Tool which can convert web pages from Hanzi to either Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao

On Android you could try the "Pinyin Web Browser" app in the Play Store (free and no ads), or "Cantonese Web Browser" for Sidney Lau / Yale.  Both apps print their romanisation with word-groupings, formatted as large as the characters, and cope with on-page changes made by Javascript etc (the two apps also share their bookmarks with each other).  But because every line of text ends up being twice as high as the webmaster intended, sites will break if they use too much "pixel-perfect" vertical positioning (which was not part of Tim Berners-Lee's original plan for the web, but too many webmasters do it anyway).  The app does contain a couple of kludges for the layout code of sites listed on its start page, but one dev can't fix the entire web so YMMV.

The underlying annotators were trained using a variant of the Yarowsky algorithm and therefore take context into account for things like 差 (chāi or chà) and 为 (wèi or wéi) although it still makes some mistakes.  Training data included proprietary documents, so, although the apps are free, the data cannot be fully open-source, and annoyingly CC-CEDICT could not be used because its CC license conflicted with this situation.  But there are some limited English definitions available, or the apps will link to Pleco or Hanping if you have either installed (tap on any word to access the popup definitions and Pleco/Hanping button, unless that word is part of a web link, in which case tapping on it just opens the link as normal).  The code without the data is Apache-licensed if you want to re-train it on another corpus yourself, but the results are not likely to be as good unless you have access to a better corpus than I do.

There exists code for an iOS version, but the Apple developer programme is incredibly unhelpful (1 they only accept apps compiled on a decent Mac with latest OS, not a few-years-old one, 2 they demand 100 pounds a year to subscribe to the programme, universities can be exempt but individual university members cannot, and 3 I have no idea how much extra they invoice for testing new releases).  There are however a couple of established iOS developers who have been given the back-end code, so let's hope they release browsers soon.

As for desktop browsers, I have had some success making "bookmarklets" (like mini browser extensions), but these rely on sending the page to a third-party server to get the pinyin and are therefore not great for privacy unless you can also set up the annotation server on your own machine.  Also an increasing number of sites are blocking the use of bookmarklets altogether in their "Content Security Policy" (CSP), so if you want bookmarklets you now need a browser extension to turn off CSP as well (or a proxy that does the job, but then the proxy has to rewrite secure HTTPS into insecure HTTP; an increasing number of sites have user-side scripts that break when this happens).  There is however a Windows 10 developer who has the back-end code and is making a Win10 "universal app" for both desktops and mobile devices.  In all cases the problem remains of fixing up the sites that are too fussy about layout.  (You could work around this by cramming pinyin into the very small existing space between the lines, but the result would not be half as easy to read.)


Please translate 他听到我们这边有水瓶掉下去 砰地一声 （正好是停车场出口 万一有车就很危险）他马上和保安指出来 小朋友好乖哦

I'm not going to do a word-to-word translation. The original text seems like a piece of transcripts of someone talking.

In the parenthesis, where you can't translate, it is to describe where the accident happened - it is right at the exit of the parking garage. It can be very dangerous if there is a car drive by

他马上和保安指出来 is "he immediately told(or point it out to) the security guard". 和 is not "and" here, but "to".

小朋友好乖哦 tells me that in the previous description, 他 is a 小朋友. This sentence is opinion from the person who told this story.


Good to know you starting learning Mandarin!

However, I do not think the name is good... Actually a lot of foreigner get their name weird.

A common structure of a Chinese name is Family name + Given name.

So, I think "满" is a good one for a family name because it is a existing family name (满文军, for example, a famous singer). Also, it kind of part of your own family name, according to your profile.

Although 熊 is a surname in Chinese, but it means bear the animal more often. It is okay to put animal in name in China, but often 虎 for guys and 燕 for girls. 熊 is definitely out of the range. Also, 熊 as a adjective, means crude, impetuous and naive.  So, don't use it. If you want the pronunciation, I would recommend use "雄" instead of "熊".  "雄" means hero or brave or strong. It is used by 扬雄, an ancient writer.

You do not need put all parts of your family name in your Chinese name.
Basically, it is not possible, considering common Chinese family names are less than 2 characters, most of them are just one character. I think if you think OK, 满 is very good.

汗 is not good, neither. It often means sweat. Although the pronunciation you want to use means king or leader.  The Good character is "汉", which is used by 田汉, the author of the lyric of national anthem of China.

However, it still kind of weird...


How to translate "连环夺宝", the name of a game from China LotSynergy?

"夺宝" should be translated separately.
"夺" means win / capture.
"宝" means treasure.
"连环" means again and again here. "连环" can also mean chain but not applicable here.
All together is "Win the treasure again and again".

Google translate suggests that "夺宝" = "Indiana" which is wrong.
I believe it's because "Indiana Jones" was translated into "夺宝奇兵" in China which the translated name is not a direct translation.


不要紧 has two meanings (http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%E7%B4%A7):

Doesn't matter; not a problem.

Seemingly not a problem but ...

Here it is the second meaning. The logic behind the sentence is:

众人回头观望，而这一看不要紧，所有人都是不由大吃一惊
The group looked back. This seemingly trivial action lead to a surprising finding.


What is the difference between 锋利， 尖利， 锐利， 锋锐，尖锐？

锋= edge ; 利= sharp; 锋利= sharp (of edge)
Example:
刀锋锋利 blade edge is sharp

~

尖= pointy; 利= sharp; 尖利= pointy and sharp
Examples:
冰錐是尖利的 ice pick is pointy and sharp
尖利的工具 (pointy and sharp tool)

~

锐 = piercing; 利= sharp; 锐利 = piercingly sharp(of point)
Examples:
眼光锐利 have (piercingly) sharp eyes
锐利武器 piercingly sharp weapon

~

锋= edge; 锐 = piercing; 锋锐= piercingly sharp (of edge and point)
Example:
锋锐武器 piercingly sharp weapons

~

尖= pointy; 锐 = piercing; 尖锐= piercingly pointy
Example:
說話尖锐 speak in a (piercingly) pointy manner
尖锐的工具 piercingly pointy tool


Is pinyin an accurate pronunciation guide?

Hanyu Pinyin does not have a 1:1 mapping between written symbols (letters) and pronunciation, and so can't be said to be accurate in the sense that IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet) is meant to be accurate.
It is of course perfectly functional as a way of writing down Mandarin pronunciation, but only if you know how to pronounce the language first or learn the system properly.
However, you can not rely on letters representing the same sounds, or that the same sounds are written with the same letters! This is particularly true for vowels, while the consonants are more straightforward.
There are cases where many sounds are mapped to one single written symbol. Here are a few examples (the examples are from this article, that has both more examples and audio for some of them):
The letter i represents some very different sounds in Mandarin:

It’s a front close vowel [i] and occurs in: mi, bi, ti etc.
i represents the empty rhyme following z, c and s (this sound can be described in many ways, but it’s fairly close to English [z], but with more air allowed to pass).
It also represents the sound following zh, ch and sh. This is the same as the previous sound, but pronounced close to the retroflex position (i.e., the tongue is retracted and raised as when producing the zh, ch, sh and r sounds, just not as close).

Other examples include many different sounds represented by the letters e and a.See the linked article above for more examples of these.
There are also cases where the opposite is true, i.e. that one sound is written in many different ways.
The example that best shows why you need to already speak the language for the system to make perfect sense is how [y] is treated. It has dots, written ü, when there is ambiguity, as in lü and nü, because we also have lu and nu, which are different sounds (which any native speaker knows intuitively, but beginner students don't). But there are no dots when there's no ambiguity, so even if it's actually pronounced jü, qü and xü, it's spelt ju, qu and xu. Same with jüe (jue) jün (jun), etc.. There is no syllable that start with j and ends with the u in e.g. lu: *[t͡ɕu]
Then we also have sounds that are there but simply left out, such as -ui actually being pronounced -uei (水, 对, 贵) and -iu actually being pronounced -iou (六，休，牛).
As Dan mentioned in a comment, tone changes can also be opaque unless you are familiar with the language. There's no written indication that nǐhǎo is pronounced with a rising tone on the first syllable, or that the third tone is a low tone in front of all other tones except the third tone (e.g. měiguó, xiǎngyào etc.), or that 不 and 一 change tone depending on the following syllable.
So no, Pinyin is not exact in the way you imagine it to be. And if I may ask, if you're working on a guide for how Mandarin is pronounced, wouldn't it make more sense to just use IPA, which is designed specifically to describe how languages are pronounced?
Then you can rely on the works of countless other people who have tried to make similar guides and descriptions, and you can use what you've learnt to learn about pronunciation in other languages too! Maybe start with the Standard Chinese Phonology article on Wikipedia. For reading in English, I also recommend:

Lin, Y. H. (2007). The Sounds of Chinese. Cambridge University Press.
Duanmu, S. (2007). The phonology of standard Chinese. Oxford University Press.


It reads 相知永伴

相知 means knowing each other very well.

永伴 means always together.


《牛津現代英漢雙解詞典》 shows an example, "have a reputation for laziness/for being lazy 以懶惰出名".

Chinese has a reputation for being a hard language.
中文以困難而出名。

This boy has a reputation for being naughty.
這男孩以淘氣而出名。

for 以


There are some recent open source efforts that have opened this up a bit. One is hanzi writer, which was based on the data for 3195 strokes contained in ZDT but now uses the more complete character data from make me a hanzi demo. It uses javascript to draw and animate the strokes, directly from json versions of the character path data. Update: Recently, the library has been made significantly smaller. As of 2018-03-02, it is also able to show radicals in different colors, based on data in make me a hanzi demo.

Another great recent project is make me a hanzi demo. It contains stroke animations for 9507 characters (includes traditional chars). This data was extracted from two free chinese fonts using a semi-automated algorithmic approach. At present, the main things of interest on the master branch are the two data files graphics.txt and dictionary.txt and a complete collection of animated SVG's of the characters. SVG's vary in size from 2KB to 45KB. If you would prefer to render the characters algorithmically, you may wish to explore some of the other branches, such as demo (check the lib sub-folder) and tools (which seems to be where recent developments are taking place).

One more i've come across that uses the same data format as ZDT but which doesn't reveal license terms is worth mentioning, as the code is brief and easy to follow. Nicely done Chase! To draw a new stroke, you can grab zdtStrokeData.txt from the first project mentioned here, then cut and paste the paths for the stroke you want to draw over the string where the 'strokes' array is defined (currently line 291). Update: You also need to replace tabs with semi-colons and add a final semi-colon first.

Regarding the differences between the two data formats used by the projects above, the ZDT format may include multiple paths for a single stroke, in cases where the direction of stroke changes mid stroke. The prefix format is explained well by Chase. It records the direction of stroke, whether the current path is the final part of a stroke or part of the initial paths of a stroke and whether the current path is part of a radical.

The 'make me a hanzi demo' path data (graphics.txt) does not contain stroke direction information. Also, unlike the ZDT data, a single path defines a single stroke. The stroke information is in SVG path format, using quadratic bezier curves. To ascertain which part of the paths represent the radical, one may do a lookup in dictionary.txt. The dictionary also contains character decomposition data in an interesting format, derived from Unihan and CJKLib. The project page has more information on the format.


Confucius is a latin transliteration as opposed to an English one. Etymology might be a good starting point: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Confucius

This article is probably highly relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_China_missions

Further reading: http://www.amazon.com/WINDOWS-INTO-CHINA-JESUITS-1580-1730/dp/B000ID3EIE


How to say ‘freeze tag’ (a game) in Chinese language? If you don’t know this game, please research it before you answer

Freeze tag may not be as well understood as other games, e.g. the normal version of tag (鬼抓人, lit. ghost catches man), or hide-and-seek (捉迷藏) in Chinese. If you do not wish to specify the person tagged must freeze in the name of the game, you may just say 鬼抓人.

