List of fixed character descriptions (eg. 白勺的)

The characters with same or similar pronunciation are usually distinguished by making a word from them, like

  我叫柳星雨，雨是下雨的雨，不是宇宙的宇

The only common one I recall is the following where sometimes people are trying to distinguish between two surnames both pronounced as zhang

  弓长张 and 立早章


There are many types of rain in Chinese vocabulary

雨: rain

煙雨: misty rain

微雨: drizzle

毛毛細雨/ 毛毛雨/ 微絲細雨: very light rain/ drizzle

細雨 : light rain

雨霧: rain and fog

過雲雨: brief rain

長命雨/ 長雨 long lasting rain

晴雨/ 晴天雨: sunny sky rain

夜雨: night rain

連夜雨: all night rain

分龍雨: narrow area rain (you can see clear sky few miles away)

大雨: heavy rain

傾盤大雨/ 滂沱大雨/ 豪雨:  heavy rain/ downpour

驟雨: sudden rain

局部地區性驟雨: regional sudden rain

全國性大雨: nation wide heavy rain

陣雨: intermittent rain

暴雨: severe rain/ heavy downpour

狂風暴雨: strong wind and severe rain

暴風雨/ 雨暴: rain storm

雷雨: thunder and rain

熱帶雨 : tropical rain

冷雨: cold rain

冰雨: icy rain

春雨: spring rain

夏雨: summer rain

秋雨: autumn rain

冬雨: winter rain

梅雨: plum season rain (of middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze in  late spring and early summer)

山雨: mountains rain

平原雨: rain over the plain

海上雨: rain over the sea

天降甘霖/ 甘霖: life giving rain from heaven (classical term)

及時雨: needed rain that falls in time (idiom for "help that comes in time)

黑雨 : black rain (highest level of warning in the rainstorm warning system in Hong Kong)


This is internet slang: 猪脚 refers to 主角 (they have similar pronunciation), i.e. protagonist / leading role [character]. The original meaning of 猪脚 is pig feet; as @NS.X. commented, as internet slang it's usually used for playfulness, sarcasm or self-mockery.

我是男猪脚 means I am the leading man (main actor).

Related terms: 男猪 (男主角), 女猪 (女主角).


Extended use of the Complement of direction and 把。

You cannot apply 把 to a verb phrase with potential particle because 把 is a dispositive marker. A dispositive marker marks an object to be disposited of by a verb. For example: in (把)他趕走. the object(他) is being disposited of by the verb 趕走 (chase away).

When a potential particles (得 or 不) is inserted between a verb and its resultive/ directional particle, that verb becomes a potential verb. For example:  趕走= chase away;  趕得走 = able to chase away.  It can no longer be applied to [dispositive marker + object] structure which requires an active verb at the end.

Example: in 我(趕走)他 , (趕走) is an action verb; in 我(趕得走)他, (趕得走)is a potential verb- You can, but you are not actively preforming the verb)

For the same reason, 我把他的名字(想起來- active verb) is correct, but  我把他的名字(想不/得起來- potential verb) is incorrect

To make '我把他的名字想起來' negative , you have to modify 把 with a negative marker like 沒 or 未 , for example: "我(沒)把他的名字想起來"

  When I have 想不起來 on its own without 把，can I even unambiguously say, whether it is the negative of 可能補語 or 趨向補語？

Without 把, there's no object to be disposited of,  '想起來' (active verb) or '想不起來/'想得起來 (potential verb) can be applied.

The sentence can be "我(想起)他的名字來" or, "我(想得起)他的名字來,  "我(想不起)他的名字來"- (you are not actively preforming the verb)


Your understanding is right.

"非语言表达方式" means expressing things without using language, here the word "language" means just spoken and written language, gestures are not considered as "language" here although they can be refereed to as "肢体语言".

The reason is that you need to understand the word "language" here by context. The word "language" from the first half of the sentence means spoken and written language, e.g. Chinese here, so it still means that in the second half of the sentence.

Actually, the reason we Chinese sometimes call gestures "肢体语言" is that it serves the purpose of expressing thoughts and emotions, just like what we can do with the "real language".

There are other similar phrases like "艺术语言", which means the way of expressing by practice of art.

Hope this helps :)


the verse is chopped wrongly lah, i would read it as "爾" + "國" + "臨格".
"臨格" ought to be read together as a verb, with the meaning of "come / arrive".
the entry of "格" in 國語辭典 explained (the sixth, as verb):

至、來。《書經．堯典》：「光被四表，格於上下。」宋．蘇軾〈賀時宰啟〉：「歡聲格於九天，乖氣消於萬彙。」

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=W00000003946
for comparison, consider the word "蒞臨", which means ~ "come / arrive / be present"; while the character "蒞" means "to reach / arrive", and "臨" means "come to / arrive / be present".
the main prayer text is translated by mr 王韜, imo, excellent one.
http://www.rhenish.org/Common/Reader/News/ShowNews.jsp?Nid=3782&Pid=5&Version=80&Cid=151&Charset=big5_hkscs
usages of "臨格" in literatures of yore:
in 文忠集　卷八十六

皇帝親詣啓聖禪院告遷明徳元徳章穆皇后赴普安院奉安祝文
嚮者因霖災之為沴・飭殿構以増新・㳙榖旦之惟良・奉神遊而還止・載深感慕・躬薦芬馨・式慰孝思・冀茲臨格

in 廬山太平興動宮採訪真君事實, the 滿散詞:

