From what I could find,

「郭先生」is a Southern Chinese topolect word for「角先生」; I suppose that's believable as「郭」and「角」sound more similar in Southern topolects than northern ones (and they appear to be identically pronounced in Hakka). This makes「郭」a euphemism for「角」.
Folk etymology has「角」relating to dildo due to either

Dildos being originally made of animal horns, hence「角」;
Dildos being literally called ramming devices (觸器), and character explanations for「觸」are something like 从角蜀聲.

「郭」sounding like cock is probably a coincidence. Although the expression「角先生」seems to have arisen (or become more widespread) during the latter half of the Qing dynasty and according to dictionaries English was using cock as a slang for penis by that time, dildos existed for centuries before that, and it is unlikely that a word for dildo would come from British slang but wasn't first introduced by the British.

See also the Baidu article; CAUTION: NSFW, has a picture of a dildo on the top (all other sites trying to describe this seem to use the same explanations).


How to say things are different from one another

"众" stands for everything/everyone. 跟、和、像 or 与 are prepositions. 与众不同 means diff from everything/everyone. There are several ways to say "be diff from something" in Mandarin, for examples: 与something不同/和something不一样/跟something不一样(substitute "something" with the one you want to say in Mandarin). These sentences have the same meaning. However, 像 is seldom used with "不同" or "不一样". "异" also has the meaning of "different/difference", but usually used in a differently way. For your last question, I assume you might mistype one thing, since a more appropriate way to translate would be "没有人想跟同辈不同".


Why is 景 written "wrong" on the Nestorian Stele?

This is a 隸書 form of 景. According to the references cited in the 教育部異體字字典, it occurs on steles from the Tang dynasty.

Sometimes these variations are done for ease of cutting, or because certain forms tend to break or wear away very easily; I don't know if this is the case here. Another form that also seems to appear a lot is with two 日, a 日 on top and a second one in 京 (= 日/小).


One common phrase is this one, where X is the somebody in your question:

  祝X早日康復/祝X早日康复。
  Zhù X zǎo rì kāng fù

For example, 祝你早日康復/祝你早日康复, which can be translated into "wish/hope you'll recover soon." or "wish/hope you'll make a speedy recovery."

Vocabulary:

  祝 (zhù) = Wish
  你 (nǐ) = You
  早日 (zǎo rì) = in the near future, soon
  康復/康复 (kāng fù) = recover from illness

This phrase can be used in most situations (mostly formal, informal and situations 1, 2 & 3 in your questions).

For "light" sickness, say a cold or a headache, people often say:

  多休息/多休息 = Take more rest.
  Duō xiū xí
  多保重/多保重 = Please take care.
  Duō bǎo zhòng
  小心別又著涼了/小心别又着凉了 = Please don't get cold again.
  Xiǎo xīn bié yòu zháo liáng le

You'd often hear parents or elderly relatives say Example 3 to their kids or young people in the family when they have a cold.


What is the meaning of the expression 丘壑凛凛?

楊牧 《心之鷹》

  鷹往日照多處飛去
  沒入大島向我地投影
  陽台上幾片落葉窸窣
  像去年秋天刪去的詩
  而鷹現在朝南盤旋
  漸遠。我站起來
  面對著海

  於是我失去了它
  想像是鼓翼亡走了
  或許折返山林
  如我此刻竟對真理等等感到厭倦
  但願低飛在人少，近水的臨界
  且頻頻俯見自己以鴥然之姿
  起落於廓大的寂靜，我丘壑凜凜的心

「丘壑」的原義是「山峰與河谷」，因為它們常處於幽靜偏僻的地方，所以被引申為「隱居、孤獨、離世」的意思。

「凛」和「凛凛」都是「寒冷」的意思。

楊牧在《心之鷹》一詩中，用「鷹」來描寫自己的「心」。

「對真理等等感到厭倦」
是表達不滿、失望與心寒，所以楊牧用「凛凛」。

「但願低飛在人少，近水的臨界 …… 起落於廓大的寂靜」
是表達「孤獨、離世」的意思，所以他用「丘壑」。

「我丘壑凜凜的心」是指「我那離世而失望的心」。

The original meaning of 丘壑 is "peaks and valleys".
Because they are often in a quiet and remote place, 丘壑 is extended to "seclusion, loneliness, or solitude".

Both 凛 and 凛凛 mean "cold".

In the poem, 《心之鷹》, 楊牧 described his mood with "an eagle".

對真理等等感到厭倦 expressed dissatisfaction and disappointment, so 楊牧 used 凛凛.

但願低飛在人少，近水的臨界 …… 起落於廓大的寂靜 expressed loneliness and seclusion, therefore he used 丘壑.

我丘壑凜凜的心 means "my secluded and disappointed mind".

楊牧 was born on September 6, 1940 in Hualien County, Taiwan.


In Hong Kong "Toilet paper" is simply called 廁紙.

Before the modern toilet paper,  people were using 草紙(rough straw paper) for toilet paper.

As for a roll of toilet paper , it is still called " 廁紙 " ( with classifier if needed. For example  一卷廁紙 ) and the more technical term would be 卷裝廁紙

For tissues in a box, we call it 紙巾 (with classifier if needed. For example 一盒紙巾)and the more technical term would be 盒裝紙巾

*衛生紙 is another name for 廁紙 or 紙巾.


在。。。中 / 在。。。下 / 在。。。上

As I understand them, they are used very similar to how you use them in English.

在．．．中 is like "during", "in the middle of", or just "in"

在．．．下 is like "under" ("Under the rule of...", "Under the stress of...", "Under the efforts of China and India...")

在．．．上 is like "on the..." ("On the merits of...", "On the basis of...")


Oxford gives three usages for this construct:

  不...不...

  bù...bù...

  ① [used to make an emphatic negative form of two words identical or similar in meaning]

  不骄不躁
  not conceited or rash, free from arrogance and rashness

  不慌不忙
  unhurried, calm, leisurely

  不知不觉
  unawares

  ② [used with two words of opposite meanings to indicate an intermediate state]

  不大不小
  neither too big nor too small, just right

  不冷不热
  neither cold nor hot

  不死不活
  neither dead nor alive, half-dead

  ③ [the first 不 is the condition of the second 不]

  不见不散
  We won't leave until we meet

Collins also gives three, pretty identical, definitions:

  不 ... 不 ...

  (bù ... bù ... )

  1 (表示强式否定)

  " ⇒ 不知不觉" (bù zhī bù jué) "unwittingly"

  " ⇒ 不慌不忙" (bù huāng bù máng) "unhurriedly"

  " ⇒ 不折不扣" (bù zhé bù kòu) "one hundred percent"

  2(= 既不 ... 也不 ... ) "neither ... nor ... "

  " ⇒ 不亏不盈" (bù kuī bù yíng) "neither too little nor too much"

  " ⇒ 不大不小" (bù dà bù xiǎo) "just the right size"

  " ⇒ 不死不活" (bù sǐ bù huó) "half dead"

  3(= 如果不 ... 就不 ... ) "unless ... then not"

  " ⇒ 不破不立" (bù pò bù lì) "without destruction there can be no construction"

  " ⇒ 不见不散。" (Bù jiàn bù sàn.) "See you there."


What does 打着饱嗝 and 嫌缸沿脏 and 踩上去蹲在上面 mean in the novel 活着 p.7?

打饱嗝 = let out a (after full meal) belch

打着饱嗝 = letting out a (after full meal) belch

~

嫌 = dislike

缸沿 = edge of the (opening of) crock

脏 = dirty

嫌缸沿脏 = disgusted by the edge of the opening of the crock being dirty

~

踩上去 = step upon

蹲在上面 = crouch on top of

踩上去蹲在上面 = step upon and crouch on top of

  He was disgusted by the edge of the crock opening being dirty, didn't want to sit on it, so he stepped upon the edge of the crock and crouched on top of it (to take a dump)


What's the best way to improve Chinese after mastering the fundamentals?

Thanks for everyone's comments. I think I got some answer to this question.

To improve Chinese beyond intermediate level, one can "use the language in context".

Single-person activities include

Reading Chinese in cartoon book with a topic you are interested in or familiar with
Watch Chinese drama/movies or translated drama/movies with Chinese voice/subtitles
Play Chinese RPG games in which you would see how the language is used in practice, and how people with different social status address each other.
Switch your phone or computer to Chinese language, and you can learn some new words and sentences. (though I think this one is intermediate level).

Multi-person activities:

Talk and interact with other learners or native speakers.


Do 形声 words have an approximate or historical phonetic part?

Most characters in use today were created by the Qín Dynasty (over 2,000 years ago!), so the modern mismatch between the phonetic component and the sound is indeed due to a change in pronunciation but invariance in writing.

are some of these approximations where the pronunciation compromises for a hint at meaning?

If sound components were selected for their meaning, we should be seeing examples of variant characters where similar sound components were interchangeable, but with one of the variants surviving because the sound component's meaning matches the character better. AFAIK, we're not seeing examples like this.
Most of the time, when you see explanations where a phonetic component is said to impart meaning, that is because the phonetic component was either the original character or at least was an essential pictorial or ideographical part of the character.
For phonetic components which were the original form of the word they represented, these were often later complexified through the addition of a semantic component, because the original character's uses had broadened or has been lost. For example,

「益」 picture of water 「水」 overflowing in a vessel 「皿」 > overflow/spill. This is now written as 「溢」.

「益」 itself has been semantically extended to mean abundant.

「申」 picture of a bolt of lightning. This is now written as 「電」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*lˤi[n]-s/).

「申」 itself is now a phonetic loan for ninth earthly branch (/*l̥i[n]/).

「然」 to burn/immolate, from semantic 「灬・火」 (fire) and phonetic 「肰」. This is now written as 「燃」.

「然」 itself is now purely a phonetic loan, taking on a bunch of unrelated auxiliary meanings.

「原」 water source, from a picture of a mountain cliff 「厂」 hanging over a simultaneously semantic and phonetic 「泉」 (water spring). This is now written as 「源」.

「原」 itself has now been extended to mean source/origin in a more abstract manner.

For phonetic components which were essential pictorial or ideographical parts of the character, their phonetic contribution was likely of secondary importance; substituting these components for just any similar-sounding component would likely break the character entirely. For example,

「有」 (/*[ɢ]ʷəʔ/, to have), picture of a hand 「又」 (also /*[ɢ]ʷəʔ/) holding a piece of meat 「肉」.
「員」 picture of a cauldron 「鼎」 with the shape of a circle 「〇」 near the opening > round, now written 「圓」.
「字」 (/*mə-dzə(ʔ)-s/), a picture of a child 「子」 (/*tsəʔ/) being born > newly-created Chinese character from existing characters > Chinese character;
「青」 (/*[s.r̥]ˤeŋ/, colour of green plants), from picture of a sprouting plant 「生」 (/*sreŋ/) and phonetic 「井」 (/*C.tseŋʔ/).

For example, maybe the rationale is that 愧 means shame and 鬼 scare people, and shame and fear are somewhat similar.

Generally, if meaning connections are too vague, they cannot be practically used to refer to a concrete word, otherwise anything can mean anything. If you find an explanation that is stretching the meaning of a component to fit the character, it'll be better to discard that component's meaning and to take it on a sound-hint face value.


What is the significance or meaning of 筹 in 略胜一筹？

筹 (chip) was a counting tool in ancient time. It was used by mathematicians for calculating.

運筹 was then used as a metaphor for the calculations strategists and military experts did

Idiom: "運筹帷幄" (moving chips inside the tent) means "strategizing in headquarters" ( before go the field or not even need to be in the field)

胜一筹 literally means "one step ahead" and it evolved to mean "one up"; "bested (v)" and  "a level above"

略胜一筹 (slightly better by one calculating step) means "slightly a step ahead" or "at a slightly higher level"

筹 is not a classifier but a noun for "level" in modern Chinese, e.g. "技高数筹" (a few levels higher in skill); "力胜一筹" (one level higher in strength)

  更胜一筹， 略胜一筹：'slightly better', 'a cut above' are correct translations


In formal writing in Chinese, should we write 事情已经过去了一万二千三百四十五天。

Only when you are writing in vertical writing format -- from top to bottom, right to left in columns

As for horizontal writing format like English, when we see sentence like "My phone number is 001-2000-110" we would read it as "my phone number is zero zero one- two zero zero zero- one one zero" but we would never write it that way. The same is true in Chinese if you write horizontally


了 with two verbs: What's the difference between 我去厨房找了饮料喝 and 我去了厨房找饮料喝?

The difference is what is "completed and what not"

(A)  我去厨房找了饮料喝 ==  I went to the kitchen and found a drink.

