc.com.hk/
俗語趣談 http://www.rthk.org.hk/elearning/lautinchi/index.htm
妙趣廣州話 http://ifiles.tvb.com/ifiles/fun/fun39.html
粵普字詞配對 http://www.chiculture.net/0603/html/d03/0603d03.html
樂在詞中 http://www.dragonwise.hku.hk/dragonwise_main/index.html

Other References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingualism_in_Hong_Kong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Cantonese


What does 5以内 mean in 数学作业要在3分钟之内完成90道5以内的加减法题?

It means questions that only involves positive numbers no larger than 5. For example, asking questions like "2+2=?" or "4-3=?".


When does 可 before a verb mean “willing to”, and when does it mean “can”?

可虚心接受意见 literally mean "can/ able to humbly accept suggestions"
If you can accept suggestions, it also implies you are willing to accept suggestions (most people can't accept suggestions = unwilling to accept suggestions)
可带他去很多酒吧 should be translated as 'able to take him to many bars'
For 可 to suggest 'willing', the sentence must state something the subject might be unwilling to do
Example:
這孩子可刻苦練功 (This child can practice hard) meaning 這孩子肯 (willing to) 刻苦練功   (most people can't practice hard = unwilling to practice hard)
it is better to replace 可 (can/ able/ willing to) with the more specific 肯 for "willing"


Does "这很大钱! 再见大学钱...." make sense? Or have I written it wrong?

That does not really make sense. "A lot of" here means a great amount, while 大 means big as in size. Also 大学钱 does not make sense either. Instead you would say "大学学费" (college tuition)

So a better translation would be “这好贵啊！再见我的大学学费” (this is so expensive! goodbye my tuition)


Can anyone please give a brief rundown of the main extra non-monetary-investment meanings of 投入?

When the object is not money, 投入 doesn't mean to invest money

main meanings of 投入:

"deploy". Example: 投入三百人的警力 (deploy a police force of 300 people)
"throw in" . Example: 把球投入籃中 (throw the ball into the basket)
"immerse" Example: 投入工作 (immerse in work)

reference: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/9015/


時期字體
字形
參考資料

商甲

甲185合集19924

戰國・燕古幣

108古幣文編

戰國・晉璽印

959古璽彙編

秦簡

日甲119睡虎地秦簡

篆

日部說文解字

楷

「昌」 (early morning call, e.g. to the day's labour) is comprised of semantic 「日」 (sun) on top of semantic 「口」 (mouth). Such calls would likely be rhythmic or melodious, similar to bugle calls, making the interpretation of 「昌」 as the original form of 「唱」 (to sing).
Later on, 「口」 was slightly shape-corrupted into 「甘」 (mouth 「口」 with a mark inside) or 「曰」 (mouth 「口」 with a mark above). The modern shape inherits 「曰」.
Flourish does not appear to have a direct connection to morning call, and should be regarded as a phonetic loan.

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂字形演變
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》

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 there any connection between the choice of characters for 九 and 丸?

「九」 and 「丸」 are not related. As @user3306356 points out, 「丸」 is probably related to 「夗」.

商朝甲骨文菁2.1合集6057西周金文作冊夨令簋集成4300戰國・晉金文東周左壺集成9640小篆九部說文解字今楷書
「九」 depicts an arm showing the hand, a bent wrist, and elbow, indicating the original meaning elbow. This word is now written as 「肘」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*t-[k]<r>uʔ/).
The meaning nine (/*[k]uʔ/) for 「九」 is a phonetic loan.

「丸」 is derived from 「夗」.
「夗」 (/*[ʔ]o[r]ʔ/) was originally a picture of an animal or person curled up in a foetal position, extended to mean twisting and turning in bed and then crooked, winding (now written 「宛」).
「夗」 or its derivatives later started being used for different senses. 「丸」 (/*[ɢ]ʷˤar/) was corrupted from 「夗」 to specifically represent the sense curl up and roll > ball, round object.
The glyph evolution and corruption process is as follows:
商朝甲骨文1799殷虛文字乙楷書
西周金文能匋尊集成5984隸定文字
西周金文仲義父鼎集成2542隸定文字
小篆丸部說文解字
晉朝篆刻晉烏丸率善篆刻大字典
今楷書

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
小學堂
漢語多功能字庫
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》

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》


What is the equivalent of "冒昧打扰" in English?