惟廬嶽之名峰，實天仙之奧宅。夢符晝現，雖自開元之傳；邇遠名彰，邈想真王之始。應世則帝王之佐，在天惟耳目之司。千齡昔紀於元豐，四字首加於徽號。備玆褥禮，屬在休期。鏤玉填金，煥成章於雲漢；臨軒發冊，增偉觀於江山。顧熙事之嘉成，涓良辰而祝告。伏願威神臨格，昭鑒居飲。薰燎揭虔，共仰九霄之邃；厲鴻嘖祉，永言萬壽之期。併敷錫於庶民，俾交欣於百樂。

http://www.ctcwri.idv.tw/CTCW-CMTS/CMT07正乙部/CMT07ALL/CH07094盧山太平興國宮採訪真君事實/CH07094-2卷二宋朝崇奉類.htm
have fun :)


恭喜 is more colloquial.

祝贺 is more literary.

Both can be used as a verb for "congratulate"

"大家都去[恭喜]李先生家中添了個男丁"
"大家都去[祝贺]李先生家中添了個男丁"
"Everyone goes [congratulating] Mr. Li who has added a son to his home."

Since 恭喜 is more colloquial, it is the one we use as an exclamation in speech:

"恭喜恭喜! 恭喜你們家中添了個小男孩"(Congratulations!! Congratulations on adding a son to your home)
or
"恭喜恭喜! 恭喜你們家中添了個千金" (Congratulations!! Congratulations on adding a daughter to your family)

~

恭喜恭喜! is the exclamation (optional, but very common)
恭喜你們家中添了個小男孩 (or 千金) is the detailed congratulations. This phrase can be used in speech or in writing

You should only use the literary 祝贺 in writing. And you don't need to add an exclamation

祝贺你們府上添了個小孩 (Congratulations on adding a child to your home)

Related term: 恭祝 (wish/ bless)


The term "黑箱" was a direct translation of a science term "Black box" from English

"Black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings.
..........
Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an engine, an algorithm, the human brain, an institution or government.

黑箱作业 in English should be ”black-box operation(s)” . (you can see what goes in and what comes out, but you never how the system works). Presuming the English speaker knows what is a 'black box'


Is 壁橱 (as opposed to 衣柜) only a colloquial word for "closet"?

壁橱 can refer to a small closet, a wardrobe embedded in a wall, a cupboard hanging on a wall, a chest placed against a wall or something else. As the characters go (壁=wall, 橱=case), it can be a container for anything not limited to clothes. Note, as an imported concept, 'walk-in closet' is not translated into 壁橱 but something along the line of 储衣间 (clothes storage room) or 更衣室 (dressing room).

衣柜 (衣=clothes, 柜=cabinet) means a wardrobe, either built-in in the wall or a standalone piece of furniture. A general-purpose cupboard should never be called 衣柜.

In Chinese, the distinction between built-in in the wall vs. standalone furniture is not made by first-class words or affixes. Both 壁橱 and 衣柜 can refer to either a closet or something else.

For the similarities/differences between 橱 and 柜, please refer to @Question Overflow's answer here.


How many distinct characters are there in a typical Chinese book?

Counting distinct characters/words in chinese books is really easy, but what exactly does "typical" means?

You can solve it by python.
Then every time you meet a "typical" book(txt,mobi,azw format etc), you can count it by yourself.

input

The txt file of The Three-Body Problem I:Remembrance of Earth's Past
The txt file of The Three-Body Problem II:The Dark Forest
The txt file of The Three-Body Problem III:Death's End

program

import sys
import string
from collections import defaultdict
file_loc="tb3.txt"
try:
    f = open(file_loc,"r",encoding='gbk')
    allstr=f.read()
except UnicodeDecodeError:
    f = open(file_loc,"r",encoding='utf-8')
    allstr=f.read()

#dict to count chars, default to zero
d=defaultdict(int)
for i in allstr:
    d[i]+=1

#count how many dinstinct words
#import jieba
#for i in jieba.cut(allstr):
#    d[i]+=1

# one pass filter, you can just use this filter
for c in string.printable:
    d.pop(c,0)

# select chinese characters directly
unicode_ranges = [0x3007,0x3007],[0x3400,0x4DBF],[0x4E00,0x9FEF],[0x20000,0x2EBFF]
for i,key in list(enumerate(d)):
    if not any(map(lambda x:x[0]<=ord(key)<=x[1],unicode_ranges)):
        del d[key]
print(len(d))

# map word_count to list of chars
d2=defaultdict(list)
for key,val in d.items():
    d2[val].append(key)

#sort by val
for key,val in sorted(d2.items(),key=lambda x:x[0],reverse=True):
    print(key,val)

chinese character reference

conclusion

three body problem 1: 2854
three body problem 2: 2986
three body problem 3: 3034

(welcome to add your count results of other books here)

3000 characters cover 100%!,

You can use sum(d.values()) to count the total #chinese-characters
in three body problem 1, you will find 2109 characters covers 99.393256%
2370 chars(delete char that occurs only once) covers 99.7%,
In addition,

You said

  there's a rough average of six characters you need to either look up or accept not knowing how to pronounce!

That's false in the 99.4% version, you can learn a meaning of character in this way. You are likely to meet the same char again in this book if you only know 2109 characters.