(B)  我去了厨房找饮料喝  ==  I had gone to the kitchen to find / look for a drink.

So,  "...找了饮料喝"  ==   "...found a drink"   (Completed)

  "...找饮料喝"    ==   "...to find / look for a drink"   (not completed)


孤 =(alone);单 = (single)
孤单 = alone/ solitary

~

孤=(alone); 独 = (single/alone)
孤独 = alone/ solitary/ unsociable

~

寂 = quiet; 寞 = deserted
寂寞 = lonely; loneliness

孤单 mainly describes a physical state of being alone. It can be used to describe a feeling of loneliness, as in "感到孤单" (feel alone = lonely)

孤独 also describes a physical physical state of being alone. It can be used to describe a feeling of loneliness, as in "感到孤独" (feel alone = lonely), It can also be used to describe a personality, as in "他性恪很孤独" (he is very unsociable) - You cannot say "他性恪很孤单"

寂寞 is mostly an emotion or feeling. You can be surrounded by friends and still feel lonely. For example: "無敵是最寂寞" (unrivaled people are the most  lonely people)

People do not physically being 寂寞; being physically 孤单/孤独 (alone) can make you feel 寂寞, but being 寂寞 (lonely) doesn't require being alone
Actually, feeling 孤单/孤独 (feel alone = lonely) doesn't require physically  being alone


What is the Mandarin equivalent of Cantonese's 一係 A 一係 B?

An equivalent expression is:
要麽 before each option

要麽吃，要麽走

Either eat or go.

要麽你去，要麽他去，我不能去。

Either you go or he goes; I can't.


Are there Chinese approximations for the colloquial/slang English terms "snot rocket" or "bushman's blow"?

From the comments it seems like we've already established that blowing your nose is accurately translated as "擤鼻涕". As far as I can tell (from experience and further online research), there is no popular slang for doing so. The closest way to easily describe such action would be something like "不用纸擤鼻涕".

However, I should point out that this action is in fact pretty stigmatized in the Chinese culture, especially in more developed regions. Chinese people are simply less self-conscious about what others might think of their actions, which is why you'll still see people doing it.


1.墙上挂一幅画

Just a neutral description and the meaning is context-dependent

  2.墙上在挂一幅画

Your translation is correct

  3.墙上挂着一幅画

  4.墙上挂了一幅画

I don't see any difference.Both means "A picture is hanging on the wall"

  5.墙上挂着了一幅画

This is gramatically incorrect and doesn't make any sense


What is the third character on this sign seen in Taipei?

What was below the sign? That is, what products did the store sell? It wouldn't be motorcycles?

The sign says: 不够机车, or in old script 不够機車. 機車 means engine, but in Taiwan more specifically motorcycle.

ㄐ + ㄧ in bopomofo is j + i, that is ji, which gives 机.


For many Chinese, a domain like a84 is easy to type and remember.

First, consider that typing English words and phrases is very unnatural for Chinese. Even if the user is familiar with typing (and this aptitude would be low compared to developed nations), they would be accustomed to typing single letters and numbers, depending on their IME. Your average Chinese computer user would be typing sentences using keystrokes like wmyqdmj3b2!. Typing google or stackexchange would be much harder for them.

Second, English aptitude is fairly low in China compared to most developed nations. Rather than trying to remember how to spell an English word, Chinese would find it easier to remember a short sequence of numbers, and letters if they have to. You can see this in some of the most popular Chinese websites:

163
qq
92
12306
1688

Technically we can have Chinese character domain names now, but support is by no means widespread and it takes even more keystrokes to type than simple numbers.

There's also the numerology factor to consider, but 84 is pretty average in that regard (8 is great but 4 is awful).

There's an interesting article on this subject here: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117608/chinese-number-websites-secret-meaning-urls


It sounds weird because there is no formal subject (A.K.A. anticipatory subject) in Chinese. It is [X] that [Y] should be transformed into [Y][verb as appropriate][X] during translation。For example:

It is a pleasure to meet you. =>
Meeting you is a pleasure. =>
见到你很高兴。

So for the original sentence,

Is it really so that you're just 18? =>
Are you really just 18? =>
你真的只有18岁？


Why does Gu Hongming translate 弟 as "be a good citizen" (做个好公民)?

弟 is a 通假字, it should be 悌 nowadays.

In ancient, the number of characters is less than today. These people sometimes have to borrow the meaning from another character.

孝: be good to your parents
悌: be good to your brothers and sisters

If one be good to your parents, brothers and sisters, the one probably would not against higher,  if he never against higher, he would not rise in rebellion.


Using a verb as a habitual thing vs Chinese

"you think I sleep?" in Chinese should be "你以為我睡觉吗?"

以為 imply 'mistakenly presume"

The other answers and comments already pointed out the fact that everyone sleep. the sentence "you think I sleep?" need a lot of clarification-- (Why you don't need to sleep? How can you do it?)

Let's use more logical examples:

"you think I care?" =  "你以為我在乎吗?"

"you think I lie?" = "你以为我撒谎吗？"

"you think I forgot?" = “你以为我忘了吗？”

if you don't like 以為 (thought/ mistakenly presume), you can use 覺得 (think/ feel) or 认为 (consider/ think). But 以為 is the best choice here because this type of short retort imply whatever idea the other person has is wrong.
吗 can be omitted


Phrases to acknowledge being corrected in Mandarin

I would simply add 謝謝你 at the end to soften the tone.

我明白了，謝謝你。 I understand now, thank you.

原來如此，謝謝你。 Ah, so that's how it is, thank you.

"喔，知道了" can sound a little brisk and abrupt depending on your tone of voice. Adding 謝謝你 helps, but I would altogether use a different verb 明白, which is closer in meaning to "I understand now".


Is "我爱辣" (Wǒ ài là) a correct/understandable/idiomatic way of saying I like my food spicy?

This happens when the food can be cooked with (little or much) or without spicy. People ask how should the food cook for you, 我爱辣 (a weird expression) answers this question indirectly -- I like spicy so please put a lot of it in the food. The direct answers could be:

不要 (bùyào) / 不要辣 (bùyào là) / 不放辣椒 (bù fàng làjiāo) "cook without spicy"
微辣 (wēi là) / 少放点 (shǎo fàng diǎn) / 一点点 (yī diǎndiǎn) "cook with a little spicy"
要 (yào) / 多放点 (duō fàng diǎn) "cook with a lot of spicy"

要 (yào) should mean default spiciness and be enough for most people. 多放点 (duō fàng diǎn) is for those who really enjoy spicy.


忍不住 vs 忍不了 vs 受不住vs 受不了 - what is the difference, and when should I use each one?

忍不住：「他说的笑话真好笑，我忍不住笑了」
忍不了：「这个人老是室内吸烟，我快忍不了了」
受不住：「这位老人的年岁已大，怕是受不住这种手术」
受不了：「这个辣椒真辣，辣的我受不了」


What was the relationship between 诸葛亮和周瑜？

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

They may be "friends", but they are still enemies.

They are the minister of two different kingdoms, 蜀 and 吴, they just happen to have a stronger common enemy 魏 so they have to work together to keep each other alive for a while before they get stronger and can defend on their own.

You must have seen that 周瑜 keeps trying to kill 诸葛亮, because he sees 诸葛亮 as a threat in the future when 蜀 and 吴 goes against each other. Obviously when two Kingdoms work together, you can't just kill, that's why he keeps assigning impossible missions to 诸葛亮 so he can use that as an excuse to kill him, but 诸葛亮 never failed and it makes 周瑜 angrier and frustrated. In the end, 周瑜 just ordered his men to kill 诸葛亮 anyways but forseeing that, 诸葛亮 escaped before 周瑜 can catch him.

But on a personal level, 周瑜 just can't stand the fact that there are someone as smart as him and this is what killed him, i think this is the biggest difference between the two, both are equally smart, but 周瑜 died because of "Sickness"(more like Jealousy), he is young after all, if the two have met at a different time, they could have become great friends.

Much like The Republic of China and The People's Republic of China when they were fighting Japan, they have to put their disagreement aside for a while and fight together. After Japan surrendered, they started fighting against each other again.


Yes 刻苦 is still commonly used in colloquial language.
“他那一年刻苦地学西班牙文” is grammatical. In spoken language it sounds more natural to say “他那一年学西班牙文学得很刻苦” .
刻苦 is 'hardworking' while 认真 is 'take seriously'. They are idiomatically used together ('认真刻苦'), but they are not synonyms. Actually you can say things like '他很认真，但是不够刻苦' meaning he is taking it seriously enough but he needs to devote more time.


Asking "what's the pinyin/character for X?"

What's the pinyin for this/that character? 这个/那个字的拼音是什么？
What's the character for this/that pinyin? 这个/那个拼音代表的(or 对应的)汉字是什么？

I would use the words “代表(dài biăo)的” or “对应(duì yìng)的" for the second translation, because in general, you can determine the PinYin for a specific character (though some characters have two or more pronunciations). However, you can't always determine the character for a specific PinYin.

代表: to represent, to delegate, to stand for
对应: to correspond to

Edit: Answers to Alenanno. I would like to put them here because of the length
Sorry, part in () is an alternative. I should have put a "or" there (already edited).
When you ask the first question, I and I think other Chinese won't spell its PinYin (though, in English, it's common to spell a word), but show you simple or common characters with the same sound.
For example, you meet a word "畏葸不前", and you would guess the character “葸" sounds "sī" becaude it's similar with "思" (sī); however, you are not sure, so you ask me (it's a good habit to ask someone or consult the dictionary, don't ever guess the sounds),

这个字怎么读？(really, this is more common) and I answer,
它读作(or simply 读) “喜欢的喜"(or simply, 它读‘喜'), to show you the sound.

If you are completly strange to Chinese and you can't get its PinYin from my pronunciation, you would continue the question,

它的拼音是什么？ and I answer,
Xi(I would repeat the sound, at a very low speech rate so you can catch the sounds of X and I), 3rd tone.

For your second question, I'll take another example. Suppose that you just heard this sentence on the TV:

"他买了200克当归"
tā măi le liăng băi kè dāng guī

You understood [tā măi le liăng băi kè] stood for "他买了200克" (he bought 200 grams...) and you are wondering what is "dāng guī", so you try to repeat that sentence, "tā măi le liăng băi kè dāng guī?"，and ask me,

Huang, dāng guī是什么？(in this context, I may understand your question as "what is dāng guī?", instead of "what are the characters for dāng guī )
I answer, "当归是一种中药材"(dāng guī is a kind of Chinese herbal medicine).

You want to know the corresponding characters, so you continue the question,

对应的汉字是什么？(or simply, 怎么写？).
I may answer, dāng是当然的当，(dāng stands for 当 as in the word 当然), guī是归还的归.

However, if your Chinese level is very low, and you even don't know the words 当然 and 归还, you would continue to say,

怎么写呢？(how to write?), or 可以写给我看吗？ (Could you please write them down for me?)


Linguistic Gloss (literal translation) of long English verb phrases into Mandarin Chinese

I don't think that you have complex verb phrases here. All I can see is a single verb phrase (V-O eat dinner). In English, you can attach different grammatical units to a verb to indicate, among other things, the time the action takes place (past/ present/ future ...), the mood (indicative, subjunctive ... ), the aspect (continuous, completed ...) and so on.
"Would have been eating" is not a string of 4 verbs, but rather, a single verb "eat". "-ing" tells me that it is a continuous action; "would have" indicates that the "eating" is actually not occurring, meaning they are not actually eating, but eating was their original plan. For some reason not expressed in this sentence, they changed their plan and are not eating. In English, all this complex meaning can be expressed using grammatical units such as "would have", "been -ing".
Chinese, however, expresses these ideas differently. Semantic units, rather than grammatical units, are employed. Hence the word "originally" used by Google Translate. Actually, I think Google is doing a pretty good job here. It is able to decipher the grammatical unit "would have" as implying a change in the original plan, and employs a semantic unit "本来" for the job.
Here's how I would translate the sentences, without knowing the context. In context, I might do it differently.
They would have been eating dinner.
他們本來應該在吃晚飯。
他們 they
本來 originally
應該 should
在 *indicates continuous action
吃 eat
晚飯 evening meal
They would have kept being able to eat dinner.
他們本來應該可以繼續吃晚飯。
他們 they
本來 originally
應該 should
可以 be able to
繼續 keep on, continue to
吃 eat
晚飯 evening meal
They would have not been eating dinner.
I would prefer "They would not have been eating dinner."
他們本來不應該在吃晚飯。
他們 they
本來 originally
不 not
應該 should
在 *indicates continuous action
吃 eat
晚飯 evening meal
They would have not been able to keep eating dinner.
I would prefer "They would not have been able to keep eating dinner."
他們本來不應該可以繼續吃晚飯。
他們 they
本來 originally
不 not
應該 should
可以 be able to
繼續 keep on, continue to
吃 eat
晚飯 evening meal

Note that 在 has multiple meanings depending on context.