Literal translation is possible (凍結標籤, see here). 標籤 means tag or label. 捉捉 in your proposed translation (凍結捉捉) is nonexistent as a word; perhaps it confers a childlike nuance by means of character repetition, but either way, you need to clarify the details of the game should you adopt a literal translation, because otherwise no one would know what it actually is.

Children say 「抓到了，（換）你當鬼！」 (lit. 'Caught you, now it's you're turn to be the ghost!', or equivalently, 'Tag, you're it!') while playing the game. You may consider not naming it at all and let the dialogues reflect the nature of the game. You may also consider adding this to reflect frozenness: 「抓到了，你當鬼，不許動！」 (lit. 'Caught you, you be the ghost, don't move!').

木頭人 (lit. log-like person, see here) and 紅綠燈 (lit. traffic light, see here) are classic games that are understood to require all players except 'the ghost' to freeze from time to time. Of course they are different games from freeze tag, but my point is, none used the 'frozen' analogy - this is a rather foreign concept, and would likely require a literal translation (and explanation) to a Chinese audience.


English is not my mother tongue, but I would translate 外行的想法 as "unprofessional opinion" or "amateurish opinion".
外行 is the opposite of 内行, which means expert, adept, experienced, an expert, a professional, so the emphasis is as you mentioned on the fact that the person is not experienced.


朋友们 is always being plural, while 朋友 can be either plural or singular depending on the context.

我给我的朋友说 doesn't indicate if there is/are one/many friend(s).


Why is 面熟 used after 人 in 常常看着一个人面熟却叫不出名字来?

This is a classic example of a topic-comment construction that is prevalent in Chinese.  In this case, 面熟 is not serving as an adjective to the noun, but rather as a comment on the topic.

常常看着一个人 ("often seeing a person") is the topic
面熟却叫不出名字来 ("[he's] familiar, yet [I] can't come up with [his] name") is the comment.

All adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs (Chinese adjectives are sometimes called stative verbs for this reason); as such, they can function as a predicate by themselves.  Because Chinese is a pro-drop language, predicates can serve as their own clauses in a comment.

To answer your second question, you can't put 面熟 before the noun in this case without restructuring the sentence.  却 is used to connect two clauses together.  If you make 面熟 into an adjective, it's no longer a clause, so the usage of 却 will no longer make sense.


[这么 + adjective] = [this + adjective] referring to something close by

[那么 + adjective] = [that + adjective] referring to something that is not close by

你这么高，means "you are this tall" (talk about here and now)
你那么高，means "you are that tall" (talk about a situation not in the present)

For example, the reason you were accepted into the basketball team is because you were that tall

你这个男朋友是不是矮了点儿? "Isn't this boyfriend of yours a little bit too short?" (the boyfriend is either right there with them or they are referring him as the object of discussion in front of them)
你那个男朋友是不是矮了点儿? "Isn't that boyfriend of yours a little bit too short?" (the boyfriend is not right there with them)

'this tall'  and 'that tall' can be replaced by 'so tall'


Can anyone translate this Chinese text? (Characters identified: 招財納福)

Attracting money and happiness. It's very common to find these words under this specific buddha as it's its specialty.


走勢 in this context means "(directional) trend" -

Example:

The trend of gold price is downward (a direction) -  黃金價格走勢向下

The trend of gold price is upward (a direction) - 黃金價格走勢向上

Similar word is "趨勢" trend; tendency

Example:

gold price is is trending upward  - 黃金價格呈上升趨勢

  So sounds like the meaning is closer to "price/directional trend"?

Not limited to price, It can apply to 銷量 too. E.g. "iPhone 在中國的銷量走勢向下" (iPhone sell in China is trending downward )


If some words that mean "is" (e.g 是/相当于 ) are used, then it's literal times.

你的速度 是 我的两倍。

Your speed is twice as mine.

Normally you will not say "one times" in this scenario. 你的速度是我的一倍 (Your speed is one times as mine) sounds strange in both English and Chinese. You can just say "你的速度和我的一样快"/ “我们俩一样快" (You are as fast as me).

If other "comparing" words that means "more than"(e.g. A 比 B 大/高/快/etc.) show, then it's literal times + 1. Followed one has the same meaning of previous one.

你的速度 比 我快一倍。

You are one time faster than me.


Is there a difference between 买 (mǎi), 购 (gòu), and 购买 (gòumǎi) which mean "to buy"?

买 is more casual.

购 is formal when forming up with other characters: 购买，购票厅，购物，申购，团购，and etc.. These terms are formal both in written and spoken.

You can also consider 买 is short for 购买. 购买 is official term, so people just say 买... in our daily life instead of 购买. For example, 买菜，买车，买房子.

As this sign is posted in the Beijing airport, they should make it formal by 购票厅, instead of 买票厅.


What is the difference between 妥善 and 妥当?

Both '妥善' and '妥当' means  "appropriate" or "proper" .

There are minor difference:

'妥善' implies  "(satisfactorily) appropriate"

'妥当' implies "(correctly) appropriate"

Example:

對員工遣散有妥善安排 = There is a proper arrangement for severance. (everyone should be satisfied)
對員工遣散有妥当安排 = There is a proper arrangement for severance. (everything by the book without mistake)
妥善地佈防 = properly set up defensive positions (satisfactory on all accounts)
妥当地佈防 = properly set up defensive positions (follow all protocols correctly)

If someone said he will give you a 妥善的補償, he is trying to assure you that the compensation will be fair and satisfactory; If he said he will give you a 妥当的補償, it means you will get whatever you are entitled to. No more, no less.


The old character shows hands pulling a head from a woman, which I presume means helping her to have a baby rather than pulling her head off! The middle part is the head and the hands. The fact that the hands only have 3 fingers is proof positive that aliens kidnapped Chinese babies a long time ago. Everyone knows only aliens have 3 fingers!
This from zdic.

http://www.zdic.net/z/24/zy/8981.htm


What does 拜 mean in 拜在俄做生意的中国有钱人所赐，他们的入境手续都不合法?

拜X所賜, Y is a standard expression which means Y happens, thanks to X or if it weren't for X, Y wouldn't have happened. It may also carry all the sarcasm or irony contained in the English version. If you want to decompose the structure, it literally means acknowledging the bestowed/conferred upon X, this causes Y.

拜在俄做生意的中國有錢人所賜，他們的入境手續都不合法，所以一查就給錢，一查就給錢，一來二去警察都知道中國人好給錢了
Thanks to the wealthy Chinese people doing business in Russia, who enter the country without following proper procedures and underhandedly pay the inspection/police officers every time they get checked, all the police officers [who are inside this shady bribery business] now know [or more logically, are now under the impression] that Chinese people love giving bribes.


很好的朋友（henhao de pengyou）basically means a 'good friend', that is, someone who is close to you, who you can share your feelings with etc.

eg  “他是我很好的朋友。”（ta shi wo henhao de pengyou）means 'He's a good friend of mine.'

好的朋友（hao de pengyou）on the other hand, mostly means someone who has good qualities, is kind, generous, faithful etc. And it is mostly used to contrast with 坏的朋友(huai de pengyou), who is the opposite of those good qualities.

eg. “好的朋友能让你受益匪浅，坏的朋友也可能让你误入歧途。” basically means 'a hao de pengyou will have a good influence on you, while a huai de pengyou may make you go astray (have a bad influence on you.)'

By the way, there's a Chinese saying which means almost the same. “近朱者赤，近墨者黑。” （jin zhu zhe chi jin mo zhe hei）means you'll get a good influence being around a hao de pengyou（朱）and a bad one being around a huai de pengyou (墨).

But note that the distinction between the two is not always so clear. As is “他会是个很好的朋友。”（ta hui shi ge henhao de pengyou）, which means that the person is a person of good qualities, and therefore you can trust them to become a good friend of yours.


I wonder is there a Mandarin term for " jump the shark"

That should be "江郞才尽"

"江郎才尽" means someone was always writing good articles, but one day, his article is not that good anymore.


If you are talking about the name of the craters on the moon, I would say international names are used, just like the naming of the stars.
By the way, some craters are named after Chinese people, like 万户撞击坑 and so on.
If you are talking about the features in general, we do have names for them

陨石坑 - crater
月海 - lunar mare
月相 - lunar phase


黄

Simplifed variant (Unicode point U+9ec4)

黃

Traditional variant (Unicode point U+9ec3)

⿈

Kangxi radical 201 (Unicode point U+2fc8)

Variant character (Unicode point U+2155b)

Variant character (Unicode point U+28774)


Translation of characters on antique metal

It looks identical to this (you are looking at it up side down).

https://goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?21737114069034

It says 大明宣德年裸銀寶至上.

I don't know how exactly to translate this (someone can help me out here), but if I have to...

大明 refers to the Ming dynasty.

宣德年 means the era of Xuande, about AD 1425 - 1435.

裸銀寶 means raw silver sycee.

至上 PERHAPS means your highness (this is probably a wild guess).


When does 木 as a character component get detached legs?

To start off,「木」is not supposed to have detached legs and end up looking like「朩」. In one of the most stringent glyph standards, Kangxi Dictionary style Ming (Serif), if the Shuowen small seal shape contains「木」, then it does not have detached legs.

This is for glyph shape fidelity reasons, and conversely, if it has detached legs, you can be certain that, at the very least, the Kangxi Dictionary didn't think that it came from the component「木」.

Of course, this sometimes doesn't turn out correctly, as with ancient characters which were no longer used, such as「亲」and characters which use it as a component.

For reference,「亲」(hazel tree) is a variation of「」, and is constructed from semantic「木」and phonetic「辛」. This word is now written as「榛」.
西周金中伯壺集成9668篆木部說文解字臺標楷　臺標隸定

Detached legs on「木」are strictly an invention from calligraphy, and overwhelmingly occur on the bottom of characters:

Thus, all character shapes directly affected by calligraphy, including those set by government standards, will have a chance of containing「木」appearing with detached legs. This is purely a shape phenomenon - it has nothing to do with the language.

Characters which are affected by calligraphy are:
(1) The Taiwanese MoE standard, which actively prescribes writing「木」on the bottom as「朩」, and this effect has bled into their print fonts.

(2) PRC's regularised cursive shapes

But I guess it is arguable whether regularised cursive is appropriate for any kind of character shape analysis.


I want to purchase this jacket for my son but it has this symbol on it. Can you help? I have a picture!

悟 (wù) is a buddhist concept, especially in chán (禅), and means "realize", "awaken", especially in the word 悟空 (wùkōng): awake in the emptiness of existence.

The monkey 孙悟空 (Sun Wukong) is a character in the classic novel Journey to the West, and is often portrayed in Chinese and East Asian culture. The same goes for many other buddhist concepts.

In this instance, it is related to Japanese manga.


Is the Chinese character "蒙" being associated with Mongolia and ignorance coincidence?

亚 means inferior, hence Asia is an inferior continent? No, it has to do with approximating sounds with characters, and of the six available for ”meng”, 蒙 was perhaps considered most appropriate, for the reason you hint (home of grassland). Note that it was the invading Mongol Yuan dynasty who created the Mongol empire from nomadic tribes such as Xianbei and Xiongnu, and the character is if not coined by the dynasty at least propagated and established by it.

The association between Mongolia and Down’s syndrome has nothing to do with character, but is all about similarity in appearance. Chance had likely everything to do with choosing Mongolian features rather than any of the others in the region.

A Mongolian doctor is a barefoot doctor, unskilled people who practiced basic medicine in the early People’s republic, not just in Mongolia but in all of China, althugh they were more common in the more undeveloped regions.

For the same reason, people can use Mongolian as derogatory term, pointing to the more unsophisticated rural habits on the countryside.


It should be lùlín.