If you are insterested in details, see all the resultshere


猫舅 in this sentence just means cat. It's become slang to say 猫舅 when one just means cat.

Also the following might be helpful too:

猪爹 (pig dad) - means pig
猫舅 (cat uncle) - cat
狗老爷 (dog grandpa) - dog


一张网页 or 一个网页 ("a webpage"): which is the better choice of measure word, and why?

A "web page" (网页) is not actually a sheet of paper but a section of a web site (网站).

On any 'web page' of a site, you can access all other pages within the site,  therefore 个 is the correct classifier for 网页

However, if you print a web page, you'd get "a web page print out" (一张网页的打印输出)


Why is the meaning of 不是要求以小组为单位做报告吗?? (...以...为...)

IMO, when 以...为... is used as a verb phrase, it should be translated to "using/taking A as B". For example, 他们以胖为美。== They take fat as beauty.

When it is used as a prepositional phrase, we could use the prepositional word by to interpret.

For example, 以小时为单位 could be simply translated to "by the hour". We are paid by the hour. == 我们以小时(为单位)计费。为单位 could be omitted in this case.

Apparently, in this context, it's a prepositional phrase. So,

不是要求以小组为单位做报告吗?

one possible translation:

  Isn't the demand/request to do the reporting by group?

Here 以小组为单位 could be interpreted as "by group".


First, you should discern whether it's used as its literary meaning or metaphorical meaning from a given context.

Literally, '死人不偿命' means one wouldn't compensate for other's death.

Metaphorically, don't come to me (for reasoning) if you would 'die' of it. The typical example is 笑死人不偿命，for example 笑死人不偿命的笑话.  The similar phrase in English could be 'something that could laugh your ass-off'.

On the other hand, 笑死人不偿命的笑话 sometimes could be a way of tempting, in which they suggest you not taking a shot of it otherwise it would 'kill' you by too much without any compensation. This could have the effect of the psychological inversion, and finally you wouldn't wait to take a shot of it.

There are some other similar phrases in our daily usage, like 笑死人了，笑死了， 吵死了， 烦死了, ... . You could say 我最近烦死了！（I've been bored to death recently.）.


Why use 碰头 (pèngtóu) to mean "meet" instead of say 见, 见面, or 看见? (In e.g. 过两分钟我们在外面碰头)

Actually, the 碰 itself can mean to meet. E.g. 我们周六再碰一下吧。// let's meet again on Saturday.

It can form the words: 碰头, 碰见, 碰面. The dictionary definition of 碰头 is 会面；短时间地聚会(short meeting). The question 'why' in any language is hard to answer and sometimes even unanswerable. For this case, we can only imagine two people run into each other and figuratively it implies they 'meet'. Usually, 碰 happens in brief time(they bump into each other and then split immediately), which reflects that the meeting is short. That could somehow explain why 碰头 can mean "short meetings".

My two cents.


I think that this is more a product of the fact that 我饿了 is something we don't commonly explicitly express in English.  We say "I am hungry" and let context and tone of voice determine whether this is some new information (I am hungry now) or merely the expression of a continuing state of affairs (I have been and continue to be hungry).  I have become hungry (to stick with the present) may sound like an awkward translation because it is trying to make the exact meaning of the expression explicit.  If we were translating a novel (and not tying to explain the language) we would probably translate it as "I am hungry" and allow the nuance to be suggested by the context.


Why does 空 have a fourth tone reading in 空格, but a first tone reading in 空调, 空气 etc

Generally, first tone means it is related to air/sky/vaccuum/or stressing its emptiness.

空调-air conditioner，空气-air,天空-sky 航空-aviation 真空-vaccuum，空虚-emptiness

Fourth tone usually means something related to blank/room or space/emptiness, and stressing that it can be used or filled

空格-space 空当-free time or space，填空-fill in the blank
空白-blank/空缺-vacancy/空隙-slot/空出时间
(may not be appropriate translation,sorry)

Another interesting example:

这个房间是空的。 This room is empty.(first tone)

哪个房间空出来？ Which room is available(so that I can use)?(fourth tone)


当属 is an abbreviation of 应当属于, which means should be.

应当 means should, 属于 means be/is (of which the original meaning is belong to. Here maybe you can interpret it as attribute to? I'm not sure.)

So you can say 当属 or 应当是.


Why use combined characters that have the same meaning?

Mandarin has a lot of two-character words, where both of the characters mean almost the same thing. This seems surprising, but makes sense when you see how the language developed over time. Old Chinese (spoken over two thousand years ago) had a lot more sounds than Modern Mandarin, and over time, many sounds were lost. This isn't obvious from Chinese characters (which don't record individual sounds), but this fact has been established based on ancient Chinese dictionaries (often called "rime books"), as well as modern linguistic research. However, after the sounds were lost, many syllables which used to sound different ended up sounding the same. To avoid confusion, people starting combining two syllables, to make themselves clear.

For example, rènshi (simplified: 认识, traditional: 認識) is composed of two syllables, both of which come from Old Chinese. They were pronounced something like "nəns" and "ək" (where "ə" is like the "a" in "comma"). We can compare this with other characters that are pronounced the same in Modern Mandarin. For example, 任 is also pronounced "rèn", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "nəms", not "nəns". Meanwhile, 十 is also pronounced "shí", but in Old Chinese, it was pronounced "gip", not "ək". By combining the two syllables, rènshi is easier to understand, because it can't be confused with other words. These two-character words have now been used for centuries, and in some cases, the individual characters would not be used on their own.