Help with names for ancient Chinese novel characters

imo, none of these “terms” are suitable for male name.

  sources to find authentic ancient Chinese names

the proper way is, refer to the four-and-twenty histories (二十四史), in which, there’re biographies (列傳)

here’s the table of content of the 列傳, from the book 後漢書:

https://ctext.org/hou-han-shu/lie-zhuan/zh

you may grep some names from it, and, these are authentic names of 漢 dynasty :)

the second way is, read tales and notes (小說筆記). that, these books recorded numerous stories, and each story mentioned names of their characters.

here’s two excerpts “宋名臣言行錄” & “六科舊僚題名”, from the book 水東日記:

https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=755528

https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=491456

have fun :)


What is the difference between 整个 and 全?

Thinking of the literal translation helps.
整 is 'entire, whole'. 个 is a widely applicable singular measure word, hence 'unit'. So 整个 is, literally, 'the whole unit (of), the entirety (of)', as opposed to 'a proportion (of)'.

我整个身体都不舒服。My whole body feels sick.

However, I don't think 'whether the object is having parts or not' matters for applying 整个 (on the contrary, it matters for 全). In the following examples, 'the ground' and 'the afternoon' are not 'obviously decompose-able':

白雪覆盖了整个大地。The entire ground is covered by white snow.
他一整个下午都在看书。He was reading books for the entire afternoon.

全 means 'all, every'. It is applied to a collection, or a unit that has 'obviously discrete parts'.
In this sense, as the other answers already mentioned, 整个身体 means 'the entire body' and 全身 means 'all parts of the body'.

我全身都不舒服。All parts of my body feel sick.

(As for why 全身 is used instead of 全身体, it's probably because 全, 身 and 体 are all bound morphemes, and people tend to construct words with the least number of bound morphemes necessary.)
As you may notice in this example, although 全 is applied to a collection, the word after 全 is not always a 'group noun'. Actually in most cases, it is only in the semantic but not the syntax/word formation. For example:

全球金融危机 The global financial crisis
他全天都在工作。He is working all day long.

In these phrases, the knowledge (in the extent of Chinese language, not philosophy) that 'the globe' and 'the day' can be further broken down is implicit. On the other hand 'The afternoon' is considered atomic, so you can only say 整个下午 but not 全下午.


/v/ is not an initial found in MSM.

The initial /v/, though, is often found in Northern Mandarin and its branches. In fact, it can still be found, even, in distant branches like Sichuanese.
If you ever saw the 马蜂窝 commercial that aired, ever single night, during the World Cup, you'd certainly notice that 唐僧's "为" is very /v/'d.
You can also refer to the paper The geographic distribution rules and reasons of zero initial “w” pronounced as “v” in Mandarin  by Wang Fan. The abstract for the paper goes into some detail in English:

Abstract:
It  is  universal  to  pronounce  zero  initial  “w”  as  “v”  in Mandarin. Researches  show  that  38%  of  the  people with northern dialect do so with 10% in other dialect districts. When analyzing its features and reasons, we find that the dental fricative sound “v” is indeed a variant of the semi-vowel “w”. Its coming into being is affected by the variation of the  mouth  in  different  phonemes.  It  is  also  related  to  individual  pronunciation  habits  and  the  instability  of  the  pronunciation.  The  universal  “v”  pronunciation  in  northern  dialect  district  is  caused  by  the  stronger  movement  of  the mouth and the face in pronouncing than that in other dialect districts.

The 为 in 因为 should be pronounced wei if you're going for "standard" Mandarin. But, if you want to make yourself sound more Northernized you can also opt for the v.


Character translation chinese or japanese

my guess:

the top one is 呈 (u+5448)

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=呈

the second one is 瑞 (u+745e)

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=瑞

others, it takes time to recognise :)


Is "v" ever an acceptable English rendering of ü?

AFAIK (I'm a native English speaker) the letter v is never used in English writing to render the sound represented in pinyin by ü.

However in software that uses pinyin it is standard practice to use the letter v as an alias for ü.

From Wikipedia (link):

  Since the letter "v" is unused in Mandarin pinyin, it is universally used as an alias for ü. For example, typing "nv" into the input method would bring up the candidate list for pinyin: nǚ.

There are indeed some cases where people mistakenly use v in Pinyin instead of ü. It does seem to be a mistake, probably induced by the IME typing convention.
This blog post gives an example in a street sign in Beijing.


登陆 means landing. It may also be a typo of 登录.
登录 means login, used in mainland. ref
登入 means login, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. ref


Which dictionaries reveal the commonly mistaken usage of a word (i.e. how NOT to use a word)?

I recommend this《小學生的國語辭典》approved by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education for their primary school students. It contains the following features:

语文帮手 (or language assistant) to highlight certain words that require
particular attention. For example:

  「人才」有才能和德性的人。例: ...
  請注意：指才能和知質義時「人才」也可以寫成「人材」：但是有木料或原料的意思時「木材」和「藥材」不可以寫作「木才」、「藥才」。

小提醒 (or small reminders) for listing synonyms (相似詞), antonyms (相反詞)
and active terms (活用詞). For example:

  「井井有倏」形容倏理分明。例：他井井有倏，很受上司的器重。 相似詞：井然有序。相反詞：亂七八糟。

追本溯源 (or trace the origin) to explain the historical background that
give rise to the word. For example:

  「上當」的本義是指把物品典當給當鋪。據說從前有一个讀書人以經營當鋪為生，店裡的股東欺負他老實,紛紛把不值錢的物品拿來典當高價，沒多久，當鋪就關門大吉了。於是人們就把欺騙別人的行為,叫做「上當」。

Note that the dictionary is written in traditional Chinese (繁体字) and that it is availabe on Google Books.


Wu dialect children's learning materials

Wu music in bilibili:

吴语乐坛
吴语微信平台

dialog:

真纪

Wu in forvo


Why is there no 地 in 不小心踢到椅子 ("carelessly kicked the chair")?

Strictly speaking, your translation is incorrect and that is what is tripping you up.

不小心 has many interpretations here, and the one employed in all these examples is along the lines of "wasn't paying attention" or "was not being careful" -- this implies it is NOT actually playing the role of an adverb in the sentence. As such, 地 is not required. In essence, it is two subsequent actions.

for example:

  他不小心摔倒了 -- He wasn't paying attention, and fell down.

compared to

  他不小心地摔倒了 -- He carelessly fell down.

The spirit of the sentences is basically the same, but your question appears to be more about the nitty gritty details of what role 不小心 is playing in the sentence. If you wish to translate it as an adverb, then you are right, there should be a 地 there, but that's not the only way to translate 不小心. According to youdao, it can play a noun, adjective and adverb.


How to (hand) write Chinese characters faster

In restaurants (茶餐廳) in Hong Kong, the "waiters" also face this problem because writing in a formal and clear way takes too much time. They developed methods so that they can take orders faster:

Write words with other words that has the same pronunciation.
For example, instead of writing the word 「飯」(faan6), they would write 「反」(faan2) because they both have similar pronunciations.
Draw symbols instead of words.
Instead of writing 「叉燒」, writing 「╳燒」takes less time and is still readable.
Try to write with less strokes. Instead of writing a stroke by another, try this:

Use a mixture of Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese: (applies to people who are outside of mainland China, mainly for users of Traditional Chinese)
Eg: 我是一個好学生。


Do take note that some sentence meaning otherwise under special context.

"知道了"  is a good example.

Even 知道 carry out the meaning of "know", but "知道了"  in some conversions mean "okay"(noded).

For example：

Q：“如果经过超市，顺带买瓶酱油”  If you happens to pass the store, buy me a bottle of soyasauce.

A：“知道了！” Okay （or you can reply "好的!"）

In different dialect such as Cantonese, sometimes it uses as "understood" rather than 清楚了， 了解了, 明白了

我知道了, 你是说如果把醋倒进去它就会溶掉。 Now I understood, you mean if you pour in vinegar, it will melt.

Because 过 in Mandarin carry the meaning "over/pass"(instead of before) in certain conditions, so you can't use it. As mentioned by @Alex, you can't "un-learn", "de-notify" something.

In case of "know", to say "I already know that", you can't say, "知道过” ， but "我【已经】知道了”， “我【早】知道了”。

However, you can say "I learn it before but I forget".

这把戏， 我从前【学过】， 不过我忘了。


What is a comfortable English translation of 姐夫

The Chinese word 姐夫 is both a referent term and an address term. You can refer to someone as your 姐夫 (e.g. 我姐夫是中國人）as well as call him 姐夫 （e.g. 姐夫，你好嗎？）.

The English equivalent "brother-in-law", however, is only a referent term. You can say "Peter is my brother-in-law" or "my brother-in-law is Chinese" etc., but I have never heard of anyone using "brother-in-law" as an address term (as in: How are you, Brother-in-law?)

Here you are looking for an equivalent of 姐夫 as a direct address. I suppose the best way is for her to use whatever a normal English speaker would use to address his/her brother-in-law. In my understanding, this would be his given name or some kind of nick name that the brother-in-law would like to be called by. Addressing somebody as "Brother-in-law" would sound odd, IMO.


maybe:

"nice to meet you, welcome aboard"

if, said by machine, try

"welcome aboard of this XXX (company name) taxi"

have fun :)


百度 庄子·内篇·人间世

《人间世》是一篇《庄子》内篇中的文章。本书的中心是讨论处世之道，既表述了庄子所主张的处人与自处的人生态度，也揭示出庄子处世的哲学观点。

根据百度对该文章的介绍「间」解作动词「居于」似乎十分合理，另一方面， 将「人间世」解作名词即 ，「人类社会」也不算违背文章的内容。硏究人类社会，就是硏究人与人的互动与交流，而叙述人在世间也是叙述人与人的互动与交流
可能庄子将该篇定名为「人间世」本来就知道这篇题含有双重意，平常说话也常见有语带相关言词，玩文字游戏时就更加普遍。


Is Google Translate image feature accurate at this? (Characters identified: 金陵子弟來相送，欲行不行各盡觴)

These two verses came from 李白 (Li Bai)'s poem
https://fanti.dugushici.com/mingju/9526

"金陵子弟來相送，欲行不行各盡觴。" 出自於李白的《金陵酒肆留别》
朝代：唐代
作者：李白
原文：
風吹柳花滿店香，吳姬壓酒喚客嘗。
金陵子弟來相送，欲行不行各盡觴。
請君試問東流水，別意與之誰短長。

~

註釋
1.金陵：我國今江蘇省南京市。
Jinling: Today's  Nanjing City , Jiangsu Province, China

~

3.子弟：指李白的朋友。
子弟(sons): Refers to 'native sons of Jinling' -- Li Bai's friends

~

4.欲行：要走的人，指李白自己。不行：送行的人，指金陵子弟。
'欲行' (about to leave) refers to 'the person who was about to leave'. And that person was Li Bai himself.
'不行' (not leaving) refers to 'the people who were not leaving'. And they  were Li Bai's friends.

~

5.盡觴(shāng)：喝盡杯中的酒。也指乾杯。
盡(finish)
盡觴: drink down the whole cup of wine. Also refers to the cheers

~

"金陵子弟來相送，欲行不行各盡觴"
" The native sons of Jinling (my friends) came to see me off; I, the one who is about to leave, and my friends who are not leaving, all drunk down a cups of wine (before we part). "


What is the difference in use between 迷失， 迷路， 走失 and 迷途？

迷路 is daily used expression,it means one get lost.e.g.我迷路了，I'm lost.
迷失，迷途 are written words,formal words,both of them mean lost,but 迷失 is a verb,迷途 is a noun.
走失 is a daily and formal word,basically it means one get lost,but the reason could be either one can't find the way or being abducted or kidnapped.


将 + [v] = will [v]/ will [v] soon

  Example: 将死 = will die/ will die soon

~

  要 + [v] =  need to [v]

  要 + [v] =  about to [v]

  Example: 要死 = need to die

  Example: 快要死了/ 要死了 = about to die

~

  会 + [v] =   would [v]/ could [v]

  Example: 如果这样做的话，你会死 = if you do that, you would die /could die

~

  将要 = will happen (inevitably)/ on the verge of

  Example: 将要取胜 = on the verge of winning

A general wrote in his war report saying: '将要取胜', it means he is on the verge of victory (it is inevitable).