I would say it is equivalent to "Excuse me" in context when you need ask some people for help or a favor.

冒昧打扰, 请问去这个车站怎么走？ - Excuse me, do you know how to get to this train station?

but 冒昧打扰 is kind of formal, we usually just say "打扰一下" in everyday life.


Deciphering a seal on the bottom of a Buddha figure (Characters identified: 乾隆御製)

Frankly speaking, I have very few knowledge about works of art, but for the characters, they look like "乾隆御制(traditional Chinese:乾隆御製)". These characters are written in 小篆, which is an old font originally popular in 秦 dynasty and then mainly popular in seals afterwards.

"乾隆御制" means "[this work is] made for the emperor of 乾隆, or the royal members".

By the way, I believe this work is fake, since the font of "乾隆御制" is generally “楷体", not "小篆". I have seen some works made in that times on the TV (there are many TV programms for identifying such works nowadays)and I don't remember a work with that font.


The former interpretation is correct.
Chinese characters are composed of components (some radicals, some phonetics, some neither). For many of the components, there are standard or widely used ways to refer to them. A common pattern is {component}+字+{旁/头/盖/底/儿/框}. (The last part refers to which part of the character it is--e.g., side, top, bottom, "frame") For instance:

讠= 言字旁 e.g, 说、讲
⺮ = 竹字头 e.g., 管、篮
心 = 心字底 e.g., 忌、忍

Some of them break the pattern a bit:

刂 = 立刀旁; e.g., 刻、则
彳 = 双人旁; e.g., 很、彼
忄= 竖心旁; e.g., 快、慢
辶 = 走之底; e.g., 这、迅

Sometimes the situation is complicated because the component does not exist as a standalone character. In that case, it is often named by a common character with that component

宀 = 宝字盖/宝盖头; e.g., 宇、定
 = 春字头; e.g., 泰、秦
冂 = 同字框; e.g., 周、网

Keep in mind that there may be multiple names for a given component.
Here are some resources to look at.


Is there any record on this specific variant of the character 選?

Apparently the Vietnamese used Chinese characters a long time ago, perhaps only in learned circles. They also created their own "Chinese" characters, which were not known in China.

I had a similar case of a character I could not find. I downloaded some fonts called HAN NOM A.ttf and HAN NOM B.ttf, then I could write the character, but I can't remember what it was now.

Maybe you can get some leads here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BB%AF_N%C3%B4m


Is there a name for a "phantom" stroke handwritten by mistake?

It is called or 笔误 or 误笔 (handwriting mistake) or more colloquially "写错笔划" (write a wrong stroke)
写多笔划或是写少笔划都是笔误
俗语: "误将冯京作马凉" 就是典型的笔误引来的误会
Although 笔误 and 误笔 are interchangeable, there's also a term 口误 (slip of the tongue). Therefore, I prefer 笔误 over 误笔


In Taiwanese place names, how are 宮 vs. 寺 used?

佛寺 = Buddhist temple
道觀 = Taoist temple
宮 = palace
神社/ 神宮 = shrine
廟 = temple (polytheism)

Searching 'Taiwan Buddhist temples' and I found a list.
Many entries with the name 宮  in it are labeled as 'Buddhist temples' but they are in fact,  temples for individual gods in Chinese polytheism
For example:
大龍峒保安宮 (Dalongdong Baoan Temple)
You can see the idol is a Chinese god, not Buddha.

松山慈祐宮 (Ciyou Temple)
The photo from its web site clearly showed 燒衣 and 求簽 equipment. Buddhist temples do not have that.

台北天后宮  (Taipei Tianhou Temple) is a place to worship '天后', it is in the temple's name
大龍峒保安宮, 松山慈祐宮 and 台北天后宮 are not Buddhist temples but Chinese polytheism temples
In Japan, shrine are called 神社, 神宮,  Since Taiwan has deep tie to Japanese culture, using 宮 in temples name is understandable


Like what they said, 外地人 is a neutral word. But I think the meaning has changed, especially in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou where the economic level is higher than other cities. The natives whose father or grandfather or great-grandfather lived there don't like people from other place. So if you are from other place, and you talk with someone who are from other places too, it is ok to say the word. But if you are from Shanghai, but the one you are talking to is not, it is better for you not to say the word.