绿 is 多音字(polyphone) in Chinese, lǜ is usually used for color, lù is used for some 专有名词(proper noun).

绿林 is pronounced as lùlín, because it came from the name of the mountain 绿林山, which is pronounced as lùlínshān.

And 绿林 should be pronounced as lùlín, it has become a proper noun, in general it won't be used for the meaning of "green woods".

There are also other examples of 绿 pronounced as lù. Such as 鸭绿江, 绿营.


Actually, 原地踏步 is not a Cantonese phrase, it's just a Chinese phrase.

The literal meaning is marking time, and it's often used to describe a situation that one doesn't make progress or fall behind.

  班长命令战士们原地踏步.

The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.

  我要么原地踏步直到获得晋升（这看来得是几年以后的事了），要么改变现在正做的事情。

I could either tread water until I was promoted, which looked to be a few years away, or I could change what I was doing.


How to refer to someone if he is younger than I (but not knowing his name)?

A bartender is basically a stranger, calling him 兄弟 is a bit too close

'小哥' would be more suitable (not 小哥哥, that's for kids), you are not saying he is your older brother, you are saying he is a big brother of someone.

'姐姐' mean older sister, but you still call woman who is younger than you
'小姐'

Calling a kid 小哥哥 (litter big brother) or 小姐姐  (little big sister) is also acceptable, you are not saying he or she is your big brother or big sister, you are stating they are someone's big brother or big sister.

In Cantonese, we can also call people much younger than you '姐姐仔' or '哥哥仔',  (a way people from older generation show affection to people from younger generation)

If a ten years old boy takes his four years old sister to a candy store, it is perfectly fine for the store owner calling the boy 哥哥仔(小哥哥)


一点 means “a bit”.
一点点 means “a teeny weeny bit”.
So if you use 一点点, the intensity of the thing you are talking about will be much milder.

我会说一点英语。(I can speak a bit of English.)
我只会说一点点英语。(I can only speak a tiny bit of English.)

I think 一点VS一点点 is analogous to pequeño VS pequeñito in Spanish.
By the way, your second example should be 请说慢一点.


快 (quick; hurry) here is a [command/ demand exclamation] We use it in front of a verb or verb phrase to stress the urgency, demands immediate compliance.

(a request) 别说了 = "you've said enough" or "stop talking" (no tone indicated)

(a demand) 快别说了 = shut up (快住口) or 'Stop talking! Now!'

It is similar to 'Now!' in English
Example:
Drop your weapon. (no tone indicated)
Drop your weapon! Now! (commanding/ urgent tone)
Edit:

快住手 = hurry and stop = Stop! Now!

快去救人 = hurry and go save people = Go save people! Now

Note:
快 can also be used as the short form of '就快' (soon) or '快要' (almost)
Example:
(就)快沒彈藥了 - out of ammunition soon
(就)快餓死了 - starving to death soon
快(要)沒彈藥了 - almost out of ammunition
快(要)餓死了 - almost (about to) starve to death


Where can I find a list of chinese characters and their transcription in the 5 stroke classes used in the 五笔画 (wǔ bǐhuà) and Wubixing input method?

The keyword to search for is 筆順編號.
This github respository contains stroke order sequences for 29685 characters, coded as numbers 1-5. From the readme:

仅仅以1、2、3、4、5五个数字分别代表“一丨丿丶”五个笔画，按汉字笔顺进行输入。例如：
“开”字，按笔顺“一、一、丿、丨”，编码为1132； “我”字为31；“向”字为325；“力”为53；
注意“万”为153，“方”为4153，“忄”为442。
其中有些笔画容易被误解： “提”归为“一”：如“氵、扌”中的最后一笔；有些电脑字体繁体字的“雨字头”四点显示为四小横，皆按国标笔顺归为四点；
“亅”一竖往左勾的归为“丨”：如“小”字的第一笔、“扌”提手旁等；“乚”一竖往右勾的归为“”：如“比、民、氏”的左边那一笔；
“点、捺”都归为“丶”：如“文、入、表、厶”的最后一笔；“宀”宝盖头和“冖”秃宝盖的左边那一笔也都是“丶”，不是“丨”；
各种折笔（乛、フ、乚、、⺄、竖弯钩、竖提等）都归为“”：如“为、孔、民”中的笔画。

Bolded parts are easy to misinterpret strokes - but they've grouped it under the same 5 classifications as you've mentioned in the question details, so I guess this wasn't a problem for you.


Translation of signature on family shadow box art (Characters identified: 賀壽圖 北海貝雕)

There is no signature on the art.
Calligraphy:

賀壽圖
Art piece dedicated to the celebration of the birthday of the elderly

Seal:

北海貝雕
Shell-engraving-art from Beihai


Install input method tools such as Google Pinyin Windows only
type u start to input
then type follow to input radicals

丨 shu 竖
一 heng 横
丿 pie 撇
礻 shi 示
衤 yi 衣

But I think most easy way is Ctrl+C,Ctrl+V
There is a list of radicals. Find it and copy it.


What's the difference between 互相 (hùxiāng) and 相互 (xiānghù), both meaning "mutual"?

I'd say 相互 adds a bit emphasis on the mutual effect. It may be because the reversed order draws more attention. E.g. 我们应该增进相互了解. 尊重是相互的。

互相 is more casual. e.g.我们应该互相学习. If you say 我们应该相互学习， you express a bit stronger necessity of learning from each other.


What does 在来自中 (zài láizì zhōng) mean in 在来自中、俄、美、英、韩等五国, ...?

中 is the short form of 中国 here.

中 = China

There’s a 顿号 (、) after 中 so you can tell that it is part of a list, that would aid your deciphering methods letting you know it’s not a phrase with the words in front of it.


Usage of direction and location (destination) complements (衣服都装进箱子里去了 vs. 衣服都装到箱子里了)

The first example:
“衣服都装进箱子里去了” and “衣服都装到箱子里去了”
has the same meaning and is both OK.
The only difference I think is the former one indicates the action(put in) but the latter one emphasises on the state of the clothes.I am not sure because these two are almost the same in daily use and nobody will notice the difference between them.

For the third example:
You can use a direction complement.
“气球升到天上去了” /“气球升上天了”
However native speakers do not use “气球升上天上去了”.
Because the meaning of “天上” contains both location(天) and direction(上).


老大 here is not the noun 'leader/ boss'
It is an adjectives phrase
老 = old; 大 = grown (in age)
'老大' in '老大徒伤悲' means "old"
Detail break down of this expression:

少壮 - young and in your prime

不努力 - not work hard

老大 - grown and old

徒伤悲 - only have sadness

少壮不努力, 老大徒伤悲 means "If you don't work hard when you are young, there will only be sadness for you when you get old"


Does 很 actually convey a meaning of very/extremely?

很 is often pronounced lightly, so it is actually without any real information. It seems to fill the role of a predicate marker (e.g. 'copula') with adjective phrases. However, if it's stressed, then it does mean 'very'.
(Mandarin Chinese does have stress; however, it seems to get ignored in many language classes.)


If it's on a downbeat, accented note, then definitely "di". If it's short and unaccented, then it really does not matter. It's probably why you could not tell when you heard it. If you are singing, sing "di" to play safe.


"If you can't beat them, join them" 成语 or 俗语

The essence of  "If you can't beat them, join them." is "It is better to be  practical and join the winning side than being stubborn and stick to one's own position."
The example you gave for this idiom, describes "識時務者為俊傑" (Ones who understand situations and act accordingly, are the elites) very well.

所謂「識時務者為俊傑」，當對手強橫無比，而自己又一無所有時，唯有順應時勢，才不致因彼此對峙而有所耗損。
"Ones who understand situations are elites" means when the opponent is too strong to overcome, you can only conform to the situation to avoid meaningless lost"


Do some (prestige?) accents swap /v/ or /f/ for /w/?

I mentioned this phenomenon in an answer to another post here.  This sound, which is actually [ʋ] (labiodental approximant), was also discussed in this post in the Beijing Sounds blog.  Being characteristic of the Tianjin region (in my experience anyway), it's not standard, but many people don't seem to notice anyway.


Zhuyin IME setting to make tones optional

At least on Windows 7 you can configure the New Phonetic IME to not require tones, although you will still need to press the space bar to separate characters.

Go to Control Panel - Region and Language - Keyboards and Languages - Change Keyboards
Choose the New Phonetic IME and click Properties
On the Advanced tab, switch the "Toneless" option to ON


是 is used when a piece of information always holds true for the subject.

我是美国人。
I am an American.

Even though the person’s nationality might change, at the time of speaking, he wants to say that his current nationality is American. Note that he also describes himself as “American”, which is a noun. Hence, A 是 B means A is B (noun).
在 is used to describe a continuous action.

爸爸妈妈在喝茶。
Dad and Mum are drinking tea.

It shows that Dad and Mum are doing the action of drinking tea. If you said 是, then “drinking tea” would become a noun that is synonymous to “Mum and Dad”, and that makes no sense. Here, A 在 B means A is B (continuous tense of an action).
A similar concept in Spanish is the difference between “ser” and “estar”. Here, the “ser” is 是, and the “estar” is 在.


When radicals make words does Chinese convey two layers of meaning all the time?

You can consider radicals as affix and suffix, and when you see a common english word, most time you will not consider what's the affix and suffix means, because you know the word meaning, only when you consider on the word's source, you will discuss with the affix and suffix, that's same to Chinese. And, when you encounter a word that you don't familiar or recognize, you may guess the meaning by affix and suffix, but you also know, your guess may be wrong if you don't find a real explanation in dictionaries. Same to Chinese, we may guess the meaning and pronoucation of an unfamiliar char by radicals or by itself, but that's may not be correct.


What's the difference between 缺乏 and 缺少?

Two criteria to determine whether to used 缺乏 or 缺少:

In the sense of syntax, 缺乏 can only refer to abstract ideas or groups of item (somewhat abstract, I think) and it cannot be used to refer to numbers of items or any specific item. 缺少 can refer to anything which 缺乏 can refer to, plus it can be number specific. For example:

你缺乏合适的经验。 >>> abstract idea
我缺乏信心。 (I lack confidence.) >>> abstract idea
我们缺乏物资。 (We lack supplies.) >>> group of item
我缺乏维生素 C。 (I lack vitamin c.) >>> group of item (one does not have to have "a specific molecule" of vitamin c, thus 缺乏 can be used here.)

All of the above 缺乏s are interchangeable with 缺少.

这个城市缺少一个泳池。 >>> number specific
我缺少几本书。 (I lack a few books.) >>> specific items

However, in daily speech, 缺少 is often shortened to 缺, it sounds more natural.

In the sense of meaning, 缺乏 means "lack" in a more serious or more severe sense. 缺少 (or just 缺) means "lack" in general. For example:

你缺乏勇气。 >>> emphasise the seriousness of "lack". In this case, using the shortened form (你缺勇气) might seem a bit weird since this sentence probably is used in a more serious context.
这个城市缺少一个泳池。 >>> just "lack" in general, not in an urgent or serious way. Using 缺 (这个城市缺一个泳池) is also fine.
我们缺乏物资。 >>> probably want to emphasise the "lack" when one is in a bad scenario.

One only uses 缺乏 or 缺少 when one wants to emphasise the difference in meaning. Otherwise, people just say 缺 when refer to the general idea of "lack". In the written language, the shortened form 缺 is used less often since it is less formal.

In short, 缺少 = 缺, and 缺乏 is a specific and emphasised version of 缺少. It is a bit like 缺 means "lack", and adding 乏 makes it more serious (and can only refer to more abstract ideas :p).

Hope this helps.


Is the phrase "on a scale of 1 to 10" used often if at all?

To rate something, I would say:

(要)在十分內打個分數，(我會給六分)
On a scale of 1 to 10, (I would give it a 6.)