~

  将会 = will happen (most likely)/ would happen/ could happen

  Example: 将会取胜 = will win/ would win/ could win

A general wrote in his war report saying: '将会取胜'. It either means the general has confidence that he will win the war, or the general predicts a victory (suggests it is highly possible).


The earliest documented meaning of 经 is "to weave". It does not mean that in modern Chinese, but it can still mean warp.
In weaving, warp is the name for the threads that are fixed into the weaving frame, where fabric is created by pushing the weft through horizontally.

From the meaning weave, it expanded towards the verbal meanings it has today:

To order or operate as in the modern words 经营 or 经理
To pass through or experience as in the modern words 经历 or 经过. From here it expanded to mean constant, regular as in 经常, and things that are constant like the 经书 (canonical scriptures).

From the meaning warp, 经 expanded to mean "vertical" lines along certain things, such as the "energy channels" in a human body or the longitudinal lines on planet earth.

The meaning "canonical scriptures" can also be derived from the warp meaning, because these are the books that span "vertically" through time, whereas later commentaries are woven through "horizontally".

So the underlying image is always that of a weaving frame. But some of the modern / later meanings have moved very far from that original meaning. I don't think there is one semantic field that comfortably contains all of 经's various meanings.


花錢 - spending money

買 - to buy

氣受 - reverse of 受氣 - to be ill-treated

together, 花錢買氣受 is roughly "spending money to buy ill-treating"

have fun :)


Would it be correct to use “它” in a sentence like this "它在外面下雪了."？

It's not correct.
The correct sentence is

  外面（在）下雪

In Chinese, as in some other European languages, weather verbs have zero valency, which means that they take no arguments, neither object nor subject. Therefore you must omit 它.


"很多" is not a word, but an adverb "很" and an adjective "多" combined to form a subordinate phrase. "很" as an adverb, is generally placed before an adjective to indicate a high degree of something. Therefore, "很多" has no particular significance. "很 + adjective" when used to modify the noun generally contains "的", such as:

很好的计划 (a very good plan)
很可爱的孩子 (very cute children)

But "很多", when used to modify the noun, is generally without "的". Such as:

很多人 (many people)
很多地方 (many places)
很多东西 (a lot of things)
很多城市 (many cities)

"许多" is a numeral (数词), meaning in great quantities. "很多" can be disassembled; "许多" cannot. The usage of "很多" is more flexible, and can serve as a predicative, attributive, or complementary component in a sentence. Such as:

南京路上人很多（谓语） On Nanjing Road, there are a lot of people
(predicate)
我去过很多地方（定语） I have been to many places (attributive)
有些人吃得很多，却不爱运动（补语） Some people eat a lot, but do not exercise
(complement)

"许多", as a numeral, can only be used as an attributive adjunct which generally modifies the noun. Such as:

许多优秀人才 (a lot of talented people)
中国的许多城市 (many cities in China)
那火山已经沉睡许多年 (that volcano has been laying dormant for many years)
许多消费者都不满意 (many consumers are not satisfied)
许多人在生活中离不开手机 (many people cannot live without their mobile phones)

The following statements are wrong when used with "许多":

  南京路上人许多（谓语）X 有些人吃得许多，却不爱运动（补语）X

In the dialogue, "很多" can be used alone, but not "许多". Such as:

  排队的人多吗？——很多。√ (Is there a lot of people at the queue? - A lot.
  √ ) 排队的人多吗？——许多。X

To answer your question, "许多" is more formal than "很多", and is used more often in writing, whereas "很多" is used often in speech. "许多" can be replaced by "很多", but usually not the other way round:

  过了许多（or 很多）年的教学生涯，我空闲时缅怀的往事很多。

Adapted from: “很多”与“许多” - 复旦大学国际文化交流学院


Chinese Collage Pictures made with paper, bamboo & Feathers (Characters identified: 松楓 沈陽)

Just so that there's no confusion about the character shape in the seal, which is 「陽」 and not 「揚」. See the third shape below:

商甲前5.42.5合集14855西周金農卣集成5424西周金虢季子白盤集成10173秦簡法57睡虎地秦簡今楷

The left-hand-side component of the character is 「阜・阝」 rather than 「手・扌」. There is a fair amount of fading around the middle of the character.


What is the difference between 交易就告成立. and 交易即告成立.?

The only difference between 交易就告成立 and 交易即告成立 is that the former is more used in spoken language and the latter in written language. 即 in 交易即告成立 is a very formal word and functions as an adverb, meaning "right away/at once/immediately/thereupon". When 即 is used in this sense, usually it can be replaced with 就. There is no difference between 即 and 就 in their meanings or grammatical roles in this case. Another example:

  It took the police only several days to break the case. 该案仅几天即告破/该案仅几天就告破(了).

When used in some idioms, for example, 一触即发, 一拍即合, 稍纵即逝, 即 can't be replaced with 就, though 即 still means "right away/at once/immediately/thereupon" in these words.

As for CIS即视觉识别系统, 即 is a conjunction here. In the construction A即B, 即 roughly means "namely/is also called/equals". B explains or rephrases A. It's not the same with 交易即告成立. 就 can't mean "namely/is also called/equals", so it can't be used in place of 即 in this case.

Your native friend may simply base his/her answer on intuition. If you need an exhaustive explanation, you'd better refer to some Chinese grammar books. @user6065 gave a good reference book 汉语800虚词用法词典.

Edit:

I beg to differ with @wpt's claim that the use of 就 in 交易就告成立 is a misuse influenced by dictionary definition.

Here is the definition of 即 in Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 6th Edition, page 605.

⑥<书>[副] 就;便：一触~发 | 招之~来 | 闻过~改。

<书> means this meaning of 即 is usually used in written language. [副] means 即 is used as an adverb.

Here, the dictionary used 就/便 directly as the explanation of 即. That's just because 即, 就, 便 all have the meaning of "right away/at once/immediately/something happens soon after another". Except for some idioms and Chengyu(成语), wherever you use 即 in this sense, you can use 就 or 便 in place of 即. The three words are interchangeable grammatically and semantically. As I just said, the only difference is that 即 is more formal than 就 and 便.

There is a paper on the evolution of 即, 就, 便 from verb to function word (adverb and conjunction). cf. “即”、“便”、“就”虚化过程中的错项移植. With regard to when 就 was first used as adverb, the scholars haven't reached an agreement. The author of this paper believes it's no later than Song dynasty (960-1279).

@wpt claimed that 即告 is a set phrase. My opinion is that 即告 is just a commonly used phrase, not a set phrase. Less Google search results doesn't mean 就告 is a misuse. Greater occurrence of 即告 in formal documentatuions doesn't mean it can't be replaced with 就告 gramatically and semantically.


Both 到 and 至 can function as "preposition" (to) or "result/ degree complement" (until; to the point of). The difference is 到 is more colloquial and 至 is more literary

Example:

戰至一兵一卒 (fight to the last man) is a very literary phrase, in colloquial form, this phrase would become 戰鬥到剩下最後一個士兵.

It is not recommended to replace  "至" with "到" in literary phrases like 戰至一兵一卒, 延至凌晨 (delay until midnight)  and specially not in idioms like 至死不渝  ( you cannot say 到死不渝)

Other differences:

Both 至 and 到 has the meaning of "arrive" and the difference is still literary and colloquial.
至 has the meaning of "ultimate" or "utmost" that 到 doesn't has. e.g. 至高 cannot be changed to 到高
到 can function as a result complement that indicate the verb is successful, e.g. 學到 cannot be changed to 學至


What's the difference between 操练 and 训练?

操练 -  practice; drill; train
训练 - train; learn
操练 mostly refers to performing a set routine repeatedly and prolongedly
训练 is a more general term for 'to train'.  While  操练(drill) can be a part of one's 训练(training), it doesn't include elements such as learning, studying, or observing as 训练 does
You can 训练 yourself in chess, but you cannot 操练 your chess skill because it is not a set routine.
We usually say 操练 martial art set (e.g. perform a Tai Chi set) because it is a set routine. The more you repeat, the better you get at it


the SPCA hong kong used "珍奇品種寵物" for exotic pet.

http://www.spca.org.hk/ch/animal-welfare/welfare-law-development/exotic-pet-laws

click the flag to toggle between traditional chinese & english :)

imo, turtles, or parrots are not fierce. so, 野生猛寵, the "猛" is, not descriptive for certain species of exotic pet


Is 如果我们，所有的学生，没有我们的中文老师，我们就永远不能站起来在听众前面说中文 grammatical and does it makes sense?

如果没有老师，我们——所有学生——就绝不可能在听众面前说中文。

I think that "all the students" must be translated and not omitted; here it is used for emphasis.  And "would never be able to " is 绝不可能。


Is this sentence correct? "中国发送给我们国家很多帮助"

在疫情其(期)间中国发送给我们国家很多帮助。

The sentence is wrong.  The collocation 发送帮助 isn't appropriate.  We can say 给予帮助.  So, 在疫情其(期)间中国给予我们国家很多帮助 or  is correct.


umm...usually we mean the former. The latter can make sense in grammar sometimes, but actually we don't express like that in real life. In the second circumstance you mentioned, we would say 我要放弃，[你爱的][不是][我的人]。(I want to give up, what you love is not my self)


Who should be counted when responding to 你家有几口人 (nǐjiā yǒu jǐkǒurén) "how many people are there in your family"?

It is simple-- The "家" in  "你家有几口人？" always refers to "家庭" (household)

Your answer should only list the family members living in the household .

Using 口 as a classifier also indicates it only count people who eat their meals in the household.

As long as someone living in a household long term, he or she is counted as 一口

If you read Chinese novel, you would often see phrase like "我家一百一十八口性命" (One hundred and eighteen lives in my household) You can see they even counted servants.

If the question was "你家中有什麼人?" (who are in your family)  Then you can include your immediate family who no longer live in the household, for example, married sister or brother who had moved out.

If you are single and live alone, you are considered independent. When people ask you "你家有几口人？" You can say "我單身一人生活".  If you want to introduce your family, then you can say "我家中還有 (list of immediate family) "


Does anyone know what these letters mean?

This answer is two months late; I hope you still need the information.
The position in your first image seems right. I still can't figure out what the first character is, but the second character is quite undoubtedly 妙 (Wiktionary) in a kind of seal script (篆书), though it looks a bit wonky.
Variation of character forms in seal scripts can be considerable, but I have an example for you - you can see it in the top right corner of this seal:

["妙吉羊菴" by San'geng Xu (徐三庚)]
The left halves of them aren't exactly the same (one more stroke in the image you provide), but I'm inclined to think that's due to a misinterpretation of one long stroke as two separate strokes.


婴儿、儿童、少年、成年 and other words related to age

chinese characters related to age, there're three main sources.

the first one is 論語, chapter 為政

子曰：「吾十有五而志于學，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳順，七十而從心所欲，不踰矩。

that

而立 - 30+

不惑 - 40+

知天命 - 50+

耳順 - 60+

the second one is 釋名, which was written in 漢 dynasty

in 卷三﹒釋長幼 (page 57-60):

"人始生曰嬰兒﹒胸前曰嬰"　嬰 - newborn, before breast (breastfeeding)

"兒始能行曰孺"　孺 - started to walk

"七年曰悼"　悼 - 7+

"毀齒曰齔"　齔 - losing baby teeth ( 9-12?)

"十五曰童"　童 - 15+

"二十曰弱"　弱 - 20+

"三十曰壯"　壯 - 30+

"四十曰強"　強 - 40+

"五十曰艾"　艾 - 50+

"六十曰耆"　耆 - 60+

"七十曰耄"　耄 - 70+

"八十曰耋"　耋 - 80+

"九十曰鮐背", "或曰黃耇", "或曰胡耇", "或曰凍梨", "或曰齯"　鮐背, 黃耇, 胡耇, 凍梨, 齯 - 90+

"百年曰期頤"　期頤 - 100+

the third one is 說文解字, also of 漢 dynasty, which was published earlier than 釋名. some explanations were different from 釋名, e.g. 耄 is 90+.

btw, talking about age, remember to consider "虛歲", or "虛齡"

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000111350

there're several more age related characters / words, have fun :)


梳理 has two basic ideas:
Oxford

VERB
1
TEXTILES
card
将羊毛梳理成毛线
card wool into thread

2 整理 comb
梳理思路
organize one's ideas

In line with the second meaning of comb -or- organize:
KEY

2 {figurative} organize, analyze (data, etc.)

I think organization fits pretty well for your sentence here, especially because later in the sentence it mentions 流程 and 选址.
So basically we have 做一个梳理 = Do some organization


How to explain this situation in a few Mandarin phrases?