What is the purpose of 赴 ("to visit") within 全力以赴 ("to make an all-out effort")?

This involves inversion (倒裝) in classical Chinese. The most sensible arrangement in modern Chinese is

以全力赴（之）
To go towards / approach (sth.) with all one's might,

which obviously suggests the meaning 'trying one's best in doing something'. The grammatical object is the target but is omitted (perhaps understood) in the idiom.

While 赴 is transitive, 全力以赴 has more or less become intransitive (see the following example) because it is idiomatic to consider it as a whole that describes a state of being, rather than an approach towards any specific problem (the object) when we parse the idiom.

我會全力以赴的。 I will try my best.


Here’s 现代汉语规范词典’s entry:

老少边穷
PY lǎo-shǎo-biān-qióng
老解放区､少数民族地区､边疆地区和穷困地区的合称。
注意 “少”这里不读shào, 不当“年少”讲。


Is it correct that 几点 is for asking specific time in oclock?

"几点" = "what hour". It could be 10:04 or 10:24, so it is only specific for the 'hour', not the specific 'time (moment)'. You can just answer by stating the hour; However, people asking 几点 is actually wanting to know  "what hour and minute (the precise time)". We usually reply to this question with the precise time on the clock.

  while 什么时候 is more general and can be answered specifically in oclock or a period of time such as morning, noon, night ?

Yes.

"现在是什么时候" = "what time is it now", it can mean specific time on the clock. For example, "现在是 10:24" ; it can also be used generally to refer to a period of time such as morning, noon.

  Can i also replace "你什么时候有空" with "你几点有空" ???

No, "你什么时候有空" refers to "which day and what time" ; "你几点有空" doesn't ask what date it will be. You can only replace  "你什么时候有空" with "你几点有空" when the date in known

It can refer to any specific moment. For example " 现在是时候回家了" (it is time to go home)

to specifically ask for the precise time on the clock, you can say "现在是什么钟数?" or "现在是几点钟? "


面试, literally 'in-person test', refers to interview or admission test for a job or school application.

采访, literally 'pick and reach out', refers to journalist interviewing a random or specific person on the scene.

访问, literally 'reach out and inquire', refers to someone paying some specific person or place a visit with in-depth conversations, e.g. a journalist interviewing a domain expert, or a president visiting another country.


From Bai Du Zhi Dao:

好高骛远 (Hào gāo wù yuǎn) means:

  比喻不切实际地追求过高过远的目标 (Bǐyù bù qiè shíjì dì zhuī qiú guò gāo guò yuǎn de
  mùbiāo.) : you unrealistically pursue goals that are too high and far.

To break down the phrase: 好高骛远

好 (Hào- 4th tone = likes/wants), so... 好高 (Hào gāo): likes/wants (things that are) high

骛 (wù): Greedy

远 (yuǎn): Far, Distant (So, 骛远 = over ambitious/over greedy)

To break that guy's response down:

不切实际 (bù qiè shíjì): Phrase to indicate impracticality of something

地 (dì): usually means "ground"... but here it follows an adverb. For example, 他慢慢地走过去 (he slowly walked over there). So, 慢慢 would be modifying the verb 追求 (zhuī qiú), so you use 地 (dì) between the adverb and the verb。 Like he "impractically pursued x": 他不切实际*地*追求x

追求 (zhuī qiú): to pursue something stubbornly.

过高过远 (guò gāo guò yuǎn): 过 just means "pass over, too much, pass": so 过高 and 过远 just means too high and too far.

目标 (mùbiāo): Goal


What is the purpose of the 中 in 在新标签页中打开?

在 and 中 are serving two different functions here.

The preposition 在 at the start of the sentence indicates where something happens. Meanwhile, the 中 here is technically a noun meaning "the inside", not "middle". It signifies that the link is opened on a new tab page, i.e. *the inside of a tab page".

Taken as a whole, then, the Chinese sentence is actually saying: Open link (打开) at [the position of] (在) a new tab page's (新标签页) insides (中) .

Without the 中 the sentence would still make enough sense to be understood, but it would sound weird. Generally speaking, when the target of 在 is not a location, it is standard to add 中 or 裡 etc. For example, 住在美國 and 住在公寓裡 .


欲辟土地，朝秦楚，莅中國而撫四夷也

The grammatical subject is hidden (Liang Hui Wang, 梁惠王). What we see are four parallel verb-object constructions that describe Mencius' guess of Liang Hui Wang's desires (王之所大欲).