As a second example (from this question), we can look at shuìjiào (simplified: 睡觉, traditional: 睡覺). Both characters come from Old Chinese, and were pronounced "doih" and "krûks". In contrast, 税/稅 is also pronounced "shuì", but in Old Chinese, it was "lhots", not "doih". Similarly, 较/較 is also pronounced "jiào", but in Old Chinese, it was "krâuk", not "krûks".

I have taken these pronunciations from the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. If you want to search for other words, click "All" underneath "ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese", type your words in the box at the top (in traditional characters), and then click the "Display Phonetics" button on the left. If a character didn't exist in Old Chinese, it won't come up! For example, 苹果/蘋果 comes from Sanskrit, and came into Chinese around the same time as Buddhism came into China.

If you would like to read more about how Chinese has developed two-syllable words, you can have a look at this academic paper, which was linked in this answer.


It looks like some of this comes from an August 2014 news story that Xinhua ran about big data, but I believe that there is probably an English original somewhere behind this. Perhaps 人的智慧 was an (odd) attempt to translate "human intelligence" (as opposed to artificial inteligence).

最卓越 is also odd, the August 2014 Xinhua story had a very similar sentence that used 最优 "optimal".

“科盲”们 is even odder, an attempt to translate "science illiterates." The Xinhua story used 技术盲, not quite as odd, since it doesn't try to make it plural. A lot of very perplexing Chinese originates from bad translations of English. Perhaps others will feel that none of this is very odd, though. This is how languages change.


Where, when and what is the word 圆舞 used for?

My guess, and I think this is a reasonable good guess is that 华尔兹 = "waltz" and 圆舞 = "round dance" and in English a waltz is a type of round dance.

So you don't hear people calling "华尔兹" "圆舞" because "华尔兹" is a type of "圆舞" but 圆舞曲 can be used for any kind of "圆舞" not just for waltzes.

If you use Google to search for the definition of round dance you get the following:

  round dance

  Noun

  A folk dance in which the dancers form one large circle.
  A ballroom dance such as a waltz or polka in which couples move in circles around the
  ballroom.

Also from the wikipedia article on Round dance:

  Modern social round dancing is choreographed and cued ballroom dancing
  that progresses in a circular pattern, counter-clockwise around the
  dance floor. The two major categories of ballroom rhythm found in
  round dancing are the smooth or international rhythms, such as foxtrot
  and waltz, and the Latin rhythms, such as cha-cha and rumba.


What does this painting's signature say? (Characters identified: 姜旗)

I tend to think it is 姜琪（JIANG QI）. Though 王 is odd, 其 is quite obvious.

Edit:

@Sylvia is right: It's 姜旗, though the stroke order of 方 is incorrect.


What is the difference in usage between 势必， 必定 and 必然?

势必 be bound to; certainly will

势必 = 形势必然 (situation will certainly be)

势必(compound word):bound to

Example: 决赛:德国对巴西, 到時势必有一场恶斗
(Final match: Germany vs. Brazil, when the time comes, there will certainly be a tough fight)

emphasize on:'the situation dictate a certain outcome' (the situation of Germany vs. Brazil ensure a tough fight)

  必定 to be bound to; to be sure to

必= certain; 定= 肯定 = sure

必定 (compound word):certainly; surely

Example: 每次德国遇上巴西, 都必定有一场恶斗
(Whenever Germany runs into Brazil,  they would certainly have a tough fight)

emphasize on 'an absolute certainty' (The fact that 'Germany vs. Brazil is always a tough fight' is an absolute certainty)

  必然 inevitable; certain; necessity

必= certainly; 然= naturally

必然 (compound word):certainly

Example: 如果德国遇上巴西,那必然是一场恶斗
(If Germany ran into Brazil, then it would certainly be a tough fight)

emphasize on 'a natural outcome of certainty' (the nature outcome of Germany vs. Brazil is a tough fight)


What's the difference between 表明 (biǎomíng) and 清楚地表明 (qīngchǔ dì biǎomíng)?

清楚地 (adv) = clearly

表明 (v) = show/ demonstrate/ indicate

  Question: What's the difference between 表明 and 清楚地表明?

图14．34 表明了这一点。= Figure 14. 34 indicated this point

图14．34 清楚地表明这一点 = Figure 14. 34 clearly indicated this point


Difference among these terms for student clubs: 队、团、俱乐部、社和兴趣小组?

These words are very similar. 队 and 团 are almost the same. For example, we can call the band that attend competitions either 乐队 or 乐团; we can call a choir either 合唱队 or 合唱团. We also often put these two words together: "团队," which means "team". For example: 我们是一个团队。 We are a team.
If you really want tell a difference between 队 and 团, according to my feeling, a 队 may contain fewer people than 团. For example, you can call a group of 3 people 小队, but you can't call it a 团. Anyway, there are still some exceptions. You just have to remember which word goes with 队, and which word goes with 团--like in English, people have to remember to say "a SCHOOL of fish", not "a FLOCK of fish".
俱乐部, 社 and 兴趣小组 are different in terms of their different professional levels.
俱乐部 sounds more professional, people in 俱乐部 are mostly professional enthusiast. Example: 足球俱乐部, 电竞俱乐部
社 sounds less professional than 俱乐部. We call a school club 社, but we never call it 俱乐部. For example: 学校的音乐社 the school's music club
兴趣小组 sounds the least professional. It seems that anyone who is interested in that activity can join a 兴趣小组. They are not required to be professional players.