在十分內 = Under a score of 10, 要 is just optional.

Other ways of saying are:

若要评分，我会给...(To give a score, I would give...)
如果要我给分数，我会给...(If I have to rate it, I would give...)

It is not frequent in Chinese to say something like this, comparing to English. That Google translate is definitely wrong.


What is the difference between 免费 and 无偿？

免费 means free of charge. As pointed out by Wikipedia, it is usually applied to commercial products or services that normally charge money and now for free as a part of business strategy. E.g. 免费的午餐 (free lunch), 免费试吃 (free sample of food), etc.

无偿 means no compensation, or 'not asking anything for return'. It is usually applied to non-profit, voluntary activities. E.g. 无偿献血 (blood donation), 无偿社区服务 (community service provided by volunteers), etc. There are usages of 无偿 in legal space which can be connected with commercial activities, but that's a completely different way of expression in a completely different context.

Strictly speaking, '免费给了我六个苹果' means he gave you six apples for customer relationship for reasons like you're a frequent customer or you just make a bulk purchase of other stuffs. '无偿给了我六个苹果' means he gave you six apples out of kindness because you lost your wallet or you're starving. In spoken language, however, their usages are usually mixed and both of your sentences are fine.

BTW, '送' already implies 'for free'. So '免费送了' is unnecessary repetition but again sounds fine in spoken language.

Update: As the other answer pointed out, 无偿 is almost never used in Hongkong which indicates that the usages can be highly regional. Something to keep in mind.


Which one is correct to say "Hello everyone": 大家好 or 你好大家?

While 大家 does mean 'everyone', it functions like the 2nd person plural pronoun ('you all') here. In *你好大家, there are two problems:

With 你 always being the 2nd person singular pronoun, the plurality is confusing.
Even if you say it like *你們好大家 to match the plurality, there is much redundancy. It is ungrammatical and nonsensical to add a subject (大家) after a topic–comment (你們好) sentence.

Much better if you say 大家好 or 你們好 instead. 大家 is friendlier than 你們.


What is the pronunciation of 行 according to its context?

háng (in most noun)

(1) line, row  表格中的一行 a row in a table, 字里行间 between the lines

(2)  seniority among brothers and sisters， 我排行第二 I'm the second eldest one.

(3)  some place of business, 银行 bank，花行 flower shop，商行 trading company

(4)  trade, company(not very exact)     行业，同行

(5)  measure word 一行，两行
xíng (verb, use verb as noun)

(1) walk -> distance  步行，行走 walk, on foot,

(2) something used when going out  行装 outfit for a journey，行李 luggage

(3) transfer, propagation 行销 marketing, 风行一时 be in fashion

(4) be engaged in 进行 proceed  行刺 assassinate

(5) a surname 一个姓氏

(6) behaviour 行为

(7) elements only in 五行

(8) can, be able to, have the ability, ok to go

(9) soon 行将

(10) 'travel party' 张三等一行人来到花市。
héng  skill 道行


What does the sound "app" mean in Chinese?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any meaning in Mandarin itself, given that "words" in Mandarin end with either a vowel, "n", or "ng" (as per the pinyin romanization). It could be another word from English but I doubt it (given that I can't think of any other words with similar spelling/pronunciation in common usage). Moreover, in my experience, most people who speak Mandarin just use "app".

In my experience Cantonese speaking people seem more inclined to use "app" as well, even though there are a couple characters with slightly similar pronuncation (but as obvious, significantly different tones) in Cantonese, such as 鸭 (aap with the jyutping romanization system). That said, given the tonal nature of the words in Cantonese and the fact that there is still a different pronunciation, I don't think there's any risk of confusing "app" with any of those words.

(However, it's worth noting that my experiences have mainly been around Cantonese/Mandarin speakers who probably are inclined to code-switch with English words and phrases than average.)

To conclude, I'd say that while there might indeed be Chinese speakers who pronounce "app" as "A-P-P", I wouldn't attribute this to any words in Chinese with similar pronunciation and different meaning.


How to say: "I have been studying Chinese for 4 years."

Basically, all of your three sentences are correct, but different in emphasis.

The sentence 1 "我已经学习中文四年了" is the best match for "I have been studying Chinese for 4 years." In this sentence, you just tell the fact and try not to emphasize anything.

The sentence 2 "我学习中文已经四年了" emphasizes "四年了". Once you said sentence 2, you would probably want to say more on the result of your learning. Like, 我学习中文已经四年了, 我现在可以用中文进行简单的日常沟通了(I can make simple communications in my daily life in Chinese)...blah, blah

The sentence 3 "我已经学了四年的中文" emphasizes "学了四年". Once you said sentence 3 我已经学了四年的中文, you would probably want to say more on the negative side (different from sentence 2, where you say more on the positive side). Something like, 我已经学了四年的中文, 但我还是说不好(but I can't speak it well) or 但我还是什么都不会(but I still know nothing)。


What's the joke about Guanhua in Ticklish Tales Contiuned by Xiaoshi Daoren?

It seems that the The Shorter Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature Edited by Victor H. Mair also contains the same joke.
It begins on Page 437:

and continue on page 438

The original Chinese would need to be dug up to make any sense of this translation though.

Conversation Between a Senior Official and His Subordinate
from Sequel to Ticklish Tales
Man of the Way from Smallstone
A District duty officer who had obtained his position through purchase did not understand Mandarin.10 After he took office, he paid a courtesy call upon a regional official who asked him, "What are the customs like in your honorable district?"
"People don't cuss much there are there aren't many toms either."
"How are the fingerlings this year?"
"Finger rings cost two hundred and eighty cash."
"Are there many contributions of gentry grain?"
"Your servants teeth gently gleam."
"How are the commoners getting on"
"We only have a couple of cummin bushes, but there are lots of cinnamon trees."
"I was asking about the populace."
"We've got lots of poplars, but they don't produce much timber."
"I wasn't asking you about threes and such. What I am trying to find out about is the condition of the citizens."
Standing up hurriedly, the duty officer replied, "I regret to inform you, sir, that I have a face full of zits and an arse full of wens."
10. Mandarin (< Sanskrit mantrin [“counselor”]) quite literally means “language of the officials.” The Mandarin equivalent of this word is kuan-hua (official speech). Mandarin was the vernacular language employed by members of the Chinese bureaucracy who hailed from different parts of the country and, as such, spoke a variety of more or less mutually unintelligible native languages and topolects. Mandarin was based upon—but not entirely equivalent to—the language of the capital, being a somewhat refined version of the latter. This joke, which is challenging to render in English, reveals the difficulties inherent in forging a national bureaucracy from a multilingual constituency.

Apparently the original story in《嘻談續錄》is called《堂屬問答》and goes like this:

一捐班不懂官話，到任後，謁見各憲上司，問曰：「貴治風土何如？」答曰：「並無大風，更少塵土。」又問：「春花何如？」答曰：「今春棉花每斤二百八。」又問：「紳糧何如？」答曰：「卑職身量，足穿三尺六。」又問：「百姓何如？」答曰：「白杏只有兩棵，紅杏不少。」上憲曰：「我問的是黎庶。」答曰：「梨樹甚多，結果子甚小。」上憲曰：「我不是問什麼梨杏，我是問你的小民。」官忙站起來答曰：「卑職小名狗兒。」


What do you call these cold pickled cucumber skewers in Chinese?

冰鎮 =  chill with ice

pickled cucumber = 腌黄瓜

The item in the picture could be called 冰鎮腌黄瓜 or simply 冰鎮黄瓜

Of course the seller can name it whatever he wants, for example '冰脆黄瓜串'


Are there some differences between 信 and 讯？

The difference between 信 and 讯 is explained here Differences: 信息 vs 讯息?

讯: message; a specific piece of information

信: letter (contains information in general)

通风报信（why not 讯？）

Type in 通风报 in the search engine, the first page will be filled with 通风报讯 entries. Obviously, some people use 信 and 讯 interchangeably and made 通风报信 a somewhat accepted variant of 通风报讯 which is the standard one
通风报讯 (Whistleblowing) is more appropriate than 通风报信 because the act of 通风报讯 is more like sending a message than giving a report

新华社讯（why not 信？）

讯 in 新华社讯 implies there are specific pieces of information (news items).
新华社信 implies 'a letter from 新华社' -- like an editorial
More examples:
通信 = exchange letters (互通书信)
发信 = send a letter (发出书信)
通讯 = exchange message (互通讯息)
发讯 = send a message (发出讯息)
发讯号 = send a signal (发出讯号)


How to say "post" as in "post something online"?

Colloquially people use 'PO' (mostly in Southern China), 发, 贴, 放, or any verb that has a similar meaning.
Formal translation would be 发布 or 发表.

Did you see what I posted on Facebook? 你看见我在Facebook上PO的东西了吗？
Where did you post it? On WeChat Moments. 你发在哪了？微信朋友圈。


What is the difference beteween 并 and 和 in sentence (S. V. and V.)?

We don't usually use 并/和 to interpret (S. V. and V.) in English if two actions are not really relevant. Instead, we can use 又...又...

For example,

We sing and dance： 我们又唱又跳。 Not 我们唱 并/和 跳.
We eat and drink. = 我们又吃又喝。 not 我们吃 并/和 喝.

However, we use 和(not 并) to interpret (S. and S. + V.) and (S + V + O. and O.).

For example,

他和我去买东西。： he and I go shopping.
我吃苹果和香蕉。： I eat apple and banana.

并 is short for 并且, and could be used as conjunction, meaning 'and'. It often connects the two sentences or clauses. It could also connect two verbs if the two actions are logically relevant. (S. + V. and V. + O. )

For example,

我完全赞成并乐于接受这一安排。 I fully agree to the arrangement and take it delightfully. // connecting two clauses.
我赞同并接受这个决定。 I agree and accept the decision. // The two actions are relevant in this case.

In your case, 并 should be used as a conjunction for two clauses.

  我们在一起跑并参加了铁人三项赛.


Double verb will make your speaking sounds more casual, natural, cute, free,

Your username reminds me the meme


is 趁早 the same as saying as soon as possible? Can I use it by itself?

No, 趁早 does not exactly mean ASAP (as soon as possible).

趁 means to take the opportunity
早 means early
So, 趁早 means take the opportunity while it is still early or at the earliest.

Just to clarify further:

趁早 carries an emphasis on the window of opportunity. There is a deadline when such opportunity will be lost. The urgency of the matter is conditional on the window of opportunity. That is, it can be a very urgent matter that needs to be handled immediately, OR it can be a non-urgent matter that you can take your time as long as the opportunity still exist.

Some examples:

  如果你觉得这份工作不适合你，想要退出，要趁早让我知道。 If you think that this job is not
  suitable for you and want to quit, let me know at the earliest.
  看起来又要下雨了，你还是趁早把晾好的衣服给收起来吧。
  Looks like it is going to rain again soon, better keep all the laundry that you have just hanged out to dry while it is still early.

A better translation for ASAP would be 尽快.

  if someone asks me "你什么时候想去吃饭?

You can say "我想尽快去吃" to mean you would like to have your meal ASAP or "现在" to have your meal now if you are really in a rush.


To understand the differences between these two compound words. you need to first understand the meanings to 加 and 长。 While it's simple for 加 which just means addition (1加1=2), there are fives meanings to 长：1, grow; 2, length; 3, long ; 4, leader; 5, First

长大=grow up，长高 grow taller, 长长 grow longer (zhang chang) same word sounds different.
长边=Length;
长夜=long night；长城=great wall of China which means long wall;
班长=Leader to a class; 市长=leader to a city; 厕所长=leader to a bathroom；
长女=First born daughter to a family; 长老=oldest old people in a family;

增 simply means getting more;

so 增加 simply means getting more in addition.

but 增长 can mean a lot of things. Refer to "长" meaning from above.