(Me) - Hi, I'd like to order some take out

你好，我想叫一些外卖

(staff, tells me) you order so much food?

你叫了这么多东西啊？

(Me) I have to order to give to my mother-in-law

我帮我岳母叫的。

(staff, tells me) where is your mother-in-law?

你岳母在哪里？

(Me) My mother-in-law stays in the old folks home

我岳母住在养老院

Please be noted that there're different expressions in Mandarin for mother-in-law. If you are male, your mother-in-law is 岳母. A female's mother-in-law is called 婆婆. Because you mentioned you call her ngoi mo, she must be your 岳母 or else she would be called gah po.


The difference between "忍受不住" and "忍受不了"

忍受 = to endure/ to stand (put up with)

Your question is about the difference between two particles '住' and '了'; It also involve the usage of a potential particles '得'  (see How to determine the part of speech tags of words succeeding 不 like these?)

  住 as a particles denotes a verb is in a continuous state:

  忍受住 = to endure (continuously)

  忍受得住 = able to endure (continuously)

  忍受不住 = unable to endure (continuously)

~

  了 as a particles denotes a verb is completed

  忍受了 = have endured

  忍受得了 = able to endure (successfully)

  忍受不了 = unable to endure (successfully)


Literally: you are nothing at all, usually used in a disparaging way from what I can gather.  It follows the common pattern of Sub+什么都不+Verb, meaning that the subject verbs nothing at all.  Ex: 我什么都不知道 = I don't know anything.


Why is 我找不到 correct and 我不能找 wrong? Which grammatical point am I missing?

In general,

"我不能找"：

  I'm not able/ allowed/ permitted/ qualified to look for
  something/somebody.

"我找不到"：

  I am not able to/ cannot find the things that I am looking for.

Typically, native speaker seldom use "我不能找".

English speakers don't quite say "I cannot look for something" either, right?


There are many use-cases of 吧. In these 吧 should be placed at the end of the sentence.

First the  吧 is used when making polite suggestions, requests or orders. Its presence will soften the tone of such a request or suggestion.

Some examples:

走吧 (zou3 ba): let's go
帮帮他吧! (bang1 bang1 ta1 ba): help him!
我们赶快去医院看她吧 (wo3 men gan3 kuai4 qu4 yi1 yuan4 kan4 ta1 ba): let's go quickly to the hospital to see her
饭菜凉了，快一点儿吃吧 (fan4 cai4 liang2 le, kuai4 yi4 dianr3 chi1 ba): the food has become cold, please start eating

如果你在英语方面有问题，就问我吧 (ru2 guo3 ni3 zai4 ying1 yu3 fang1 mian4 you3 wen4 ti2, jiu4 wen4 wo3 ba): if you have questions related to
English, ask them

你们快回家去吧 (ni3 men kuai4 hui2 jia1 qu4 ba): you'd beter go back home right away
你就放心吧 (ni3 jiu4 fang4 xin1 ba): you can count on me
咱们喝点什么吧 (za2 men he1 dian3 shen2 me ba): let us drink something

Secondly it is used to express approval. Some examples:

好吧 (hao3 ba): OK
好吧，听你的 (hao3 ba, ting1 ni3 de): all right; whatever you say/we'll do it your way

Thirdly it is used to ask a question (involving a conjecture or to indicate doubt without seeking an answer or to soften the question). Some examples:

你不会不知道吧？ (ni3 bu2 hui4 bu4 zhi1 dao4 ba): How can't you know (you have to know it already)
你有一点儿累了吧？ (ni3 you3 yi4 dianr3 lei4 le ba?): You are a bit tired, aren't you? (This is used for example you can see from the person's face that is tired so it's more a rhetorical question)
他到三十岁了吧？ (ta1 dao4 san1 shi2 sui4 le ba?): has he reached 30?
这是我的吧？ (zhe4 shi wo3 de ba ba): This is mine, right? (instead of 这是我的）

Fourthly when you are not completely certain, you want to indicate uncertainty or supposition.  It will soften the tone. Some examples:

这个汉字不对吧 (zhe4 ge han4 zi bu2 dui4 ba): This Chinese character is wrong, I guess. (Compare this sentence to 这个汉字不对. The tone of the latter is much stronger. It's an authorative statement, while the former expresses doubt).
大概是前天吧 (da4 gai4 shi4 qian2 tian1 ba): It most have been the day before yesterday


之 is the wenyan equivalent of Mandarin 的.  Here are some examples from a Classical Chinese textbook:

鄰人之父 >    鄰居的老人       ‘an old man who lived next door’
衛國之法   >  衛國的法律       ‘the laws of Wei’
仁義 之 道  >  仁義的 道理      ‘the doctrine of benevolence and righteousness’

Because parts of speech in wenyan are quite flexible, using 之 to link two terms can have the effect of nominalizing the second one, like this:

王來      ‘the king comes’  >>   王之來    ‘the king’s coming/the arrival of the king’

之 has other meanings in wenyan, too.  The most important of these is probably its use as a third person pronoun he/she/it.
In formal written Mandarin, 之 can appear in either of these functions.  It would be interesting to hear from a native speaker about usage here.  I consulted a book called ‘A Learners’ Handbook of Modern Chinese Written Expressions’ by Yu Feng (Chinese U. of Hong Kong Press).  He suggests a couple of uses:

In idioms like 之後, 之中  etc.  For example:

美國總統的中東之行     ‘the US President’s Middle East visit’

Notice both ‘de’ and ‘zhi’ occur in this phrase – clearly you can’t simply replace the one with the other to achieve a formal style.

In a pattern ‘2-character noun + 之 + 1-character adjective’.  This also creates a noun phrase, i.e. nominalizes like in the ‘king’s coming’ example.

品種之多  ‘a large quantity' [of goods at an exhibition]

There are also some set expressions with this pattern that you might use in writing, like 十天之內  ‘within ten days’.

As a third person pronoun, according to Yu Feng mainly in idioms:

等閑視之     ‘regard it as unimportant’
受之有愧     ‘to feel shame in accepting it’

So, if you encounter 之 in titles like in the example you gave, I would read it as meaning 的 but also as indicating some sort of formal/classical/literary/archaic quality.  Personally I would avoid using it except in set phrases.  Unless you do a lot of formal writing at an advanced level, in which case it wouldn’t hurt to go to the source and learn a bit of wenyan!


How does a foreigner's handwriting look to a native?

It does require a lot of effort. Some Chinese/Taiwanese natives might write worse than non-natives. It all depends on how much time and effort you'd like to put in. First, find the writing you like, and just copy it as many times as it takes for you to write the same thing. It's the same as practice calligraphy really.
As Taiwanese native, we write traditional characters. And I seriously cannot remember how many times I wrote the characters while learning... A LOT for sure XD
Good luck!


Which is the correct grammar: 我比你更了解你自己 or 我比你更你自己了解?

You can say in the following two different ways:

你自己 as the object of 了解. It's like the transit verb case in English. So V+O in normal order.

  我(subject) 比你 更 了解(verb) 你自己(object)

你自己 as the target of the action. In this case, you need a preposition to specify it is a target.

  我(subject) 比你 对你自己(target) 更 了解(verb)


是…的 is used for emphasis. In this case, it is used for contrasting.

这本书是新的: This book is new (contrasting old).

这本书很新: This book is new (neutral or normal case).


我还有几件事要（办/做）are basically carry the same meaning, which is official

我还有几件事要（干）I would say this is less formal that the top one, but you can use it in most of the occasions.

他是搞计算机的 here this 搞 = 从事于（engaged in）computer business or industry

but sometimes 搞 can express negative meanings like 他把工作搞得一团糟 he screwed his work, we usually use this as a fixed collocation: 搞得一团糟

弄 usually means casual and sometimes carries bad meanings, for example：

他马上就要弄好了，不要急。casual

弄坏了 you can see this phrase as a fixed collocation, means broke something


Gender neutral term for family members who are all first born?

Speaking from personal experience (as a 長孫 on my paternal side):

老大 would be the most common gender-neutral term used within the family. Very common.

長子 can refer to the one oldest child of brothers and sisters, but there is quite a lot of variation in use between families, and can refer to the "eldest son" or the "eldest child". To be clear, I'd often go with "長子長女" as a phrase.

A more neutral circumlocution would be 最大的 which is spans formal and informal, in-family and out-of-family use. It defaults to referring to age (not height / width!), but if you want to be specific, you can use 年紀最大的 with "age" included.

There isn't any two-syllable word for the youngest that my family uses, although 老小 and 老幺 I have now seen on searching the Internet. 最小的 is the usual gender-neutral way of expressing it.


方便倒是方便 roughly means though it's convenient. Usually it goes like 方便倒是方便, 可是 ... ... It implies there could be some other negative factors or concerns (though it's convenient).

E.g. (quote from online):

  方便火锅方便倒是方便, 其安全性又是另外一回事。


Is this an example of chaining adjectives?

The sentence should be understood as such:
[没来得及避开的] 很快 就[被骷髅们] 蜂拥而上，撕成碎片

没来得及避开的: the ones that don't have enough time to evade.

很快 is an adverb soon, quickly.

就 denotes something happens very soon.

I tweaked your understanding:

  those who didn't have enough time to evade were soon/quickly swarmed by skeletons in excess and torn into pieces.


「细」 in 「细腻」，「细致」 and 「精细」 denotes 'detailed'

「腻」 has the meaning of 'saturated/ rich', 「细腻 mainly means 'exquisite'
Example: 「小说中对感情的描写十分细腻」 - In the novel, the depictions of emotions are very exquisite (rich in details)

~

「致」 has the meaning of 'neat',  「细致」 mainly means 'neat and detailed'
Example: 「小说中对感情的描写十分细致」- In the novel, the depictions of emotions are very exquisite (neatly displayed in details)

~

「精」 in 「精细」 has the meaning of 'refined' 「精细」 mainly means 'precise'
Example: 「小说中对感情的描写十分精细」- In the novel, the depictions of emotions are very  precise (accurately detailed)

~

深入 literally means 'in-depth'
Example: 「小说中对感情的描写十分深入」 - In the novel, the depictions of emotions are very  in-depth (thorough and detailed)

Other Examples:
「细腻刻画」 - exquisite (rich and detailed) description
「细致图案」 - detailed (detailed and neat) patterns
「精细安排」 - precise (refine and detailed) arrangement
「深入调查」 - in-depth (thorough and detailed) investigation


Generally speaking, it is always appropriate to use “先生” as it is a title used to show your respect for others, especially those elder than you. Because the title “先生” can be understood as "born before you", which implys that they deserve your respect.

E.g.

  Mr. Green 格林先生

  Mr. Tom 汤姆先生

  Mr. Tom Green 格林·汤姆先生

  Hello, mister. 您好，先生。

--- In this case, any male adult can be called “先生”, a child is seldom called that. The title can be used alone. Or you can add either his family name or given name before “先生”, or even his full name.

  Your husband is handsome! 您先生可真帅气！

--- In this case, the husband of one's own or someone else's can be called “先生”, but instead of the meaning "born before you", it is simply a title for "husband". Usually it is used in dialogs and cannot be used alone. In other words, a person will not directly called her husband “先生”.

  Miss He Xiangning 何香凝先生

  Miss Song Qingling 宋庆龄先生

--- In this case, for those honorary persons, even female can be called “先生”, but this kind of expression can rarely be seen nowadays.

  算命先生

  风水先生

  教书先生

  看病先生

  账房先生

--- These are idiomatic usage


Measure word and vocabulary for internet posts

Generally, you will say for " There are 100 xxx posts" as "有 100 个 yyy 帖子"

eg facebook posts = 脸书帖子
eg nytimes forum posts = nytimes 论坛帖子 etc

when the messages generally look long, you can use "篇" as well, when the messages generally look short, you can use "条" as well.

when there is a special term for eg "tweets", you can use "推特帖子" or "推文"


札所 is a Japanese term

札所: 仏教の霊場の称。巡礼者が参詣のしるしとして札を受けたりおさめたりするところ
The name of a Buddhist sanctuary. Where pilgrims accept tags as signs of pilgrimage.

和州, 芝村  is a place's name, but 和州 in Google search doesn't seem to  exist in today's China
The names at the bottom are all Japanese names
You should post this question at the Japanese StackExchange section


Complements of degree that aren't extreme?

Let's take a look of the first example:

  高兴得不得了

The first 得 is a structure of emphasis. It can be translated into English structure "So A that B": "So 高兴 that 不得了（了）". Literal meaning of “不得了” is some extraordinary thing happens. For example "不得了了，房子着火了" (House is under fire). So the literal translation of 高兴得不得了 is "So happy that the happiness is extraordinary". And "so x that x" in English is never used for mild extend, instead it is for extreme extends.