What is the meaning of 省 in character breakdown

「省」 means graphically reduced, i.e. not the entire structure of the component is incorporated.
The given definition largely comes from Shuōwén jiězì:

《說文》：“喬，高而曲也。从夭，从高省。《詩》曰：‘南有喬木。’”

and since Shuōwén jiězì descriptions are linked to Shuōwén small seal script shapes, by looking at these shapes the description would make more sense.

Basically, Shuōwén thinks that 「喬」 is 「夭」 on top of 「高」 with its top 「亠」 removed, hence its description of the 「高」 part as graphically reduced (省).

To my understanding, when a character is of the 会意 type, part of the character might be both phonetic and symbolic.

No, 「會意」 means compound semantic, that is, all components hint at meaning. If something is simultaneously a semantic and phonetic component, the literature normally says something like 「从Ｘ从Ｙ、Ｙ亦聲」, e.g.

《說文》：“墨，書墨也。从土，从黑，黑亦聲。”

By the way, that description

《說文》：“喬，高而曲也。从夭，从高省。《詩》曰：‘南有喬木。’”

is incorrect, 「夭」 does not give a meaning hint in 「喬」, and is the result of graphical corruption.


How do you specify past tense for 是?

From my answer:

You have to remember, unlike in English, we do not have past tense for verbs in Chinese grammar. Both "is" and "was" is written as "是" in Chinese.


傲嬌 is a word from Japanese animation and just used in the Internet.

傲娇指的是这样一种性格：
表面上对陌生人/喜欢的人很冷淡或趾高气昂，即展现出“傲”的一面，而一旦关系突破某一好感度/耻度界限后，或者遭遇某种契机(特殊事件)的时候，就会突然变得害羞、娇俏可人，即表现出“娇”的一面。

ref : http://zh.moegirl.org/傲娇
At most time, a person who is 傲嬌, means he/she is 傲 at first and then 嬌 when he/she met someone he/she link.
For your context, I think it's a not standard usage of this word and may just means 傲 only.


Chinese proverb: If you want happiness for a lifetime, help the younger generation?

Yes! there is a very close proverb. 养儿防老, it's not said by any known author, but just very commonly used in Chinese daily life.


得 : got to / must / have to ABC must / need / should be
弄清楚 : ABC make clear; figure out

得 is read děi when it means must/have to/need to.

I would translate 首先得弄清楚我们需要什么。 as:

We first need to figure out what we need.


From the links on your post:

但制作雕像的白色大理岩也称为大理岩
(But the white marble that's for making statue is also called marble)

'white marble' is one kind of 'marble'

'汉白玉'就是纯白色的大理石
'Han white jade' is pure white marble

汉白玉 is not actual jade, but a marble that is pure white

Is that translation correct? Is it a form of 大理石?
is there an English translation of this form of white marble?

Search 'white marble' image and you can find many pictures that we would call 白色的大理石, but most of them are not pure white.
汉白玉 should be translated as 'pure white marble' and it is still a kind of 大理石 (marble)
There is one pure white marble image I found online. It came from Hanoi
Hanoi is in North Vietnam, neighboring China
云石(cloud stone = marble) is another name for 大理石


What are the original Chinese characters for the Filipino-Chinese family name Suico?

隋 is a more probable candidate for Sui. It is (some form of) Sui in Hakka and Hokkien. There's a 睢 too.

郭 is not a good candidate for Co -- in southern Chinese languages (Hakka, Minnan/Hokkien, Cantonese) it has a final -k. Some variant of Kwok.


What is the equivalent in English for 移步？

In fact, by saying "移步", there is nothing implied here and it's just a polite term. It simply makes sense by removing 移步 from the sentence. 请到餐厅用膳。

Personally, I don't think it's a good usage of 移步 in the context. It's kind of redundant.


Does a good OCR of "Western Mandarin, or, The spoken language of western China" by Grainger, Adam exist?

Unfortunately, most OCR software still has trouble dealing with this type of 'non-standard' typeface.  In my experience, Chinese that is not in one of the standard computer fonts always comes out with significantly more errors than roman lettered texts. Premodern printed works come off especially badly, so unless someone has made this particularly book the subject of a major project, I doubt there is anything useful out there. Let me know if you find something!


Where does this quote come from? “How can you say you have no clothes? I’ll share my robe with you”?

It sounds like “豈曰無衣・與子同袍”.

It is from the poem “無衣” in the Book of Odes:

  豈曰無衣、
  與子同袍

  How shall it be said that you have no clothes?
  I will share my long robes with you.


App similar to "I learn Chinese", but for traditional Chinese

not an app but here is a good resource: http://eword.ntpc.edu.tw/phrase.htm

i admire you're willingness to learn traditional characters. we call these 生字簿 (unknown character booklet) in taiwanese elementary schools, so it helps if you know 注音 (zhuyin, aka ㄅㄆㄇㄈ bopomofo), and the pages flow from right to left vertically for stupid political reasons so be prepared for smudges. unfortunately the site is designed for parents and teachers, so kinda unfriendly if you don't already read chinese, but the link above should contains all the links to the pdfs. start with 一年級 (first grade) then 二年級 and so on. it's a lot to go through and meant to take six years even for kids with they sponge like memory so take it slowly, have fun!