辟土地: 'to enlarge your territories'

朝秦楚: while normally 朝 as a verb means ‘to meet in court', this is no doubt used in the causative sense (使動用法, see fourth entry here): 'to make (Qin and Chu) meet in (your) court'.

莅中國: 莅 simply means 'to come'. 中國 does not mean China, it refers to the Central Kingdoms (somewhat similar to 中原).

撫四夷: 'to pacify the barbarous tribes on the four boarders'.

You may consult D. C. Lau (1984:21)'s translation too: 'You wish to extend your territory, to enjoy the homage of Ch'in and Ch'u, to rule over the Central Kingdoms and to bring peace to the barbarian tribes on the four boarders.'

以若所為求若所欲

The 所-construction nominalises the verb that follows it. So 所為 means 'deeds' (from 'to do') and 所欲 means 'wants' (from 'to want'). 若 means 'you'. But we see two nouns adjacent to each other in 若所為 and 若所欲. For better understanding, you may add 之 in between, indicating possession: 以若之所為，求若之所欲.

以A求B means to seek B with A.

D. C. Lau: 'Seeking the fulfilment of such an ambition by such means as you employ'

Reference
Lau DC. Mencius. Hong Kong: CUHK Press; 1984.


俩 means 两个and is typically more colloquial. 俩 is often used for people, but doesn't need to be. Some examples:

买俩馒头: to buy two steamed rolls
兄弟俩
他们俩。

Alternatively you can use "咱俩" in oral language, "咱" means "我". The difference between 我们 and 咱们, is that 咱们 includes the listener. So 我们两个, 我们俩, 咱们俩 and 咱俩 all mean "the two of us".

A side remark: when a father talks with his son he can use 咱爷俩 referring to himself  and his son.


What is the difference between 勺子 and 调羹?

It should be 勺子 (or just 勺 as a measure).

调羹 has similar meaning with 勺子, but is partial to the spoon used for eat soup.
And 调羹 usually used in southern dialect.


Where to find online and easy reading material in traditional Chinese

You can use the Google Advanced Search.
key words: 兒童故事
language: Chinese (Traditional)
region: Taiwan

Some examples:

兒童文化館
中文兒童故事
兒童故事
格林童話集
兒童睡前故事
兒童故事
安安免費教學網－國小國語
安安免費教學網－千篇文章共賞


How do I say "my wife baked these for me"?

You can say

我太太为我烘烤了这些

Emphasizing on my wife. Usually, you can just use 烤 and leave the 烘. Actually my wife have never said 烘 when it comes to baking


One game I suggest you check out is Enter Zon - an MMORPG specifically for learning Mandarin.

Essentially you run around in a game environment and have all sorts of dialogues about different things, with the end goal of improving your Mandarin. It's pretty neat.


What I can think of is: 逐字理解 or 按字面意思理解.


When saying Japanese place names like "秋叶原", do people always use the respective Chinese pronunciation?

You're right. Chinese people read Kanji using their Chinese pronunciations. For Chinese people who don't speak Japanese, they have probably only learned 'tokyo' from the English word and they don't have a clue what 'akihabara' is. The same applies to nouns, proper nouns and names.


I'm a Chinese from hong kong so my choice of wording may be a bit different from the mainland Chinese (the word choice sometimes differs, like American English and British English). My Chinese writing is not that good (the spoken language in hk is very different from written chinese)...so just take it as a reference!

把 “加油“ 地道using 地道 seems a bit weird to me but i have no idea what to use

的翻译成英文是个困难的事。

翻译的 定义 常常 会把本来的定义 解的不利 - "定义" doesn't make much sense. What do you intended to mean by this word?

You can use 往往 instead of 常常("常常" isn't incorrect but its seems to be more appropriate)，

and 曲解 to replace 解的不利; "解的不利" doesn't make any sense in Chinese。

加油可以代表多种的意思 add a "," here

从鼓励到欢呼add a "," here

何况 - using "何况" doesn't make sense here; it means "furthermore" but only in negative meaning.

In this sentence the adj you use like 鼓励到欢呼 同情和团结 all have a positive meaning so it'd better to use other conjunction word like “再到”

同情和团结add a "," here

翻译的时候 就会往往 把这 多数 含义 缺漏 掉的。Better change 就会往往 to "往往会". the meaning is right but the order is weird.