Other adjectival complements are similar. You might only want to express your happiness, when the level of 高兴 exceed some kind threshold. If it is not significant, you might not even bother saying you are happy.

I will try to give you another example. Say you are dragged to a party by your roommate, but you don't want to go at all. You expect it to be super boring, but when you actually arrived there, you feel a little happy. You are surprised by this feeling: it is not what you expected. Now you want to say you are 'a little happy'. You can say "我居然有一点高兴。" Now that "有一点" makes sense. If you want to decorate the sentence to show more ironic emotion, you can say "我居然有那么一点小高兴".


Yes.

是 (verb) means "is, am, are, to be, yes" while 在 (verb) means "at, to be in, to exist", or is a short form of 正在 (adverb,) which is used to indicate an action in progress. 是 is the confirmation of a state of being, whereas 在 is a confirmation of a location, or indicates that you are in the middle of/in the process of doing something.

  是 (verb) + noun

So when you want to use "I am [x]" where [x] could be a student/a teacher/an old man/a young girl/a lawyer, that's when you use 是. What comes after it is a noun.

e.g. 我是留学生。你是哪国人？她是我女朋友。

  在 (verb) + place name

Where you want to use "I am at [x]" where [x] is a place like Beijing/America/etc., that's when you use 在. What comes after it is a place name.

e.g. 我在北京学习汉语。你在哪儿？他在美国旅行。

  正在/正/在 (adverb) + verb

When you want to indicate a continuing action "I am currently [x]" where [x] is a verb like reading a book/watching TV/cooking dinner, you use 正在/正/在. What comes after it is a verb.

e.g. 我正在看电视。你在想什么？她正做饭。


What are the rules of writing a 对联 (chinese couplet)?

平仄 can not be understood by a Chinese who only speaks Mandarin or some dialects, as I mentioned in my answer to the previous question "Different kinds of writing in Chinese". In mandarin, in many cases, 平 refers to the 1st and 2nd tone.
The pattern of 对联 derives from the classic poems, a word-match is enough.
Nowadays, we usually write a 对联 at a celebrating time, e.g. the spring festival, or on the day when you get married, etc., and paste it besides the gate of your house to celebrate the event. As it is written to celebrate something, the content usually refers to good things like "be fortunate, be lucky, be happy, be healthy, etc.", so I think your example would not be considered as a 对联. Of course, you can use it in a humorous way, but I think you won't paste it.


translate: Today I worked through 2 chapters of my grammar book


What is the equivalent in Chinese for the English word "horny"?

Horny
4. (Slang: Vulgar): lustful; sexually excited.
發情
be horny; libidinous
Examples:
He is horny - 他在發情
Horny woman -  發情的女人
Horny man - 發情的男人

To be subtle, you can use 亢奮

亢奮
very excited
Examples:
He is horny - 他亢奮起來


What's the most accessible translation for 修仙 or 修真?

修仙 = cultivate oneself to become an immortal
after become 神仙 or 仙 , one can live outside of the mundane world 吸風飲露，不食五穀 (able to exist and function by using the energy from nature, no need to eat)

~

修真 = cultivate oneself to achieve spiritual enlightenment
修真者，借假修真也。道教中，学道修行，求得真我，去伪存真 (remove the fault and keep the truth) 为“修真”。

Edit:
Scripps wrote:

Is there any noun to represent that?

修仙 short for 修練成仙之法 (study and train oneself to become an immortal)
修真 short for 修硏尋得真我之法 (Study and learn to find one's truth self)
If you must use simple terms to describe them, you can call '修仙' as 'immortality seeking' and '修真' as 'truth seeking'


倔 = blunt 强 = strong
倔强 =  stubborn (resist with strong will, e.g. force, persuasion)

~

固 = fixed
执 = holding on
固执 = stubborn (fixated and holding on to it, e.g. opinion, believe)

~

顽 = tough
固 =  fixed
顽固 = stubborn  (stubbornly fixated , e.g. opinion, believe)

倔强, 固执 and 顽固 can all be a description of someone's stubborn personality.

倔强 emphasize on the strong-willed aspect of stubborn

固执 emphasize on the fixation aspect of stubborn

顽固 emphasize on the unyielding aspect of stubborn

You try to force or persuade your daughter to give up an unrealistic dream, but she stubbornly refuses. That is she being 倔强 (she is so strong-willed, she wouldn't yield to force or persuaded by reasons)
You try to convince an old man that he should not trust traditional Chinese medicine over modern western medicine, but he stubbornly holding on to the believe that traditional Chinese medicine works better than modern western medicine. That is he being 固执 or 顽固 (he is fixated on his believe and firmly holding on it)

固执 is a neutral term, we have a saying 擇善固执 (pick a good believe and hold firm), so when  we say someone being 固执 on a subject, we do not imply he is actually right or wrong

顽固 is mostly a derogatory term, when we say someone being 顽固 on a subject, we actually imply he is wrong


小确幸 is borrowed from Japanese 小確幸, which is created by the Japanese novelist 村上春树 (Haruki Murakami) in his collection of essays ランゲルハンス島の午後 (兰格汉斯岛的午后, Afternoon in the Islets of Langerhans). In Japanese, it means 小さいけれども、確かな幸福, you can translate it as little but certain happiness same as here.

And according to here,

  村上春樹の造語「小確幸」（しょうかっこう）は本作品の原題 "A Small, Good Thing" に由来する。

and here (it seems to be a replay to a question from some reader by 村上春树)

  そうですね、レイモンド・カーヴァーのいうところの『ささやかだけれど、役にたつこと』を大事にしていきたいですね。僕流にいえば「小確幸」です。

  村上春樹拝

【是啊，Raymond Carver所说的这种"a small, good thing", 想要一直珍惜下去呢。用我的话来说就是"小确幸".】

It seems that 小確幸 derived from A Small, Good Thing, which is an award-winning story written by the American short story writer and poet Raymond Clevie Carver Jr., so might translate it as A small, good thing as well.

And according to here (it seems come from a conversation between 村上春树 and his fans), and here (the 2nd comment),

  （小確幸は）「しょうかっこう」です。英語ではsmall, solid happinessです。略してSMASOLIHAP「すまそりはっぷ」です。言いにくいですね。やはり日本語の「しょうかっこう」の方がいいな。
  【村上朝日堂「スメルジャコフ対織田信長家臣団」】

村上春树 translate it as small, solid happiness by himself, and SMASOLIHAP for short.

And here is a passage from 村上春树, it explains the sense of 小确幸, maybe could help you to understand how to use it:

  生活の中に個人的な「小確幸」（小さいけれども、確かな幸福）を見出すためには、多かれ少なかれ自己規制みたいなものが必要とされる。たとえば我慢して激しく運動した後に飲むきりきり冷えたビールみたいなもので、「うーん、そうだ、これだ」と一人で目を閉じて思わずつぶやいてしまうような感興、それがなんといっても「小確幸」の醍醐味である。そしてそういった「小確幸」のない人生なんて、かすかすの砂漠のようなものにすぎないと僕は思うのだけれど。

【要找出生活中自己的小确幸的话，多少需要一些类似自我约束的东西。比如自我忍耐激烈运动之后喝的清凉的冰镇啤酒，一个人闭上眼睛不知不觉地嘟囔出"嗯，对了，就是这个"的感觉，不管怎么说都是小确幸的精髓。而且没有这种小确幸的人生，我觉得不过就是干巴巴的沙漠罢了。】

Reference:
http://www.haruki-m.com/meigen/uzumaki.html
ささやかだけれど、役にたつこと
小确幸
小确幸 原文
村上的“小确幸”和我的“小确幸” / 林少华


Pronunciation of word-initial glides (pinyin 'y' and 'w')

This is probably a better question for linguistics stack exchange; however, I will say that you are not hearing things incorrectly. My background is in linguistics, though not specifically in phonetics and phonology, so don't consider this an expert opinion. However, given some searching, I've found a helpful Wikipedia (Glides section) note  on this:

The glides may occur in initial position in a syllable. This occurs with [ɥ] in the syllables written yu, yuan, yue, and yun in pinyin; with [j] in other syllables written with initial y in pinyin (ya, yi, etc.); and with [w] in syllables written with initial w in pinyin (wa, wu, etc.). When a glide is followed by the vowel of which that glide is considered an allophone, the glide may be regarded as epenthetic (automatically inserted), and not as a separate realization of the phoneme. Hence the syllable yi, pronounced [ji], may be analyzed as consisting of the single phoneme /i/, and similarly yin may be analyzed as /in/, yu as /y/, and wu as /u/.1:274ff It is also possible to hear both from the same speaker, even in the same conversation.1:274ff For example, one may hear the number "one" 一; yī as either [jí] or [í].

What this seems to be saying is that the glides [j] and [w] can be inserted in front of certain vowels of which the glide is considered an allophone and that the insertion of such glides depends on the speaker. From my own experience, this very much seems to be the case. I often speak with Taiwanese/Southern Chinese speakers and will almost always hear [u] to represent the pinyin "wu" and [i] to represent the pinyin "yi". For what it's worth, this is also considered "standard" in terms of the sources (1,2) I've found.
I am avoiding / / notation since usually this is used to denote phonemes (something used to distinguish minimal pairs), whereas [ ] is used to denote surface realizations of the phoneme (allophones). By the way, if someone more familiar with phonetics/phonology finds something wrong here, please do correct me.
To sum up, you are not wrong in hearing it this way. Just be mindful that you may hear some variations. If you want to be safe and certain that you will be understood, then pronounce them as [u] and [i]. Though, given some more listening practice, you may start to mimic some other accents. Try out this website to test out words like "五" and ”一“. You can filter by region to try to hear differences. Personally, I hear the glides inserted more often when using the CN filter, and find them less so when using the TW filter.
PS: You might also find it interesting to look at "Bopomofo" or "Zhuyin", the phonetic symbols used in Taiwan as opposed to Pinyin. In the case of "一" and "五”, both use symbols that correspond simply to [i] and [u] respectively.
EDIT: To answer your question "Are there (other) contexts where the word initial glide does not occur?". To my knowledge, this is the only context where [w] and [j] are omitted in pronunciation but still have "w" and "y" written explicitly in Pinyin. Someone can correct me if I'm mistaken here.


What does "yellow face wife" (黄脸婆) mean?

I guess the term you mentioned, yellow wife, is referred to "黃臉婆" (yellow-face wife).

"黃臉婆" describes a woman who has married for a long time.
The (face) color indicates that she has aged with the burden of housework.
(Someone says, in ancient China, to cover the aging face, women misuse the cosmetics with lead and make their face getting yellow. The elder, more yellow.)

It's a negative term. Husbands use this term to describe their wife as love is fading out.
Wives complain the houseworks and the relationship by calling themselves as "黃臉婆"

I think there's some differences between poker face and this term. : )


Is there any distinction between 二倍 and 两倍?

They are exactly the same. Maybe, 两倍 is used more frequently than 二倍, but I don't have actual data to support it. It's just my impression.


Teaching Pinyin and Characters together vs Teaching Pinyin then Characters

When I was first learning Chinese, we were using the New Practical Chinese Reader series of books. In them:

Dialogues and vocabulary are presented with both characters and pinyin.
You were only expected to memorize a subset of the characters used in a given chapter (e.g., in the first dialogue, you only had to learn how to write 你, 好, and 吗 or something like that).
Eventually you get weaned off pinyin for the dialogues and in some of the vocabulary parts.


Why do people often say 最多 in Cantonese when they mean "at the very least"?

Consider it this way: If your offer and his expectation from you are at two opposite ends, then the most you can offer only meets the least he has expected, or even less.

So the perspective(point of view) affects the use of "most" and "least" -- quite subtle. To make a specific case clear, we need the vivid context.


What is the difference between 翼 and 翅膀?

翅膀 is a compound word only refers to actual wing attached to living creatures. Airplane's wing can only be called 機翼

翼 is a general term for wing. Beside describing all kind of wings. It can also be used metaphorically.  For example: '左翼' (left wing) '右翼' (right wing) in politic; '側翼'  (side wing) in military formations;  翼鋒 (left or right side striker) in soccer; 東翼 (East wing), 南翼(South wing), 西翼(West wing), 北翼(North wing) of a building

You cannot replace 翼 with 翅膀 in these examples


What's the Difference Between 吹风 and 刮风?

"今天吹风很大" is a wrong sentence, which should be replaced with "今天刮风很大".