「剛」originally meant unyielding/stubborn/strong. 金剛 is a traditional phrase which is also used to translate a Buddhist word from Sanskrit (वज्र, vajra).

Vajra (PIE root: *weǵ-, English descendants: watch, wake, vigor, vigil) is seen by Buddhists as variously a thunderbolt or diamond, symbolising extreme hardness/power/indestructibility, and by semantic extension a kind of symbol or weapon, and further extension a guardian (spirit) which holds this weapon.

As you’ve already seen, 變形金剛 is a reference to Buddhist temple guardian statues (see 四大金剛) which each hold a kind of vajra (the weapon).


Various uses of the English "for" to indicate purpose

There are many ways to say it.
你有给客人用的微波炉吗？
你有一台微波炉好给客人用吗？
你有给客人用的微波炉吗？

“Is this gift for me?"
这个礼物是给我的吗？
这是给我的礼物吗？

"That chair is not made for adults. It is only for kids."
这把椅子不是给成人制作的，只是给孩子的。


Looking for Hakka old song about Tofu Seller

客家阿伯酿豆腐

歌詞

快速提升中文程度的方法：
1. 初級者多看中文文章。
2. 中級者多寫中文文章。
3. 高級者多用中文思考。
所以，除了初學者可能有困難外，建議大家多用中文問答。


What is the difference between 赞成 and 赞同?

Both 赞成 and 赞同 mean: 'approve / support/ agree'

But there's a subtle difference:

[赞同] = [赞成(agree/support) + 同意(agree/have the same idea)] * Therefore, 赞同 has the added meaning of 'be convinced'

When you 赞成 (approve / support) an idea, you may or may not be totally convinced. For example, you can vote 赞成 on an issue because most people in your group have voted 赞成 already.
When you say you 赞同 an idea, that indicates you have been convinced (to have the same idea as the other's).
you can 'reluctantly agree' (勉强赞成); you cannot 'reluctantly agree and be convinced' (勉强赞同)
There can be 投票赞成 (vote to support) ; There can't be 投票赞同 (vote to support and agree)


Colloquial translation of "increase in price"

I often use 漲价!

But I think the first and third one is really common.

For example, if you say "the price of the food is increasing this year".

It's equal to "食物今年又漲价了！" and "食物今年价格上漲了"


Why does 点 mean "to light\to ignite" in certain compounds (such as in 点燃\点火\点灯)?

点(點), the original meaning is a small black spot. --> create a small spot --> use the pointed edge to touch something --> ignite by touching the wick.


In what kind of scenarios are honorifics such as 大姐, 大哥, and 师傅 used, and when is it acceptable or polite to use them?

For males or females who are older than yourself are not blood relatives e.g. not 表哥 or 表姐 and are usually unmarried and not quite old enough to be referred to as 阿姨 or 叔叔 then this is someone you might refer to as 大姐 or 大哥.

This is normally out of respect to someone who maybe treats you as a younger brother or sister.

In certain movies 大哥 is used for a leader of a gang of street kids or thugs.

This is also normally used for someone younger to someone older, so you won't see many people 40+ referring to someone else as 大姐 or 大哥 unless they have been doing this for a long time.

师傅 is commonly used for someone with skills in a certain area. I have seen this used for a personal carer, a repair man and also someone that teaches martial arts.

Don't call someone without specific skill 师傅, e.g. someone that helped you do something like give directions otherwise they may think you are having a lend of them.


Traditional alternative to 水寫布 (water-writing paper) for calligraphy practice?

Don't know if it counts, but in mainland China, some people write on the street with a huge writing brush, half as long as an adult is tall. And they only dip the brush in water to write. After the water evaporates, the writing vanishes. It's the same principle as 水写布

Beijing - Public calligraphy by Roman Harak licensed according to CC BY-SA 2.0


What is the meaning of this calligraphy?

As far as I am concerned ,this motto is related from Lunyu which from China not from Korea . It is written by Chinese Confusius and his disciples. It's original motto is '君子周而不比，小人比而不周'. I think it is exactly similar to the motto you provide.

List item

'周'means : coordinate;harmonize
[That is to say the person who can in charge or  organize his members perfectly , and he can lead the team on a good way,do the good things.]
'比'means:  collude;gang with somebody

That is to say,the motto want to tell us, the difference between 君子 and 小人 is whether he has the quality of benevolence. A person of noble character emphasize morality and justice,while 小人 only pay attention to benefit.


How did "kitsch" (刻奇) come to stand for emotional contagion in a group?

From the links you shared, the idea is come from the following quotation of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" - "Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch."
And in those 2 Chinese articles it is described more like "group emotional hijacking" than "group emotional contagion".
And yes, I think the author of the article "刻奇（Kitsch）是什么？如何克服刻奇？" misunderstood the conception in some way, then misled others who quote this article.
The author said this: "不揣冒昧的理解是" , means "I presume that", and then expressed his/her understanding of Kitsch.


What is the difference between 國語 and 普通話?

「國語」is not an unpopular term outside of Taiwan.