Sometimes you can't use 增加， but you can use 增长, and visa versa.
For example. You have enlarged your penis. and you can say：我增长了我的阴茎。You can't use 增加 here， because you are not adding （加） something to your penis because you are only making it grow longer. 长 used here means 1, grow. But of course, if you had an accident and have part of your penis damaged and you have done a penis transplant, then you can use 我增加了我的阴茎。


Do tones change at the end of an interrogative sentence?

It's not a question of being an interrogative sentence.  The problem is that Chinese tones in connected speech often sound different from their textbook forms.  This is something most native speakers are unaware of, and even in the specialized literature it's hard to find detailed information about it.  (The third tone rules below are well-known in the literature.)

I'm going to use Yuen Ren Chao's notation for tones: the scale goes from 1 (low) to 5 (high).  So 55 is a high level tone, 51 is a falling tone, etc.

The third tone (textbook 214 or 215) undergoes two well-known changes (search for "third tone sandhi" or "half third tone").  First, if two third tones happen in a row (你好、我想、友好), the first of the words changes to second tone: ni35 hao214, wo35 xiang214, you35 hao214.

Second, all other third tones are pronounced as 21, not 214, in connected speech: low dipping, with no rise after.  Only very rarely will you hear the full falling-rising contour -- usually for emphasis on the last word in a phrase.

Now we get into tones which are less talked about:

The first tone (textbook 55) is always level, but how high it is depends on the level of emphasis.  It will be exceptionally high if you want to stress the word: 你喜不喜欢吃..中..餐 "Do you like Chinese food" -- instead of some other option.  It will often sound quite low as the second syllable in a two-syllable word (亚洲 "Asia" ya51 zhou22) and in other contexts where it doesn't need emphasis.

The second tone (textbook 25 or 35) often comes out sounding mid-level (33) or dipping-rising (434) -- this seems to be especially common at the end of a sentence.  (I struggled with this for a long time: I would hear second tones as third tones all over the place.)

I've discussed the third tone above; the fourth tone (51) is pretty straightforward.

Now, to answer your question: 你喜不喜欢吃中餐？  I clearly hear 欢 as a first tone -- it's medium level (33) because it's "light" or "lessed stressed" but it's quite clearly a first tone.  As for 中餐, I hear it as 中 being emphasized, as if the guy had just suggested pizza, and she was saying "how about something Chinese"?  There's a natural tendency for pitch to fall over the course of the sentence, so in principle it's not surprising to hear 餐 be lower than 吃.  But this voice does sound unnatural to me, probably because it's machine-generated speech.


If the sentence is 她是笨蛋学生 or 她是笨学生, it would mean She is a fool student, but since there is a 的 in between, 笨蛋 is a noun that refers to a person, and not an adjective anymore. So She is the student of a fool makes better sense.


Basically,
"一些" -> "some"
"一点" -> "a little", often use with uncountable nouns.
"有些", short for "有一些", can mean "have some" or "there are/is some" (You know in Chinese "own sth." and "sth. exist" using the same word "有").
It is the same with "有点".

The hard part is, do you need "有" in your sentence?

Here are some examples:

有些事情群众能做，我们领导干部不能做。——江泽民
There are some things that the crowd is Okay to do, while the officers should not. by Jiang Zemin, former president of China
这一点非常重要，但是有些同志还没有重视起来。——江泽民
It is very important, but (there are) some officers (are) not paying attention to it. by Jiang Zemin, former president of China

In sentences above, "有些" can be replaced by "一些".  However, the way President Jiang said it is more natural, following the habit of Chinese language.

我吃了一些面条。
I ate some noodles.

In this sentence, "一些" cannot be substitute by "有些" cause we already have verb "吃了" here.


成语 for expressing that a couple was meant for eachother

佳偶天成 (a perfect couple that's made by heaven)

天生一對 (born to be a perfect couple)

天造地設 (a perfect couple created by heaven)

天賜良緣 (a perfect marriage that was grant by the Heaven )

The_Anomaly wrote:

  ...which of these are perhaps more commonly used than the others?

佳偶天成, 天賜良緣, and 天作之合 are very literary phrases-- you usually find them in written form; and you only hear them commonly in wedding speeches.

天生一對 and 天造地設 can also be heard in wedding speeches, but they are more applicable in day-to-day conversations. They can describe something other than 'perfect couple'

天生一對 can refer to persons or things being extremely comparable or alike. For example: "你們倆一個是瘋子，一個是狂人, 真是天生一對." (one crazy, one mad; you two really are born to be a pair)
天造地設 can refer to persons or things being perfectly matched or perfectly suited in an arrangement. For example: "這是個天造地設的安排" (this is a perfect arrangement)


After tofu is made ready to eat, it is very hot. And even the outer part of the tofu get cooled down, the inner part is still very hot. It someone tries to eat it in a hurry, he will be hurt by the high temperature inside.

Rice or beef or some others cannot keep the inner part at a high temperature while the outer part is cooled down.

PS. When you try to eat tofu, please be careful.

PS2. sorry for the English, feel free to correct me.


I've seen it translated as: 你喜欢什么个性特征 but isn't 性特征 sexual characteristics?

Here 个性 as personality, 特征 as traits
There is actually a difference

你喜欢什么东西? - Which thing do you like.
你喜欢什么个东西? - Why do you like it.
你喜欢个什么东西? - Same as 1.

In 0, you don't know what they like and you want to know.
However, in 1. or 2. you know what they like but don't understand why, and likely  because you don't like it. But sometime 1,2 means the same as 0, it still depends on the context.

So I wasn't sure if it would be better to use 人格特质 in place of 性特征?

It really read as 什么(个性)(特征), not 什么个(性特征), so we can change 个性特征 to
人格特质 or just 个性 in short to avoid the confusion.

How to ask what personality traits do you like in Mandarin

你喜欢什么性格


In pinyin erhua is usually written with a natural tone:

r

哪儿, like you mentioned above, for example is written:

nǎr

Erhua is tacked on to the end of the pinyin and the tone is in the usual place for the preceding character.
An easier way to see this is probably for a word like 瓶儿. 瓶儿 is written:

píngr

The erhua is not merged into the pinyin (like you may see in some topolectical Romanizations) but just placed at the end somewhat unsightly. This is because the whole word is read as a whole and not in parts.


This does happen every now and then. It is just a way of expressing enthusiasm to see you.

And from experience it won't go on forever, usually just a second time, but sometimes people will say "你好, 你好" or even "你好, 你好, 你好" in a row.

Think of it as a handshake, it is not going to go on until it is awkward, just showing some enthusiasm with a couple of extra "hello's".

I would suggest going to the next part of the conversation with something like "你好吗?" or "你怎么样呀？". If you continue on with English with "Yes, I'm fine." this may be like dropping a handshake in the middle.


What's the difference between 懲處 and 懲罰？

惩处 - to penalize

惩罚 - to punish

The difference between these two words described on this site:
enter link description here

  As verbs the difference between penalize and punish is that penalize is to subject to a penalty, especially for the infringement of a rule or regulation while punish is to cause to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action.


Translation of Chinese word is not an English word?

The ABC dictionary definition in Pleco is "pliable but tough". Other dictionaries in my Pleco edition have the same definition.  The only one that has yours is ADSO which is a community dictionary provided by the people of Popup Chinese.

My hypothesis about the wide-spread use of this word:
In online Chinese dictionaries I often see non-existing English words being used in the translation. This seem to happen when the Chinese word doesn't exist in English and hence can't be translated by one word. There is a lot of copied material on Chinese websites. You for example also see this on the Chinese wiki alternatives. The texts on different sites on a certain topic are most of the time almost complete rip-offs. It seems that they just want to be as complete as possible with minimal effort and in this way errors are spread quite quickly.


What's the difference between 生态环境观 and 生态伦理观？

In my opinion,  "生态环境观" is more objective, it include ecological and environmental sciences. Whereas "生态伦理观" is "生态环境观" plus ethics. Specifically, "生态伦理观" is a branch of ethics, and is relative to the moral connection between human and nature, the research object is the moral connection between person and person affected by the relationship between human and nature, such as Good, evil, morality and immorality.


How would you translate a name consisting of dictionary words?

The norm is to make it:

a) similar in sound
b) follow Chinese naming conventions

and optionally also choose characters with a relevant or good meaning.

But just as authors can choose pen names such as 矛盾 and 莫言, a westerner can pick a name by your criteria. 矛狐狸 is rather elegant in this perspective, but would be considered a nickname, since 矛 is not a family name.


Writing a resume - traditional vs. simplified chinese

Simply depends on region. Put it this way: you use British English when you write resumes in Great Britain (and related regions/countries) and American English in the US. Nothing more than that. As you would not mix British and American English in an English resume, you would neither do so in a Chinese resume.

The places that use traditional Chinese are: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau.

The places that use simplified Chinese together with traditional Chinese: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand(See this). However using traditional Chinese in such regions can't go wrong.

The place that uses simplified Chinese only: mainland China.


他把手机摔坏过两三次

It's correct. 过 here denotes the action has happened. The action is 摔坏. The sentence can be parsed as:

  [他] [把(手机)摔坏过] [两三次]

In English: he has dropped and crashed his phone a couple of times.


Is there a difference between 回转 and 掉头?

回转 = "rotate" e.g. "1000rpm" means "rotate 1000 times per minute" = "每分鐘回转1000 次"

  回转 (至相反方向) = "rotate to opposite direction" = "turn 180°/ turn around"

~

  调头 = "turn around" (to the opposite direction)

  掉头 = "turn one's head; turn around"

调头 and 掉头 are interchangeable when it means "turn around" But 掉头 can mean "turn one's head" in different context


Why do Chinese people always use Chinese subtitles?

There are Chinese-language-only reasons like the many mutually-unintelligible dialects/topolects, the huge difference between spoken and written Chinese languages, but this doesn't explain why subtitling is ubiquitous, even when the entire show is in perfect Mandarin.
This is because subtitles are somewhat required under PRC state authorities, so there are a few other benefits/purposes for subtitling.

It improves literacy; according to OECD standards of literacy, China has about 80% literacy rate, meaning there are large sections of the populace that are illiterate. SLS (same language subtitling) has been shown to improve literacy, and apart from China this is also done in parts of India for the same reason.
It makes it easier to understand regional colloquialisms, as the subtitles will replace them with Mandarin versions. For example, the Cantonese "nei hai bin dou", instead of being shown as "你喺邊度", will be subtitled as "你在哪里".
It is more accessible to deaf viewers. Note that most other countries provide optional closed captions for this purpose.
It pushes Mandarin/putonghua hegemony, national unity and so on.

This is all enforced by SAPPRFT/SARFT (the equivalent of FCC, but much more powerful) under something called the Language Law. It is constantly evolving, and only really became prominent around the late 90s I believe. This is why if you look at older TV shows, they may not have subtitles. This state organ enforces many other things like requiring Mandarin proficiency for TV presenters, standardised Mandarin terminology, quotas for types of shows deemed less beneficial like reality-TV, historically-inaccurate dramas etc.


Help with Lishu character recognition (Character identified: 幾)

It seems 幾
The full quote being:

哲人知幾，誠之於思

The preceding and following characters also match.
Reference: http://shufa.guoxuedashi.com/5E7E/3500.html


Chinese characters and phonetics
You say:

Unlike English, Chinese is not a spelling language, which means there is no hint from the characters for pronunciation!!!

Luckily for us, that's not true! Actually, by some estimates, almost 90% of characters have a phonetic component to them. To understand what that actually means, you have to know how characters are constructed:
Types of characters
There are several ways in which characters are constructed. Westerners often exoticize and obsess over 1-3 and don't realize that 4 and 5 exist (and indeed, 5 makes up the vast majority of cases).