多数(means many) should change to "多重"(multiple layers).

缺漏 seems weird to me...but I am not sure what to use here.

用英文来表示就会给这个词一个 单纯没劲 的 意义 单纯没劲 doesnt make sense - use 单薄 is better.

意义 mean "spiritual meaning" in chinese, so you should use "意思" which means "literal meaning"

普通 翻译成 "Let's go!" 或者 "You can do it!" 或者 “Come on!"。the meaning is right, but you can use 一般, which sounds more appropriate to me

这些句子说出来不含加油的 内涵意义 use 神髓 instead!

就是 鼓励斗志能力。i cant think of a better word...but your word choice doesn't quite make sense

其实用 "Fighting!"来表示可能是 更镇却 的翻译，i don't know what does 镇却 means.... i would use 传神 here; btw you can use "较为" instead of "更", so that you can have a "4-word word"

可是在英文里 "Fighting!" 通常 含义个打仗和暴力的现象 不是 决心或者意志力的表示。change 打仗(verb) to 战争(noun) because "暴力" is also a noun, to keep the two sides of the word "和"(and) balanced;

then change the word order&usage from "含义个 战争和暴力的 现象" to "含有 战争和暴力的意思";

for "不是"（means "no"）, change it to "而非"(means "but not")

这种观念 我挺支持的 add a "," here.

Also you should state what does 这种观念 means. If you're using 观念 to mean "the act of using the word Jiayou" than it's a wrong word choice here.

因为是个 正面情绪向上 的 口语 。正面情绪向上->正面向上， 口语->用语

我自己听到的时候会 受到  一古港动力  让我加强的努力 OK. first change 受到 to 感受到 because "受到" means "being ..." but you dont have a verb to fill the "..." , so you should add the word "感"(feel)。 “感受” together means "feel".

一古港动力 -> doesnt make sense, i guess you means "一股动力"

一股动力 and 让我加强的努力 actually have the same meaning, so it's duplicated here. but thw word 一股动力 is like...more native. so you should just delete "让我加强的努力". So 受到一古港动力让我加强的努力 -> 感受到一股动力

要没有的话 i guess you means "if not" in english. but this word choice is improper. Use "即使没有" instead which means "if not"

起码 让我思考一下in English "at least would make me think about". in Chinese you may use 至少 (but 起码 is ok too);

让我思考一下 here you should emphasis '思考'(think). A good way to emphasis it is put the word at the end of the sentence. change it to -> 会激发我的思考 (会 would 激发inspire 我的 my 思考thoughts )

我做 中 的目的 do u mean 我做人的目的？Also add a "," here

因为 说给我听的人 肯定有她的意向 说给我听的人->给我加油的人

"肯定有她的意向" this is too vague. you should specific what does 意向 means...so change it to "肯定是支持我的" or "肯定是想鼓励我的"

一个缺点是 过用 －把加油整天放在舌尖上（就是天天都说，张口就说）过用 is a bit weird... maybe use 过度使用(excessive usage) instead?

过用（->过度使用）会把 给说的 人的期望 射 得特别高 "delete "给说的", you dont have to use these words here.

In Chinese, 射 means aiming at a PHYSICAL target. Here you want to mean "aim at high expectation" and you cant translate this literally to chinese. Use 过度使用会把人的期望 **提**(lift) 得特别高 instead, which literally means excessive use would lift up people's expectations "

（做不到的 请款 就 带来羞辱的感觉）请款->情况；带来羞辱的感觉->会让人觉得 蒙羞/被羞辱

或 这 老是抱着一个不满足的心态 ->者

（社么东西都能加油，不够好)。-> 永远(always)都要(have to)继续(continue)加油，永远(always)不(not)够(enough)好(good) (->never good enough)

这种 心理状况 在美国对于华人配演小孩的方法是个挺红的辩论题 It's weird to use 心理状况 here..

反正 有两组人－一种觉得父母实景推动小孩的前途是很重要的 delete 反正

在 一种觉得小孩能自己 发现 他么 的前途 在 doesnt make sense here. use "另"。 发现 isnt a proper word choice here, use 掌控(control) instead. 他么- is it a typo? do u means 他们？

未来小孩高兴为主（这不是说第一组家长就不想要他们小孩高兴，就是会用 不痒 的眼光看来高兴这个词)dont understand what do you want to mean by 不痒, but this is a wrong word choice. we dont have a vocab 不痒 in chinese.