According to Baidu Dictionary(the interpretations from baidu dictionary)the term "吹风" has following meaning:

1) makes gas through some instrument.

2) let wind blow

3) use blower to dry one's hair

4) let somebody know something in advance

However, the term "刮风" has absolutely different meaning from term "吹风" because it describes as a natural phenomenon, i.e. the horizontal component motion of the air. (According to Baidu Encyclopedia!)


决策is a noun and can only be used as a noun
for example 这是一个非常重要的决策。this is a very important decision.
决定 is a verb but also a noun
verb example 你要决定你想去哪。you need to decide where you want to go
noun example 这是老板的决定，不是我的。this is the boss's decision, not mine.
hope this helps.
P.S. I am Chinese.


It means seven years after marriage, both husband and wife would face numerous temptations that would harm their relationship. The seven years is a vague expression, sometimes a couple gets trouble earlier, sometimes later.

There is a movie about this. Wikipedia has some hints too. Its Baidu page tells that it's borrowed from foreign country.

Case Study

There is a perfect case: 潘粵明 與 董潔, matching the definition pretty well.


[action verb + 起来] does indicate beginning of an action, e.g. 动起来 = start to move; 打起来 = start to fight

[verb + 上] doesn't indicate beginning of an action, it indicates 'action toward an object' e.g. 爱上他 = fall in love with him; 算上他 = counting him; 走上絕路 = walk toward an dead end

[起来] could mean [upon]. e.g. 看起来 = upon looking (seems); 聽起来 = upon hearing (sounds); 说起来 = upon mentioning (by the way)


What does 天將降大任於斯人也,必先苦其心志 mean?

You can find James Legge's translation on ctext. Here's the snippet:

  故天將降大任於是人也，必先苦其心志
  when Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man, it first exercises his mind with suffering

You can also take a look at A. Charles Muller's translation of the same section:

  Thus, when Heaven is going to give a great responsibility to someone, it first makes his mind endure suffering.

If you want to understand about the psyche behind such quotes you could flip through a book like The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Psychology which goes into some detail on their interpretation of the saying. One such excerpt notes:

  As stated in the Confucian doctrines, individuals should endure stress or suffering because these 'negative' experiences can be beneficial to individuals through strengthening their will, resilience, and inadequacies

Of course, you should consider the context around the quote, also, to get a clearer picture of what was being spoken of.


How do you pronounce “太监” in Mainland China?

When 监 is in the forth tone, it usually refers to a specific government department. For example 国子监 was the education department, 钦天监 was the calender department, 太监 was the department of 内务, i.e., affairs of the royal family. Then gradually people start to use 太监 to refer to the specific occupation, or people who belong to the department.

Then 监's meaning as a government department is died out in modern Chinese, so people begin to map it to the ubiquitous jian1, which is technically wrong.

Also at least in Mandarin, there is a tendency that when a noun consists of two characters, the second character would be read as 轻声 or the "light tone", so what you normally hear is tai4jian0. There is also a tenancy that when a character is read as the light tone, people automatically thinks that it should be the first tone. This might also contributed to the shift from jian4 to jian1. But as NS said in the comments, it could probably be just my imagination...

jian1 might be technically wrong, but there are already enough people using it to make it an acceptable pronunciation, only that the dictionaries hasn't been updated yet.

As for you, if you are taking exams, use jian4 for now, otherwise use whatever you like.


What's the difference between 否则, 要不, 不然, and 要不然?

否则 is often time more formal and comes across as more strongly worded (directly admonishing the listener). Much like saying "you need to do X, otherwise/if not, Y will happen (as a consequence)."

E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，否则后果自负

要不 comes across as the softest (has the same as either/or, in the same manner as a suggestion), but it might the nuance of sounding as if one is being admonished, depending on the context. Much like saying "you (either) need to do X, or Y might happen."

E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，要不老板会生气的

However, note that 要不 is (more commonly) used to as a way to directly or indirectly ask the listener for consent (based on the context it's used). Seeing the 吧 typically will indicate that this is a suggestion.

E.g., 一个人看电影没意思，要不我们俩一起去看吧.

不然 is often used when you want to assert a matter of fact (typically in a neutral manner), the manner of speaking is probably somewhere between 否则 and 要不 in terms of strength. Much like saying "you need to do X otherwise Y might happen."

E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，不然老板会生气的

要不然 is a about the same as 要不, but in a bit stronger tone than 要不. Much like saying "you need to do X， or otherwise/or else Y might happen." In my opinion, 要不然 can be used interchangeably with 要不, but only in when used in the context of "otherwise."

E.g., 今天你必须来参加会议，要不然老板会生气的


It is possible in Chinese as well, and similar rules apply.

The big reason behind this is the liushu 六書, or the six methods by which all Chinese characters are created: pictogram (象形), simple ideogram (指事), compound ideogram (會意), rebus (假借), phonetic-semantic (形聲), and transformed cognate (轉注). The method of reading by radical is only applicable to the phonetical-semantical category. However:

pictograms and simple ideograms make up a small (although very frequently used) portion of Chinese characters due to the poverty of these two methods in conveying relatively complex ideas. Pictograms and simple ideograms are one-piece in their own, and have no phonetic and/or semantic radicals;
rebus and transformed cognate characters are rare, and their origins relatively obscure;
a good percentage of Chinese characters are compound ideograms (in Japanese kanji, virtually all kokuji are compound ideograms). However, radicals for compound ideograms usually carry no phonetic value.

Fortunately, the rest, or phonetic-semantic characters (形聲字), make up the vast majority (>70-80%) of Chinese characters. So, yes, you may read them by radicals (but very carefully). However, in Chinese, the onset (聲母) and tone of many 形聲字 have changed, so their onset and tone is often different from the onset and tone of their phonetic radical (聲旁). Let's take characters in the phonetic series 方 as an example:

方 "square": Standard Mandarin fāng, Standard Cantonese fong1, Japanese go'on hō (ホー), Japanese kan'on hō (ホー). Reconstructed Middle Chinese (according to Pan Wuyun 潘悟云) /*pʷiɐŋ/, reconstructed Old Chinese (according to Zhengzhang Shangfang 鄭張尚芳) /*paŋ/.
訪 "visit": Standard Mandarin fǎng, Standard Cantonese fong2, Japanese kan'on hō (ホー). Middle Chinese (Pan) /*pʰʷiɐŋH/, Old Chinese (Zhengzhang) /*pʰaŋs/.
旁 "side": Standard Mandarin páng, Standard Cantonese pong4, Japanese go'on bō (ボー), Japanese kan'on hō (ホー). Middle Chinese (Pan) /*bɑŋ/, Old Chinese (Zhengzhang) /*baːŋ/.

We see that reading by radical usually works in Japanese, but can be tricky to apply in Chinese. As a rule of thumb, use radicals to help remember the rime (韻母) part only. You still have to memorize the onset and tone. Moreover, since many of the onsets have already changed in the Old Chinese era, so really memorized the onsets when reading by radical.

Even with Japanese, reading by radical is not entirely bullet-proof. It can't help you distinguish go'on vs kan'on (which can be tricky), and it can't help you decide when to use on'yomi and when to use kun'yomi (also tricky).

PS: Standard Mandarin refers to Putonghua 普通話 and Kuo'yu 國語, which are both standard registers of Mandarin based on the dialect in and around Beijing. 普通話 is the standard in mainland China and 國語 is the standard in Taiwan: they are essentially the same language, with some disagreements on the pronunciation of a few words. Standard Cantonese is the de facto lingua franca in the Cantonese-speaking world, and is based on the Canton/Guangzhou dialect. Go'on 呉音 and kan'on 漢音 are both on'yomi/borrowed phonetic readings of Chinese characters, go'on being the earlier version.


What is the difference between 一只狗 and 一条狗?

There's no negative connotation, at all.

条 and 只 are used interchangeably in today's Chinese, not just specific to a region. Long ago, 头（頭）were used as a quantifier for dogs or other farm animals. I suspect "head" was dropped because dogs do not have stocky builds as other animals(pigs, donkeys, bulls etc). Also "头" tends to associate "dumb animals" and dogs are perceived as intelligent.

条 in most cases is used to quantify something that's slender, e.g. 一条路(road)， 一条河(river)，一条虫(worm).

I say 一只狗 because it seems to make more sense considering others animals of simliar size and stature also use 只. e.g. 一只猫，一只狐狸 etc. But this is just a personal preference.


What is the phrase for "sounds like" as in "it sounds like your dad is getting better"?

Drunken (programming) Master is right. These 2 from iciba:

It sounds like a wonderful idea to me, does it really work?

听起来这个主意很不错，真的能行吗？

His rhetoric sounds like the death rattle of a fading leadership.

他的慷慨陈词听起来像是一个衰落的领导层垂死的挣扎。

They also have examples of 听上去。It's a great site for finding example sentences.


Funnily enough《规范》has a note on its entry for 缓解 that says:

  注意 跟“缓和”不同。“缓解”侧重指“减轻”或“使减轻”; “缓和”侧重指“平和”或“使平和”。

A rough translation:

Note: it is different from “缓和”. “缓解” emphasizes alleviation or mitigation; “缓和” highlights “calming” or  “mildness.”

Oxford provides some examples that we can compare:

  缓解食品短缺状况
  alleviate the food shortage

  缓解痛苦
  allay a pain

and

  缓和紧张局势
  relax the tension

  形势有所缓和。
  Things have eased up a bit.


Should I pronounce “er” as [ɚ] or [aɚ̯]?

The whole syllable 'er' and the retroflex syllables 'er' (as in 'ler', 'ger' ...) behave differently regard to this question.

For the whole syllable 'er', 'er2'(而), 'er3'(耳) and 'er4'(二) are in fact different. 'er4' is pronounced as 'ar4'. See this article. As when the difference came I do not know. I only begin to notice this when I started doing research in TTS (Text-to-Speech).

For retroflex syllables, I haven't noticed similar phenomena. Every syllable seems to be pronounced the same.

But as said in the wikipedia article, the mentioned shift happens in certain dialects/accents. I am not familiar the variation of sound in dialects.

I do not think the pronunciation difference can make one sounds younger or older, or more formal or mare casual.


What is the difference between 竟然 and 居然?

They are very similar. The difference is that 竟然 is more used in a negative situation where the unpleasant result is out of control and beyond the expectation, while 居然 could be used in both good(i.e. surprise) and bad (i.e. accident).


How do I translate 'do well on your test' into Chinese?

I basically agree with what Itux just said. But I would prefer to say “祝你考试顺利” instead of “祝你测试顺利”.

In your context, “考试” would be the word you look for when you want to translate "test" or "exam". As for "quiz", it's usually “小测”. “测验” means test indeed but in a much more general way. People tend to just use “考试” when they talk something about school, especially in daily conversations.


Chinese grammar: type of word that is not a part of syntax analysis

如果 is a conjunction meaning "in the event of", the same as if in English.


The number of "components" (potentially) to define a Chinese character typeface

Yes this is possible, but there are a number of exceptions and edge-cases to account for. For example, some radicals have variants depending on their position (which are not typically considered distinct radicals):

Radical
Left variant
Right variant
Bottom Variant
Exceptions

心
忄

⺗

人
亻

从

手
扌

拜

水
氵

沝

犬
犭

㹜

刀

刂
⺈
切

火

灬
災

There is also the issue of some radicals not conforming to a left/right/top/bottom/quadrant position, but instead sorrounding other radicals (e.g. 囗).
Additionally, there is not a neat 1-1 map between all traditional and simplified character radicals, with identical radicals being simplified in different ways in some characters.

https://github.com/amake/cjk-decomp
https://github.com/LingDong-/rrpl


There is at least one possible error here (係 v.s. 喺), so I'll assume a nonzero possibility of characters being misassigned. In that case, I'll assume the pronunciation is correct except for the tone.

I have never heard gam3 (generally written as 咁) used (correctly) outside of a context where it comes before an adjective as a means of indicating the extent something is <adjective>.

Conversely, there is also gam2, which has the same pronunciation apart from the tone. (The dictionary gives as 噉.) Use of this gam2 alone (i.e. not in some sort of set phrase like 噉樣) indicates something like "in this case" (e.g. 今日落雨，噉我哋唔好出去啦---it is raining today, so let's not go out). (The dictionary also suggests 恁 as a particle with the romanisation gam with a meaning that could fit, but the use-case appears identical to 噉, so I cannot differentiate between them.)

It is worth noting that people seem to sometimes conflate the two---e.g. 咁樣 and 噉樣 both appear in the Google IME. In fact, 咁嘅 is a lot more common than 噉嘅, judging from Google search and IME suggestions, even though gam3 is definitely not the right tone. Thus, it looks like there's some variation in what the correct transcription for a character not used formally is. (I later found similar ambiguities when I tried checking the character for zung6.)