Pictograms -- These are visual representations of the morpheme they stand for. Of course, given how old these characters are, the modern forms are highly stylized, to the point of unrecognizability (e.g., 马 = horse). These are not common.

Simple ideograms -- These are iconic representations of abstract concepts (e.g., 二 = 2). Most uncommon category.

Compound ideograms -- These are juxtapositions of pictograms and ideograms, where the meaning is supposed to be inferred from that juxtapositions (e.g., 人 [man] + 木 [tree] = 休 [rest]). These are also not common.

Rebus characters (phonetic borrowings) -- It turns out that you can't actually draw pictures of all concepts. If you want to have a writing system where you can actually write down anything, you need to make reference to the spoken language. A common strategy (used in every independently invented system of writing) for getting around the limits of pictograms is the Rebus Principle: use existing symbols purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning. Chinese example: 來 (to come) originally was a pictogram of wheat, a word that had a similar pronunciation. You may also be familiar with rebuses in the context of amusing puzzles.

Phono-semantic characters -- It can be confusing to have two different morphemes written with the same character. Many phonetic loans were "clarified" by distinguishing the two usages by adding a semantically-suggestive piece. For example, 皇 (pronounced "huang2", meaning "emperor") and 蝗 (pronounced "huang2", meaning "locust", has the "bug" radical). The vast majority of characters are of this type. Unfortunately, the phonetic parts are often approximate or even poor.

Is Learning and Memorizing Chinese Characters much different than English?
It is different. Like I explained above, it's often the case that you can guess (or at least remember) the pronunciation of characters based on the pronunciation of other characters. Also, like I said, phonetics are far from perfect. There has been thousands of years of sound change working to make once-great phonetics bad. If you want to learn Chinese characters, it's going to be a lot of work, no matter how you slice it. Start with the basics, and once you work up to several hundred of them, you'll start understanding some of the patterns, both in terms of semantic radicals and common phonetic components.


How would you translate "throttling" to Chinese?

Bandwidth throttling=带宽限制

Throttled internet connection=（带宽）受限的网络连接


We can break this up into three parts

不见面 - to not meet
也有 - also has
不见面的好 -  the good aspect (or benefits) of not meeting

There's also benefits of not meeting (or not seeing (each other)).


Why do I see 我 for I, but is pronounced WAH

I made a little search in forvo.com, a worldwide database that hosts user-provided audios for words, characters and expressions in every language.
Making a quick search for 我, the results reveal several entries. The obvious ones Chinese and Japanese and others; among the others we have Min nan (Simpl: 闽南语; Trad: 閩南語; pinyin: Mǐnnán Yǔ), which is a family of Chinese language spoken in: China (PRC and ROC areas), Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, United States (New York City), and other areas of Southern Min and Hoklo settlement.1
If you go to the "results" link, and scroll down until you find "min nan", you'll see it's pronounced "wah". It's unambiguous, it's pronounced very open so you can't be mistaken when you find it. I checked the others and no-one else seems to say "wah".

1: definition, chinese version and locations are taken from Wikipedia.


If it is a Hong Kong movie, it is likely in Cantonese

  基 is transliteration of 'gay'

  /gei1/

  [5] (Cantonese slang only) phonetic translation of "gay" i.e. male homosexual e.g. 搞基,

~

  哥

  /go1/

  It is common to address a man with a  suffix  "哥", e.g. 晶哥 [zing1 go1*4], 叻哥 [lek1 go1*4].*

  remember 犀利哥?

~

  牛郎

  /ngau4 long4 /

  a gigolo, a male sex worker

牛郎 is a male sex worker (serving older female mostly)

基哥牛郎 most likely refers to 'male sex worker (specialized in serving male clients)'


老鸽 is an intentional typo.  鸽(Pigeon) can mean "get stood up"(被鸽了，被放鸽子) or "stood sb. up"（放某人鸽子）.  So this is the combination of both 'bro' and 'a guy that often does not show up in appointments'.


Some doubts about "copulative sentences" in Chinese

The same structure exists in Chinese

  Jenny (is) Jenny --> 珍妮(就是)珍妮

  Money (is) money --> 錢(就是)錢

~

  She's (not being/ not like) herself today --> 她今天(不是/ 不像是)她本人

  Silver and coin (was not) the first currency  --> 錢銀(不是)最初的貨幣

  This amount of money (is not/ is not counted as) money to me --> 這數目的錢對我來說(不是/不算是)錢

~

  (Are) they them? --> '他們' (是那個) '他們'嗎?

  (is) he him? -->'他'(是那個)'他'嗎?

~

  He (is) me (and) she (is) you -->'他'(就是)我(而)'她'(就是)妳

  Money is currency ; currency is money --> 錢(就是)貨幣；貨幣(就是)錢


Two contrasts between 文 and 武, culture and war

As a native Chinese speaker, I knew "文无第一 武无第二" when I was very young. However, I have never heard of "文无第二 武无第一".


What is the purpose of the website zuowen8.com, which contains student essays?

It's called 作文吧。

  What is the purpose of the website? E.g.:
  are the essays uploaded by students? Are they error-free?
  is this meant to be a student resource, or a system to prevent plagiarism in essays?

I think this website is for primary school/secondary school/high school students. The purpose is to provide some good examples to show how to write a good article/essay.

It's a kind of student resource, and usually, make it easy to plagiarize. Not sure if it's bug-free. But it's "high-grade" in exam.

  What does the website's catchphrase (让写作成为一种习惯) mean? My guess is: Let writing become (something of) a habit. (is 一种 a quantifier here?)

It's a slogan. Yes It's "Let writing become a habit".


「公然站到占世界五分之一人口的中国人民的对立面」里的「站到占」是什么意思？

问题：在上面的片段中「站到占」是什么意思？

不是 「站到占」而是 「站到 占世界五分之一人口的 ....」

[公然] [站到] [占世界五分之一人口的] [中国人民的] [对立面]

「公然站到 占世界五分之一人口的 中国人民的 对立面」

"Openly stand on the opposite side of the Chinese people, which account for one-fifth of the world's population"


Taiwanese Guoyu vs. Putonghua 阴平/阳平 tone split?

In this case, all of the characters were not even 平声 at all in Middle Chinese, but were all 入声 instead [Wiktionary's IPA]:

  夹 (夾) /kˠɛp̚/

  扎 /t͡ʃˠɛt̚/

  击 (擊) /kek̚/

  息 /sɨk̚/

All of the above started with voiceless unaspirated (obstruent) consonants, so are all 阴入 in Middle Chinese. For Standard Mandarin, these reflexes are notoriously unpredictable anyway. You may see that many (though not most) of the 多音字 of Standard Mandarin fall into this Middle Chinese tone category.

  跌 /det̚/

This, on the other started with a voiced plosive in Middle Chinese, hence 阳入. As this was an obstruent voiced plosive, in Standard Mandarin this is regularly to be merged into 阳平, so dié would have been expected for 跌.

This leads to the question, how did speech in Beijing get distributed as such? Various hypotheses have been proposed:

dialect mixing (much more important nowadays; there is an example of Jinan in Shandong being influenced by Standard Mandarin, increasing the number of 上声 because of its phonetic similarity to Beijing's 阴平);
initial consonant (labial towards 去声, others toward one of the 平声);
tone sandhi; some characters were more common in the middle of words, where they are more likely to be non-flat in contour (so more likely to become modern 阳平)

These are not conclusive; all that we can say is that the entering tone was particularly unstable, and variation in how it is pronounced is to be expected.


How to say "slang" in Cantonese and Mandarin?

For "slang"

俚語- Mandarin

俗称- 'slang' (n) Cantonese e.g.「孖煙囪係男裝短內褲嘅俗称」('Double chimney' is a slang for men's short under pants)

俗称 (v) 'commonly called' e.g, 「男裝短內褲俗称孖煙囪」 (men's short under pants is commonly called 'Double chimney'

俗语 = 'folk saying/ as the saying goes' e.g. 俗語都有話：「牛唔飲水點㩒得牛頭低」( As the saying goes: " If a bull doesn't want to drink water, there's no way you can force its head down")


You can think the "的" is implicitly to include the words - "Food" or something else for eat.

In Chinese, sometime we will skip the word in daily use.

For example:
我是买了一些吃的 =  我是买了一些吃的(東西)
It mean: I have buy something to eat, so that without (東西) also the same meaning as well, but actually it is not a formal grammar.

see one more example:
我做了一些好吃的 = 我做了一些好吃的(東西)
It mean: I have make something delicious, same as above, skipping the (東西) have the same meaning.

(東西) can be another words depend on what you refer to, it can be "飯/Rice", "蛋糕/Cake", "雪糕/ice-cream" etc.


Why is there an 'ear' component in the character for smell? 闻 聞

「聞」(Baxter-Sagart OC: /*mu[n]/) is comprised of semantic「耳」(ear) and phonetic「門」(/*mˤə[r]/), indicating the meaning to hear. For example,「新聞」means news (literally meaning new information passed on by hearing/reading/etc.)

  「門」does not play a meaning role in「聞」. For that matter, it does not play a meaning role in「問」, either.

To smell is a semantic extension. For example, in English, there's something fishy going on is used to describe a situation which is not quite right, literally referring to the smell of fish, but metaphorically referring to someone picking up information about their surroundings and deducing that something feels off.


Will someone translate these characters into English?

The first one is 張 (zhāng), and about the second one, I'm not so sure, could be 直 zhí Probably?


These three phrases differ in register, which affects how and when they will be used.

méi bànfǎ 沒辦法 is basic Mandarin and can be used in ordinary speech and writing without any issues arising.

mò kě nàihé 莫可奈何 is a highly learnèd idiom; a more common form is wú kě nàihé  無可奈何. As four-character Classical idioms, they have a certain formal "air" to them, even though 無可奈何 is pretty common. But it is a less basic expression than 沒辦法 — I would use 沒辦法 nine times out of ten, at least. I have never used 莫可奈何.

méizhé 沒轍 is highly colloquial and has a regional flavor. I wouldn't use it unless it's part of your normal regional accent.


青龙 should be translated as 'Azure (or Green/Blue) Dragon', that is the accepted translation for the mythological context. (Check some dictionaries, Pleco or CEDICT, they all use Azure Dragon, Wikipedia, and this Wiki article on the Four Symbols, too.)

Why would 青 mean nothing here? You can argue if it is blue, green or azure, but it is a color. Perhaps the people who translated 青龙白虎 as 'Dragon and White Tiger' just got confused about the different equivalents of 青 (blue, green, black) and left it out.

If Wikipedia is not authoritative for you, you can try a site colon search on Google with site:edu 青龙 . This will search for 青龙 on the websites of American universities. You can see that most of these sources will give the translation as either Blue, Green or Azure Dragon.

If you are still looking for some evidence, there are some books written on (or inspired by) Chinese mythology with the title bearing your expression:


The answer by  Camila Ting Chen is close. We don't use 再次 in an present active sentence. We use 再次 with some perfectness or passiveness. Such passiveness is not necessarily related to the conjunctive 被 however. A simple rule is when we can say 再 alone, say it alone.

我再次来到这家餐厅。

我时隔数年再次遇到一位朋友。

这盘菜再次被我吃掉了。 while this sentence is not logical at a first glace, it sound good in this specific situation.


Depending on the context and the desired nuance, there can be different translations for this expression. I shall follow the main definitions given by Farlex Dictionary of Idioms:
1. adjective Very physically close to someone or something. Hyphenated if used before a noun.

蘇菲亞告訴我，她會在我們的衝浪之行中當我的私人教練。我喜歡這個主意，因為這就表示我們可以有近距離的接觸。
Sofia has told me she would be my personal instructor on our surfing excursion. I like that because it means we will be getting up close and personal with each other.