It literally means national speech, and is used in places where「普通話」may make less sense. Since「普通話」literally means common speech, regions with populations which prominently speak other languages may avoid the term「普通話」to various degrees, because in those regions the common speech is not necessarily Mandarin.

You may hear「國語」in Hong Kong, Macau, and Xinjiang to refer to Mandarin, interchangeably with「普通話」. Although「普通話」is overwhelmingly more common in the Mainland,「國語」shouldn't incite a reaction there; if it does this could be due to various reasons, e.g.:

Some people may take it to be a form of Han/Northerner/Mandarin Chauvinism, aggressively discriminating against other topolects or languages as not being part of the nation;
Some people may have political interpretations of the term, and identify「國語」inappropriately with anti-CCP leanings (note that CCP decreed that Mandarin was to be called「普通話」some time in the 1950s, officially making the word「國語」obsolete in Mainland China).
You're on the internet, so be prepared to attract angry comments about everything and anything.

Another word for Mandarin is「華語」, which is used by Malaysian Chinese. This is appropriate in their situation because Mandarin is neither the national language nor the common language of Malaysia.

For something that shouldn't incite inappropriate reactions, consider using「漢語」or「中文」instead.


"有理数" = rational numbers
"数贯" = (numerical) sequence (obsolete, the more conventional term nowadays is "数列")
"逼近" = literally, "to approach", "to get close to"； mathematically, "to approximate"
"实数" = real numbers

Therefore, "有理数贯逼近实数" means "using a sequence of rationals to approximate (a) real", so this sounds like something similar to a Cauchy sequence.

In context of this article, it is probably that Hua Loo-Keng was giving a lecture on the construction of real numbers using Cauchy sequences (likely in a real analysis course), and he introduced continued fractions (连分数) in the context of that.

Disclaimer: I am a native Chinese (Mandarin) speaker with a reasonable amount of knowledge of mathematics (but I am not a professional mathematician).


Where can I find people to communicate in Chinese to learn and improve it?

Depending on how easy it is for you to get in touch with native speakers IRL, I suggest the following:

1) natives everywhere:

download Wechat 微信 and use the "People near me" function (附近的人), it will show people in a 5-10km radius near you that are online right now. Given that Chinese people do tend to use Wechat more often than non-Chinese, your chances to meet people will increase. You could start chatting people up randomly or based on mutual interests, and even hang out together.

However, don't expect natives to be willing to speak in Chinese to you ALL the time. Keep in mind that people speak their native language naturally, which means they will quickly become frustrated if they have to put too much effort in communicating with you. The worse is your Chinese, the sooner they'll feel like switching to a language they can have an actual conversation with you with.
In order to mitigate this outcome, you either improve your level BEFOREHAND or you specifically look for someone interested in language exchange.

2) I just have an internet connection:

speaking about language exchange, that's exactly what you want to go for if there are no natives able to physically go out with you.
I can recommend LingQ, lang-8, HelloTalk (app) or the excellent italki  where you can connect with real people that will correct your sentences and answer your questions (provided you do the same for them).


How does this sentence 如果你要是查出是谁的话 mean exactly?

This sentence is an awful mistake, in rhetoric, logic and grammar sense:
如果 and 要是 mean exactly same thing: if.  You use one, not both in a sentence.  Your suspicion is justified.  Majority Chinese speakers won't do this, if any, children maybe, as they like to exaggerate.  BTW, 要是 does not necessarily require 的话 as connector.  要是明天下雨(的话)，我就不去了。


What digital illustrated dictionaries are available?

I found two but they are to be purchased and not free.

McGraw-Hill's Chinese Illustrated Dictionary: 1,500 Essential Words in Chinese Script and Pinyin lay the foundation of your language learning;
Illustrated Chinese-English Dictionary.


Is this Udemy course in Mandarin, are Mandarin and Chinese very related, and would Mandarin have any use in Hong Kong?

I checked the website.  Yes, it teaches Mandarin.

Mandarin is the formal language used in Taiwan and mainland China (including Guangdong).  Mandarin is written using simplified Chinese in mainland China, while written using traditional Chinese in Taiwan.

Cantonese is used in Hong Kong and Guangdong, written using traditional Chinese in Hong Kong.

"Chinese" includes Mandarin and dialects used in some cities.  Among them, Cantonese is significantly different from Mandarin, and most of movies released in Hong Kong need to be dubbed so audiences from Taiwan and mainland China can watch them.


This a well-known issue to do with the rendering of contour tones in certain computer fonts. The Wikipedia article for tone letter states that:

  The contour-tone letters are composed as sequences

In the "Modifier Tone Letters" block in the Unicode standard (A700-A71F in Unicode 7.0), only the level tone letters are provided. Hence any non-level tone letter is created by "smart rendering" capabilities within the program and within the font; it is usually classed as a type of ligature. However, many (or most?) browsers cannot handle them, or only provide some of the ligatures.


Means 是

e.g.

他的身高为8尺.

他的身高是8尺.


When should directional complements be used? How come there are many times that they aren't used as in "他们要到上海了"?

Let me put it in this way:

他们要到上海了。
They are about to (要) arrive in Shanghai.

This sentence means "they" are already on their way to Shanghai, instead of meaning they are going to Shanghai or they are planning to go to Shanghai.
Moreover, this is just a statement of fact, and it doesn't require/imply any relationship between the speaker and the object ("They" in this sentence). The speaker can be in Shanghai (The speaker is telling his friend that those people "they" are about to arrive here); the speaker can also be somewhere else.