Regardless of what the correct character is, gam2 makes more sense, because I can group it with 係 in a way that makes sense to me. This means that the translation should be something like:

  I still haven't lost hope, so I'm waiting here.

For what it's worth, I'm having a lot of trouble catching any instance of gam in the audio of the song ("想你想得好孤寂") in question. If the particle were actually absent, though, the line would not feel complete. (I would interpret it as either I still haven't lost hope, waiting here or I still haven't lost hope that waiting here . . .)


Is the meaning of 卖 the original meaning in 卖力，卖萌，卖国，卖傻，卖弄?

「貝」(shell) in ancient China was used as a currency. The original meaning of 「買」was 'take money to the market to trade for goods (to buy)'  The top part of 「買」was originally representing 'goods displayed in the market' ; the character 「賣」 added a hand behind the goods to represent 'handing out goods at the market to trade for money (to sell)'

「買賣」means 'to trade' (include the buyer and seller).

The character 「賣」was originated in an 'market activity' namely 'to display and sell' therefore, it can be used as a verb for 'to display; to show; to promote'

「賣力」 means 'show off one's hard labor to impress' = 'work very hard (to impress)'
「賣萌」means 'show off one's cuteness'
「賣傻」 (display dumbness) means 'play dumb'
「賣」in  「賣國」short for 「出賣」which means "to betray" (to betray someone like you are selling him like goods)
「弄」in 「賣弄」means 'to handle', 「賣弄」(display and handle) means 'to show something off'


sentence structure when talking about weather

天晴 sunny (adj)

晴天 sunny day (n)

明天天晴 = (it will be) sunny tomorrow.

明天是個晴天 = Tomorrow is a sunny day.

If you wrote 明天晴天, it would be a noun (tomorrow) followed by another noun (sunny day). The verb 是 (is) and the classifier(個) are omitted.


My friends use 谢谢 all the time, so even if someone pours them a drink for the 10th time they will still say 谢谢. One thing I noticed when I first started learning was that how I said it sounded too exaggerated, so it was coming across like I was trying to thank someone for saving my life when it was just supposed to be a simple thanks. So maybe try toning it down slightly.

麻烦你 is also quite similar to the English "sorry to trouble you". Don't use this when you haven't troubled someone. So, use it if you have to ask someone to unexpectedly baby sit your children, but not when you ask someone to pass the salt. However, this can be used with grumpy shop keepers (occasionally heard sarcastically) if they reluctantly have to get something off the top shelf or out of its packaging and you decide you don't want to buy it.

Please is hardly used as mentioned.

There are plenty of niceties that you may have not noticed yet that are practiced regularly and not done in the West. Such as standing up when someone new enters a room, regularly offering food or drink to guests, regular giving of gifts etc.

I would say polite things are done as often as the West, just done in a different way.


How are Latin botanical names handled in Chinese?

It seems they use both. On this site, alternativehealing.com, there is a long list of botanical names, the characters and the pinyin as well. For completeness, I must say that in the Chinese wikipedia for "botanical names", 學名 (植物), it's stated that Latin must be used for classes, see the part titled "學名來源".

On the same site, in this page, there is even a dictionary; you can look up by the Latin name, the pinyin or the number of strokes of the characters (if you don't know the pinyin but you know the character).


Doubts on some words in a Deng Lijun song

Here are my conclusions:

The 痴情 is supposed to be 戚戚 | qi1qi1, as suggested here;
The 仍藏心底 is supposed to be 隐藏心底 | yin3cang2 xin1 di3, as suggested here;
The 选择 at the end is supposed to be 三角 | san1jiao4, as suggested here;
The 惘然 is supposed to be 茫然; I only draw this conclusion because it seems to me "blank" fits the context better than "suddenly", since "your face is blank and there is tears in your eyes" is what would result from 茫然, whereas with 猛然 you would have "on the whole face" (一脸) and "the eyes" (眼眶), two contradictory complements of place.

The three "here"s above all link to the same link provided in Jason Swift's comment.


If he elaborates, the whole point of asking the question would be gone.
I suppose only Cantonese speakers would see the point as it is a play on  魚 and 如 which in Cantonese sounds exactly the same, but pronounced in Mandarin as 魚, (Yú), and 如, ( Rú)
The poem's correct title is 美人如玉劍如虹. The riddle is substituting 魚, for 如 as they sound exactly the same in Cantonese.
Will it work in Mandarin? A Mandarin speaker with no knowledge of Cantonese would not get it. I hope I got that right?


说 is the key to understanding. Here it means to judge, deny, or disapprove (especially quickly). 还真别说 translated character by character is "just really don't judge too soon". As a whole it means "(contrary to what I expected,) I just realize that...", or "admittedly".


What does 一个赛一个不讲理的 mean? Does the 的 determine its meaning?

赛 is the same as 比 in this case.

一个赛一个不讲理的
　　　↓
一个比一个不讲理的
　　　↓
一个比一个不讲理
　　　↓
One is more unreasonable than another is.

The word '的' is not important, and can be removed.


please translate this text from My Mother-In-Law from China. I don't speak any Chinese

The first word 加油 is hard to be directly translated to English. I here translate it as "Keep calm and hold on".

Translation:

Keep calm and hold on. I'm praying for you and may God bless you. May everything goes well and all wishes come true.


http://tw.tzuchi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=92%3Aeducation-project&id=6432%3A2011-06-22-07-54-55&Itemid=385&lang=zh

  「師者，傳道、授業、解惑也。」實習老師的授竹，取「竹」閔南語諧音「德」之意，期許老師為人師表要「高風亮節」，傳授品德教育。

「竹」(bamboo) in Minnan language pronounced the same as 「德」(virtue)

Giving the graduated teachers- in- training a piece of bamboo symbolically giving them 'virtue' (a high moral standard) -- to reminder them to live a virtuous life and teach moral lessons to their own students.

  師資培訓授竹典禮 = Teacher qualifications training 'bamboo award' ceremony


What words are used in Taiwan for a place or person that mends clothing?

We don't use 補 or 縫補 in Taiwan. We use 修改衣服 instead.

When you like to get the clothes mended, you should find the 修改衣服/換拉鏈 (Modify clothes/Change zippers) signs as follows.

We still call the person who does these works 老闆.


a). "非常" usually is stronger.
猫和狗都非常可爱 (VERY VERY cute, VERY VERY adorable)
猫和狗都很可爱 (VERY cute, VERY adorable.)
E.g. bmw和benz都是好車，ferrari和lamborghini則是非常好的車。
b). You COULD use 漂亮 for both sentences.
猫和狗都很漂亮
猫和狗都非常漂亮
c). You also can use 漂亮 and 可愛 in one sentence.
猫和狗都很漂亮、很可愛。
猫和狗都非常漂亮、非常可愛。
But sometimes you might not use 可爱 to replcace 漂亮, and vice versa.
E.g
你的貓毛色很可愛(Your cat's fur color is so cute). It's understandable, but sounds a little odd. Use 漂亮 is better than 可愛。


Southwestern Mandarin: what does 欛新床/铺新床/压床 imply?

What needs to be understood here is that 欛新床 or 铺新床 is not just talking about making a bed or changing the sheets - but is specifically referring to Chinese wedding customs where the "new bed" is made for the newlywed couple.

Baidu 百科 has the following article: 压床（民间婚庆习俗） which explains:

  压床又称压喜床，压新床等，中国汉族婚俗之一。青年男女结婚的头天晚上，新郎家要请儿女双全的老人把床铺好，然后新郎请一个或者两个弟弟和自己一起在新床上就寝。压床的人也有条件限制，不是任何人随便就能压的。首先，压床的人必须是小于新郎的青年，一般都是自己的亲弟弟，或者是叔伯弟弟和姨表弟弟。如果在自己的亲戚范围内没有这样的人选，新郎也可以找同村的朋友和要好的同学。压床人的第二个条件，必须是未婚青年。

The night before the couple-to-be get married, the entire family is supposed to make their bed after which the groom will chose one or two of his younger brothers to have a sleep over. The persons that the groom may choose from is limited, not just anyone can spend the night with him. First, the person must be younger than the groom, usually he will pick his own fleshly younger brother or his younger male cousins. If none of his relatives are applicable, the groom may find a friend or classmate from his town. The second requirement is that the person must be unmarried.

The article also states:

  对娶亲的人来说，压床是一件吉利的事情。

This custom is thought to bring good luck to the new couple.

and don't forget:

  如果男孩儿在压床的时候，不小心尿在了新床上，这是吉利加吉利，人们更是欣喜异常。

If during this custom the boy chosen to stay with the groom accidentally pees on the bed, this is considered luck upon luck and people will be even more delighted.


In my opinion, 是 expresses a state 一种状态 and it's used to state a fact，while 做/当 denotes an act 一种动作, meaning 充当，担任.  For example, 我是老师 clarified the fact you are a teacher, while 我做/当老师 denotes you want to act as a teacher even if sometimes it's not really your job.


What is the Chinese original version of the proverb "Craftsman, know your tools"?

I think the original proverb is "工欲善其事 必先利其器"

工 = 工匠 (craftsman)
欲善其事 (want to do his job well)
必先 (must first)
利其器 (make his tools sharp, meaning in good condition)

This saying is using "To do a good job, a craftsman must sharpen his tools" as an analogy for "To be successful, one must first prepare his tools (make preparation)".
"Sharpen tools" is a metaphor for "make preparation".


Here are the common definitions for these words:

實驗 - experiment (lit: practical test)
e.g. 物理實驗 - physics experiment

測驗 - test as in exam (lit: test/measure test)
e.g. 英語能力測驗 - English skill test

試驗 - test as in tryout/trial (lit: try test)
e.g. 臨床試驗 - Clinical trial

By the way, I suggest don't use any translation engine if you want to study that language, use actual dictionaries. I believe translation engines are just to get a grasp of the input. At this point in time, humans are needed to finalize the translated outputs.


I believe this asian artwork is from China. I am seeking the translation of this artist signature! I will include photo of signature!

I managed to find another piece by the same artist.
Tsunenobu hitsu “常信筆”– Japan 17th – 18th century
https://www.catawiki.com/l/23453837-painting-silk-flowers-cotton-rose-large-painting-on-silk-signed-tsunenobu-hitsu-japan-17th-18th-century-japan-edo-period-1600-1868


This is my personal experience:

You will remember and learn much more by writing things down than by using a computer
Chinese writing is notoriously hard and that's why schooling in China is much more full on and you will struggle if you don't push yourself as hard as a Chinese school student
Learning to write helps with learning to read. However, unless you are practicing regularly, you will forget how to write after a while. A quote from one of my Chinese friends yesterday: "Most of us have forgotten how to write. If someone asked me to write a letter today, I'd be lost."
I've seen many a demanding Chinese wife. Make yourself a level playing field and start asking for hand written 1k word essays once a week.


How was 辣 used before the Columbian Exchange?

in ancient time, "辛" was used, in lieu of 辣. e.g. in 洪範:

潤下作鹹﹒炎上作苦﹒曲直作酸﹒從革作辛﹒稼穡作甘

http://ctext.org/shang-shu/great-plan/zh?searchu=潤下作鹹，炎上作苦，曲直作酸，從革作辛，稼穡作甘%E3%80%82&searchmode=showall#result

nowadays, dictionary would explain 五味 as 甜﹒酸﹒苦﹒辣﹒鹹, instead of older terms 甘﹒酸﹒苦﹒辛﹒鹹

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=Z00000159662

i guess the taste 辛 was gotten from 薑 ( ginger ), 花椒 ( Zanthoxylum ); that these two were native chinese plants.

last, the character "辣" is derived from "辛" & "剌"

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/search.php?word=辣

well, more info:

the book 酉陽雜俎 of 唐 dynasty (618-907) mentioned "胡椒" (pepper) and associated its taste to the terms "辛辣"

酉陽雜俎　卷十八, ~p112 of the pdf file:

胡椒 - pepper

摩伽陁國 - magadha, a kingdom in ancient india

another casual found:

the term "辣椒" (chili pepper) is first used in 漢文大藏經　百癡禪師語錄　卷三 (around 1644-1661):

張空火傘熱難當
何處幽陰可隱藏
莫道太平無款待
濃煎幾碗辣椒湯

http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/J28nB202_003, [0016b07]


What does this mark mean? (Characters identified: 周桂珍制)

珍　周
制　桂

Made by 周桂珍, craftswoman born in Yixing in 1943. You can Google image search the name to get more pictures of teapots.