The above example is from here. 有近距離的接觸 (lit. to have contact in close distance) is a rather neutral saying. Other slightly more intimate adjectives that can be added before 接觸, with or without 的, include 親密 and 密切. Alternatively, the verb 親近 can be used if a specific object is identified, as in

她喜歡親近你。
She likes to be close to you.

2. adjective Very intimate and personal, especially to an uncomfortable or unwanted degree. Hyphenated if used before a noun.

我不喜歡男人在最初數次的約會上便跟我套近乎。
I don't like it when guys try to get too up close and personal in our first couple of dates.

套近乎 has a derogatory meaning and is rather colloquial. Here provides the definition 'to worm one's way into being friends with someone'. Usually there is an ulterior purpose implied.
3. adverb In a very close and intimate manner or to such a degree.

那些審計師對於我們的財務習慣瞭如指掌。
The auditors got to know our financial habits very up close and personal.

This specific sense is best translated as the idiom 瞭如指掌 (lit. knowing something as clear as pointing that on one's palm to others).

I would say the given sentence can be translated as 她喜歡與人有親密接觸 or 她喜歡跟別人套近乎. There may be better translations than these.


Is Autumn being referred to by the female pronoun 她? Is this normal?

Yes, It is a very common way to refer something to pronoun 她 in Chinese, commonly known as personification. In such a way, the author can strengthen his/her feelings about autumn. There are also many similar cases: such as 长江/黄河/故乡(Yangzi River/Yellow River/hometown) can often be referred to 她 as well.


Which is better for "undo" in computing: 撤消 or 撤销

the standard form is 撤销 according to 现代汉语规范词典第3版

销 has the meaning to destroy, 撤销 is to destroy the current changes
消 has a passive meaning. Since 撤消 is an active action, 撤销 is more proper


No, it does not imply a recent change.

「到現在」does literally translate to until now, but their usage is different, as you've already noted (a continuation of conditions).

In English, until now means practically the same thing as until recently.
In Chinese,「到現在」means something like up to this very day in English.「到現在我還在...」means up to this very day, I'm still...
To say the equivalent of English until now (that is, implying a change in condition), you should say something similar to「到目前爲止...」.「爲止」is an explicit statement that stops the otherwise implied continuation.


the trimetrical classic (三字經) is extracted from ancient confucianism literatures, in three characters verses.

the eight verses in question are derived from 禮記　禮運

  父慈．子孝．兄良．弟弟．夫義．婦聽．長惠．幼順．君仁．臣忠十者．謂之人義

if you've some knowledge of confucianism, you can find components of 五倫 from these eight verses:

  君臣．父子．兄弟．夫妻．朋友

each one of these have two "人義"; so five of them makes ten "人義".

have fun :)


Not sure how literal you are trying to be, but if you want to say that this is a sparkling drink as opposed to a flat drink, 有气 or 有气泡 is what I've heard.

On the other hand, foods and drinks can be described as 爽快 (Shuǎngkuài), meaning refreshing, puts you in good spirits, etc. 爽 can also be used to describe a good feeling or state, i.e. 我感觉很爽 after a good meal or experience.


ABC's entry for 呀 says:

呀
ya5
(replacing a (啊) when preceding word ends in a, e, i, o, or (y)u)
快来呀!
Kuài lái ya!
Come quickly!

呀 is a replacement for 啊 when it comes after a vowel.
This is also corroborated by《规范》's entry:

助 “啊(a)”受前一个音节末尾音素ɑ､e､o､i､ü的影响产生音变而采用的不同写法
说话(huà)呀 | 车(chē)呀 | 你说(shuō)呀 | 起来(lái)呀 | 快去(qù)呀。


The character "饭" itself in the word "做饭" has a literal meaning as "meal". So if you say "做饭饺子", the whole meaning of the sentence would become "prepare 'meal dumplings'", it contains a strange phrase "meal dumplings" (饭饺子) which is not in the regular Chinese vocabulary.

In this sense, "饭" is just a generic character referred to any kind of meal, if you mean to refer to a specific type of food, you should just replace "饭" with that food such as "饺子".


How do you say "Thursday will be cloudy" in Chinese

"thursday will be cloudy" means "星期四（是）阴天" or "星期四（是）多云".

有风 means 'windy', not 'cloudy'.

We usually say "星期四（天气）（会）很热”, "星期四有风”, "星期四(是)晴天”， "星期四有雨”， "星期四（可能）（会）下雨” and etc.


What's the difference between 之间 and 中间?

I think there's a couple more important distinctions.

中间 is used for when talking about the physical location being in the center/between.

ie. You would say:

  箱子的中间有个人。

之间 is used when abstract things are in the center/between. This applies to things like numbers.

ie. You would say:

  我们之间没有爱。

Here's a specific example of how the two words have a different meaning.

我们中间有障碍。 : There are (physical) obstacles between us.

我们之间有障碍。 : There are (mental) obstacles between us.


What is the difference (and english translation) between 风浪 and 涌浪?

According to this webpage from the Ocean University of China, '风浪'='wind wave', and '涌浪'='swell'.
That webpage also gives the following definitions:
风浪(wind wave): They are generated by the wind, restored by gravity, and progress in a particular direction.
涌浪(swell):When the waves move out of the storm center, forced waves become free waves moving at speeds due to their periods and wavelengths. Once away from the storm these long-period, uniform waves are called swell.

According to the Wikipedia definition of Swell (ocean), the swells are
"These series of surface gravity waves are not generated by the immediate local wind, instead by distant weather systems, where wind blows for a duration of time over a fetch of water. This is the primary definition of a swell as opposed to a locally generated wind wave, which is still under the influence of the mechanisms that created it e.g. Wind blowing over a puddle."

To my understanding, '风浪' has two meanings. The broader meaning refers to all waves generated by wind blowing; the narrower meaning refers to "a locally generated wind wave, which is still under the influence of the mechanisms that created it", to distinguish from '涌浪'.


Chinese Character Reading: What browser-based chat sites are available from inside China?

The usual place for Chinese people to chat is WeChat.  You can login and chat using a browser via the link https://wx.qq.com/.

Here's a screenshot of me chatting with my Chinese teacher:

I'm using the Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary extension for Firefox.


What meaning does ** (double asterisk) have in chinese?

Just as in the prude American culture, it is a kind of abominable censorship of certain expletives, like 狗日的 (fucking), 他妈的 (fucking), 我肏 (fuck), 我靠 (fuck) etc.


Does watching Chinese movies with English subtitles help in learning Mandarin?

From my experience, I would say no. The translations for movie subtitles are usually too loose to be of much use.

However, if you watch a Chinese movie with Chinese subtitles, that definitely  helps. You can see exactly what they're saying, so you can test your hearing and work on your hanzi recognition at the same time.


can I say "我们这个学期学过的课比上个学期多十课”？

Correct.
"我们这学期比上学期多学10课。" may be a better translation.


暗戀 is usually translated as having a crush, the chinese word usually means that the subject being crushed on does not know of it, while I feel the english word for crush can be interchanged with "like / have feelings for / fancy someone"


Why 天 is chosen for counting days instead of 日 in Mandarin?

Interesting question. Is there a preference when it comes to using 天 for 日?

In my opinion, there are no such a strict rules when it comes 天vs日.(I was born and raised in southern China, lived in the North for several years. I speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Hakka)

Basically, 周天and周日, 星期日and星期天,明日and明天, 改日and改天 are all equivalent. But why people prefer one to another?

There're some reasons:

In some south-western dialects, 日and一 have similar pronunciation. So people prefer use 周天than周日。
Speaking in rhyme. 天tian1, 日ri4. So in some cases, it sounds weird to use天, but in another case, it sounds weird to use 日。That's depends.


Site for reading the same news article in English and Chinese (简体中文）

I know two great sites just like you said. Hope you like it.

东西网 and 译言网.


May I ask for help deciphering this seal?

Right-hand-side seal

「取諸懷抱」
Indulge in one's deepest thoughts, a line from the preface of the poem anthology Lántíng Xù.

Left-hand-side seal: I believe this is

屮　亾（亡）
　艸
二　中

I cannot make sense of this. Maybe 「二屮」 refers to 「艸」 in the middle. This might be a puzzle, or might be nonsense.


What are the rules for this grammatical construction: 我去听他的演讲去晚了

Two clauses compressed to one by reintroducing the verb. The first instance is descriptive (I am going to listen to his lecture). The second instance describes the result of the action (I came late).

You need to reintroduce the verb to give 晚 the proper context. Without it, 晚 would refer to 演讲.

Sometimes you can omit one instance of the verb: 你（说）汉语说得很流利。

Sometimes you really have no choice: 你说汉语比我说汉语说得好。


Why does 三明治 mean sandwich when 三 means 3, 明 means bright/clear, and 治 means to rule?

That 三明治 came from transcribing the English word Sandwich into Chinese. That is to say, it is meant to approximate the pronunciation of the English word. You aren't meant to interpret the individual characters literally.

As Stan points out, it is sometimes transcribed as 三文治 as well. Historically it has also been written as 三味治, but that's pretty much extinct.


Well, sometimes you won't translate 'among', see your first sentence. Other times, 'among' will translate simply as 中, or a combination of 在 ... 中, like your second sentence. 在 ...  间 is also common, but there are other ways. Of course, exactly if and how 'among' is expressed will depend on the context.

He's very popular among the students.
他很受学生（的）欢迎。
Quite a few students have passed the exam, and I am among them.
相当多的学生通过了考试，我也在其中。

Edit: Reading this morning, I came across this:

国家文物局明确指出，“西市” 是隋唐丝绸之路的起点，要纳入申请世界文化遗产的名录当中。

纳入 ...当中 or just plain 当中, in my opinion, is "among", but I wouldn't translate it that way.


How are "vernacular" and "literary" readings of characters chosen and used outside of Mandarin?

Firstly, let us clarify one distinction:

"literary Chinese" (文言文), a register of the written language in common use across the East Asian Sinosphere before the early 20th century. Its opposite is "vernacular Chinese" (白話文)
"literary readings of Chinese characters" (文讀), a set of readings mapping Chinese characters from written form to spoken form. Its opposite is "colloquial reading" (白讀).

The literary readings are derived from the correspondences to higher prestige variants, usually a form of Mandarin, from the historical capital at that time. They generally diffused into the local speech through education, and it is perhaps due to the meritocratic nature of the 科舉 (imperial examination) that this influence was exerted on "rural speech" at all.

Colloquial readings on the other hand arise from "native" sound changes, and are generally closer to Middle Chinese phonology (or even Old Chinese phonology in the case of the Min group) than the literary readings.

The exact nature of the literary / colloquial split varies across the varieties of Chinese, but it must be emphasised that each reading is generally fixed, and despite the "literary/colloquial" moniker does not correspond directly to linguistic register. Instead, the situation is much more similar to that of Japanese 音読み (on'yomi) vs 訓読み (kun'yomi), where on'yomi was borrowed from a form of Chinese, whilst kun'yomi was "native". However, there is little if any choice to use one or the other; the expression itself dictates which is used.

These factors include:

Names: for Min, given names are in literary, surnames are in colloquial. Country names are overwhelmingly in literary, especially if they are transliterated from other non-Chinese languages. Other geographical names are interesting, as there is a distinction (at least in Min Dong) between locations which are colloquial (nearer to the speech community geographically, hence in-group) and those which are literary (further). In Fuzhou Min Dong, 江 is colloquial gĕ̤ng in 閩江 Mìng-gĕ̤ng, the Min River, which flows through the city of Fuzhou; whereas it is literary gŏng in 江蘇 Gŏng-sŭ, referring to Jiangsu.
Neologisms: anything perceived in the language environment as "modern" and therefore a loan from the prevailing standard speech will be in literary.
Bound vs free morphemes: most free morphemes are in colloquial, whereas bound morphemes in compound words have a higher probability of being in literary (although not always).  Occasionally, the same character's literary and colloquial readings will have spawned two lexemes with different meanings, e.g. Cantonese 驚 has the colloquial reading geng1 meaning "to be afraid, to fear", contrasted with literary ging1 "to frighten". But ging1 is found primarily in compounds whereas geng1 can be used independently.
Idioms: chengyu (成語) are in literary, but suyu (俗語) are generally in colloquial.