可能在 美国多数人的想法都在第二组里。-> 美国 **大** 多数人的想法都 **应该** 在第二组里

我 有 可能把这个题目想的太 宽 了delete 有。 hmm i am not sure if 宽 is ok here... you can also use 远

也不太用加油这个词，所以我不知道 是不是所说的话 是正确的 word order - 所说的话是不是

That's it! Actually I think the question is a bit confusing. We don't say the term Jiayou as a 观念，it's just a word.... you wont say its a view.

It's like you won't have a question in English asking "What do you think about the word awesome, do you support this saying/view?"

The question should explain itself more.


How to ask a simple maths / arithmetic question

The method is correct, but the word should be '几' , not '什么'. If you ask 等于什么? it will 等于数字 ever, brain-teaser :)

几 is used more when you calculate simple questions, can be replaced with 多少 which is a common word.

七乘以六等于几?
七乘以六等于多少?

12345乘以4545等于几?(acceptable, but 多少 is more appropriate due to the complexity).

you can cut the 以, there's no difference in practice.


Recommendations for novels written in colloquial Chinese

You said "I need a book that's easy to find in the United States."

I don't know what kind of book is easy to find in the US.Let me give you some suggestions.

As for mystery, suspense, or thriller：

  蔡骏的小说：荒村公寓，荒村归来，天机，猫眼等等

I like novels written by 蔡骏。

As for Colloquial, full of modern, or even slangy, words and phrases：

  当年明月：明朝那些事

明朝那些事 is a history book of Ming dynasty.It's very easy to understand and full of Chinese wisdom.

I don't know whether you can buy these books in the US or not.If you don't mind the issues of copyright,all of these books are easy to download from the Internet.Especially 明朝那些事，It comes from a personal blog -----当年明月的博客
。

In fact, the best way to learn a foreign language is to involve in the culture.All novels are written in the past time,they can't provide you the most fashioned words and phrases in the other culture.If you can't live in China ,you should try to communicate with Chinese through the Internet.Registering in the weibo.cn(twitter),renren.com(facebook) is a good idea.


Why do we use 做 in 我太喜欢和他做朋友了 as "being"?

做 + identity = be identity

Example:做好人，做首領 (good person and leader are identities)

做 + procedure/action = do procedure

Example: 做大事， 做錯，做工 (great thing, mistake and work involve procedures or action)

the final particle 了 is a modal word for emphasis, if you remove it, the meaning of the sentence would not change, but the tone would be flat

Example sentence:

"要(做)大人物就要(做)大事" = "to (be) a great man, you need to (do) great thing"

  Why do we use 做 in this sentence as “being”?

朋友 is an identity


Is the non-literal interpretation of 浪漫是她想要月亮时，你不会给她星星 that young romance is selfish, particularly of women?

I found the original section:

  很多女孩子羡慕浪漫的爱情。那什么是浪漫呢？年轻人说：浪漫是她想要月亮时，你不会给她星星；中年人说：浪漫是即使晚上加班到零点，到家时，自己家里也还亮着灯；老年人说：浪漫其实就像歌中唱的那样，“我能想到最浪漫的事，就是和你一起慢慢变老。”其实，让我们感动的，就是生活中简单的爱情。有时候，简单就是最大的幸福。

We may find the author's main idea from context. After reading the whole paragraph, I think the author just want to show the different definitions from people with different life experience. We may learn that the definition of romance is becoming simpler and more realized when people get more experiences. The things 年轻人 believed is just with higher demands which may be idealized and irreplaceable. But their ideas may change when they become 中年人 and 老年人。 So, nothing to do with men or women here. The author is not complaining anyone but just let you know the definition of romance and love may change to simpler one. The last sentence actually makes the conclusion that "Simplicity is the best happiness."

EDIT:

Another skill to judge the author's idea is to feel his mood and emotion in the context. There are full of pauses and commas in this paragraph, which make it peaceful and soothing without any blame and implication. But this is technically. After all, there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes...


Actually they're the same, they both mean a whole day. However:

整日 is more formal; it is always used in written language.
整天 is casual, such as when your mom complaining about you:

整天玩游戏
"playing games all day".