So I would expect 新加坡 and 新加坡共和国 to have only a literary pronunciation in Teochew (as well as all other Chinese topolects), and for that to be the only pronunciation used, both in formal and in informal settings.

EDIT: I have seen the following claim (Rethinking East Asian Languages, Vernaculars, and Literacies, 1000–1919, p.279) -

  in other [regional languages and dialects], speakers may shift between the two, though not always consciously; the choice is dictated by habit, local convention, and circumstances.

Though there is no a priori problem with the claim, the data used was a particular stylistic form of storytelling from Yangzhou, rather than general speech.


Is there a breakdown of the simplification scheme into methods?

The second round is just a continuation of the first, so the methods involved are quite similar. For a break down of each simplified character and their corresponding method, you can check the Simplified Character Table 《簡化字總表》.
There are three sub-tables, the first one contains simplifications that can not be used as rules to simplify radicals in other characters; the second one contains characters that can be applied to others; and the third one shows the result of such application of rules.
The first table is most relavent to your question: see the Simplification Method column (簡化方法). For example 改換聲旁 means "replacing phonetic radicals", 刪減偏旁 means "deleting radicals" (corresponding to the method "leaving only part of the character" in your list), and so on.


As far as I know, 小姐 (xiao3jie3) is not very appreciated anymore by waitresses, even in Beijing; they might even be offended because that is how girls who sell their bodies are addressed. That is how Chinese people explained it to me. Waiters, be it male or female, are addressed as 服务员 (fu2wu4yuan2) and it is safe to call them that.


How do expressions like "二嫂" work in Mandarin?

嫂 means "sister-in-law"
杨二嫂  means "wife of the second son of the Yang family".
It doesn't matter if you are the elder son or third son in the Yang family, she is still 二嫂 (second sister-in-law) to you. The character 二 here doesn't indicate older or younger, it indicates the second born.
Outsiders would call her 杨二嫂 to indicate they are addressing the "Yang's second daughter-in-law.
"second aunt-in-law Yang" is 杨二嬸
"second uncle-in-law Yang" is 杨二叔


Today they are interchangeable as long as they mean "miserly". 小器 predates 小氣

In The Analects, Chapter 3 (論語 ‧ 八佾) (4th-3rd century BC)

  子曰：管仲之器小哉。或曰：管仲儉乎

"Confucius says Guan Zhong is miserly, but someone asks if he is frugal?"

Does it make sense that 小器 means miserly? Yes and no because "miserly" and "frugal" are not identical. But 小器 also means narrow-minded or intolerant as if he has small "capacity to contain" (器) different opinions.

In Dream of the Red Chamber (18th century), Cao Xueqin used 小器 and 小氣, both meaning miserly.

In Chapter 40,

  不送些玩器來與你妹妹，這樣小器。

"You didn't give those toys to your sister. So miserly"

But in Chapter 67

  我又不是兩三歲的孩子，你也忒把人看得小氣了

"I'm not a child of 2-3 years old. You are mistaken that I'm miserly"

Does it make sense that 小氣 means miserly? Yes and no because 小氣 also means petty, narrow-minded and frivolous.

In 漢語大詞典, 小器 and 小氣 are synonyms. In 辭源 (1908), which focus on etymology and classical Chinese, only 小器 is listed as entry with the definition

  小器——吝嗇。同‘小氣’

小器, miserly, same as 小氣

In many modern dictionaries, 小器 is omitted.

In summary, today you can safely use either 小氣 or 小器 (miserly), either 氣度 or 器度 (tolerance). Only 小氣 (simplified: 气) is more modern. Thus, in modern colloquial 小氣鬼 (a scrooge), 氣 is used.


Why does "拒不" mean "to refuse to do something"?

It seems that there are some teachers in school think the same as you do.

This also shows that there may be still debate in Chinese academia about how to explain this, so there might be not a definite answer.

Also, 拒不 is still not considered a word. But as it is used more and more frequently, it is becoming one.

Another article on CNKI might shed some light on how to understand it, (but I cannot access the full article, only the abstract) which lists some similar phrases:

拒不VV
拒而不V
拒绝不VV

(a little hard to decipher the symbols in the abstract without the full article) The author seems to be claiming that it is two negative sentences "mixed" together.


What's the differece between 朘 (U+6718) and 脧 (U+8127)?

This kind of confusion is one example among a broader category involving the graphical conflation between ⺼(肉) and 月 and the Taiwan Ministry of Education's (MoE) near-monopoly on typefaces for Traditional Chinese Characters combined with the MoE's insistence on introducing written features to printed (now digital) characters.

(Block) printing was invented in the Han Dynasty and has been around for around 1800 years. As a result, Chinese characters have always had at least two different aesthetic standards - that is, those surrounding printed characters and those surrounding written characters. To be brief, handwritten characters (including obscure variants you sometimes see in calligraphy) contain more ancient and etymologically correct features, whereas printed characters emphasise graphical balance, sometimes at the cost of these etymological features.

Characters which contain the simplified flesh component ⺼ were correctly handwritten this way, that is, with the inner two strokes not horizontal (although this non-horizontal rule was commonly not obeyed over the course of history), whereas characters which contain the moon component 月 were always handwritten with straight strokes. Contrast this to the printed form, where these two were always traditionally nigh-indistinguishable:

Excerpt from the History of Ming (明史). Note the circled characters; the
 月 in 明 and ⺼ in 肥 are indistinguishable.

Most of the time, there is no confusion, as 月 as a semantic component to do with moon is overwhelmingly found on the right hand side, where characters with the flesh component do not usually put ⺼ on the right hand side. On the rare case that there is potential for confusion, at least someone in history has erred in some official document somewhere, which then sets a precedence for two easily confuse-able characters to be interchanged. This should answer your first statement ('They seem to be interchangeable').

In contrast to Japan, which maintained the tradition of keeping the aesthetics of the printed and written forms separately, both the PRC and the ROC (Taiwan) have instituted reforms which bring the printed form 'closer' to the written form. The new character forms in Mainland China are called 新字形, and Taiwan's MoE made an official promulgated list of characters in 1982 (see 常用國字標準字體表) and a revision in 1998 (for a brief overview of the final standard in Taiwan, see 國字標準字體). The Mainland's 新字形 left the printed non-difference between ⺼ and 月 untouched but merged separate characters which originally contained ⺼ or 月 in the same position (all other parts of the character being the same), while Taiwan's 國字標準字體 forced ⺼ to look like the traditional handwritten version. Note that Unicode references the Taiwan MoE's standard in their standardisation of Traditional Chinese character glyphs; Taiwan's treatment of printed forms has not been without criticisms, and there has been at least one incident involving an official Microsoft Packaged font (MingLiu); see this.

The difference in policy between China, Taiwan, and Japan explains why

The PRC is more likely to treat and even print those two characters identically and list two definitions under the one merged character;
The ROC is more likely to treat them as two different characters;
Pleco treats the one with 月 as the simplified form of the one with ⺼, because Taiwan is the biggest player in setting the standard on 'Traditional Chinese Characters', and has insisted on creating a separate character with ⺼;
The Japanese treatment of these characters (see 朘 and 脧) has the left component appearing almost identical. However, they are not considered variants in Japan, and are listed under two entries.


What is the etymology of Chinese tense words?

According to Wikipedia, the first Chinese's grammar《馬氏文通》is written by 馬建忠 in 1898, meaning that most likely, there was no use at all of 過去式、現在式 and 未來式 before that. Now, if we investigate a bit by searching the tenses we are interested in, we can quote:

記時之式有四：一，事成之時；二，既往之時；三，幾時之久；四，未來之時。凡此四時，類無介字為先，故亦列於賓次。

In my understanding, this states the existence of three tenses corresponding to the perfect, the past and the future.


Since 帮助 itself can be a verb for 'help', you can simply write:

[1. 我的中国朋友][2. 帮助][3. 我][ 4.写(omit 我的)中文文章]

[1. subject][2. verb][3. object][4. relative clause ]

  If you use 帮助 as a noun for 'assistance' then the structure would be:

[1. 我的中国朋友][2. 给][3. 我][4. 写中文文章的][5. 帮助]

[1. subject] [2. verb] [3. indirect object][4. adjectival clause for the direct object][5. direct object]

  The problem with 我的中国朋友给我帮助写我的中文文章 is the placement of the adjectival clause for the direct object.

[1. 我的中国朋友][2. 给][3. 我][4. 帮助][5. 写我的中文文章]

[1.subject][2.verb][3.indirect object][4.direct object] [5.adjectival clause for the direct object]

  It should be placed before the direct object with the possessive particle [的]

[1. 我的中国朋友][2. 给][3. 我][5. 写(omit 我的)中文文章][的][4. 帮助]


A subject in the sentence is missing
The following sentences would all be correct:
那本书我找了很长时间也没找到.
那本书他找了很长时间也没找到.
那本书大卫找了很长时间也没找到.
We omit subject all the time in dialogues, but only when it is strongly implied the subject is known
Example:
A: "我找到了不少作家X 未成名之前寫的書。"
B: "那作家X用不同筆名寫的那本你也找到了嗎？"
A: "那本书(我)找了很长时间也没找到。"
In this dialogue, B knows the subject in the last sentence is A himself. therefore omitting 我 is acceptable on B's point of view. Nonetheless, 那本书找了很长时间也没找到 is still ungrammatical
Note: You can replace 很长时间 with 很久. The meaning will not change
The above answer is based on Standard Written Chinese (SWC)


无期 (without time limit) in '无期徒刑' is short for '无限期' . However, the term '无期徒刑' itself is a common set phrase for 'life sentence' . Therefore '无限期徒刑' is considered incorrect phrasing of "life-sentence' , although it is not grammatically incorrect. ('无限期' as an adjectival phrase that modifies the noun '徒刑')

无限期 (without time limit) is a phrase made up of 无 (without) and 限期 (time limit).

When used as an adjective, it requires an adjective marker '的' as in '无限期的徒刑' (jail sentence that without a time limit)
When used as an adverb, it requires an adverb marker '地' - as in '无限期地監禁' (indefinitely imprison)
'无限期' can also be an adverbial phrase, and modifies a verb without marker, as in '无限期罢工'

无期 (never) in '會再无期'(no date/ never to meet again) is an adverb


"討厭不討厭？" is a substantially shortened version of "討厭？還是不討厭？"

As you can see, it is quite wordy. In practicality, "討厭不討厭？"  is still one character too long. The standard practice is to shorten it down to "討(厭)不討厭?" (the shorter the better)

Similarly:

"明白不明白？" is  always shortened to 明不明白？or even further to "明不明？"
"知道不知道？" is  always shortened to 知不知道？or even further to "知不知？"

Avoid wordiness and omit as much as possible as long as the meaning is clear is consider good writing.


Is there a distinction between 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó) and 馍夹肉 (mójiāròu)?

The second is just right-to-left writing.  See  Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts .
Historically, Chinese was written in vertical columns, with columns progressing from right to left.  In the 20th century a shift was made so that most writing is in rows, from left to right.

  Today, the left-to-right direction is dominant in [Chinese, Japanese,
  and Korean] ... However, right-to-left horizontal writing is still
  seen in these scripts, in such places as signs [and]  stands selling
  food at festivals.

Think of the right to left horizontal writing as showing just a top character in each of a series of columns from right to left.