他们要到上海来了。
他们要来上海了。
They are coming to Shanghai.

This means the speaker is in Shanghai.

他们要到上海去了。
他们要去上海了。
They are going to Shanghai.

This implies the speaker is not in Shanghai.


"难“ means hard or difficult
"得“ means to obtain

Combining the two, ”难得“ means something that is hard to come by.

"尤为" (formal) means especially or particularly

Putting all together, "尤为难得" means especially hard to come by or a rarity.


How to translate equal weight and sector weight?

There is specific words used for financial terms in both English and Chinese.

equal weight: 等权(重)

e.g.:
equal weight index: 等权(重)指数

equal weight ETF: 等权(重)交易所交易基金 or 等权(重)交易型开放式指数基金 or 等权(重)ETF (ETF is very commonly known term in finance, so you can leave it as is)

weighted: 加权(重)

e.g.: Price weighted index: 价格加权(重)指数

SPDR S&P 500 generally known as 标普500

sector is not 部门. It is generally referring to 行业 in Finance


How many English words does 4000-8000 Chinese characters correspond to?

If you plug the text you just wrote into Google Translate, then paste the output of that into wordcounter.net, you get 151 characters from your above 96 words.  That approximately matches my experience.  Plan for about 1.5 characters per English word.


Are there some greetings or phrases particular to the Hui people?

Yes there are. Such language in Chinese is referred to as 回回话 Huíhui huà.

Thanks to user xiaohouzi79 for pointing out the book Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic By Dru C. Gladney, which is partly viewable on Google Books.

This book contains a large appendix, A Select Glossary of Hui Chinese Islamic Terms on pages 393 to 421.

Here are some Hui greetings I found, which are transliterations from Arabic:

安色俩目阿莱空 Ān sè liǎ mù ā lái kōng - "Peace be to you"
安色俩目，尔莱库目 Ān sè liǎ mù, ěr lái kù mù - "Peace be with you"
色俩买提 Sè liǎ mǎi tí - "Peace be to you"

The glossary contains many terms relating directly to Islam and derived from Arabic, but there are many terms not pertaining to religion and terms from Persian, Turkic languages, and even wholly Chinese words used only by Hui or with additional Hui-specific senses.

Apparently Hui use Persian or Arabic numbers among themselves when bargaining so regular Chinese will not understand.

Here are a couple of other terms I found interesting:

番客 Fān kè - barbarian guest, foreigner
色瓦布 Sè wǎ bù - expression of thanks, "May Allah reward you"

As a traveller in China I'm interested to find out if Hui think of me as a 番客 and I will try saying 色瓦布 instead of 谢谢 next time I buy a meal from them.


没事 and 没关系 are good responses to 不好意思. You can also use 不要紧 and 没什么.

On 搜狐问答 they say that in normal circumstances the difference between these words is really small, but there can be a difference in meaning:

没事 is rather used when there are no losses and no harm. 不要紧 is rather used when the losses or harm is small and 没关系 when the losses and harm is big, but you don't want to blame and the other person doesn't need to take responsibility.

On Nciku they say that 不要紧, 没关系, 没什么 and 没事儿 all mean "to be of no importance". They can also be used as a response to another person's apology. Furthermore 没事儿 can mean "nothing serious". If 不要紧 is used in a subordinate clause, there is harm involved and the harm is mentioned in the main clause. On Nciku you can find some examples.


Is a reduplicated verb necessary after "ba3"?

Quote from "Chinese an essential grammar":

  ......, a 把 construction must have an object of definite reference (shifted now to a pre-verbal position directly after 把); a complement of some kind after the verb to
  indicate the result achieved by the action of the verb, either intentionally
  or unintentionally, on the part of the subject. ......

Quote from "Chinese Grammar Wiki": Key Things to Keep in Mind When Using 把:

  把字句 are most often used to describe what happened to the object in some detail. The verb is not just "bare"; there's "more stuff" after it. Often the "stuff" is related to some kind of manipulation of the object.

The 把 structure just does not work with a bare verb. Reduplicating the verb also works, as it also adds some information (compliment) to the verb.


沒 simplified to 没: What is the origin of the change?

"Simplification" is a process. If it's not reduced in stroke count, it's not actually "Simplified" - the mix-up in language is due to PRC's standard of Chinese being popularly known as "Simplified Chinese", even though PRC Chinese may have the same number of or even more strokes.
「没」 came from a popular variant of 「沒」, because the right hand side of 「没」, 「殳」, occurs more frequently among characters, while the right hand side of 「沒」, 「」, occurs in...「沒」.

It is important to look at a character's earliest traceable meaning before further analysing its components.

Some of the earliest traceable meanings of 「沒」 is to be underwater / be submerged (cf. 「沉沒」). This is the reason for its 「氵・水」.

「殳」, if it's a semantic component, is usually used as an active verb marker, cf. 「發」 (to shoot arrows > emit), 「擊」 (to attack), 「殺」 (to kill), etc. 「殳」 is therefore not a semantic match for the meaning submerge (and is not a phonetic match for the sound of the word either).

So, what exactly is 「沒」?

秦簡秦103睡虎地秦簡隸定
「沒」 was originally a compound of a hand 「又」 under deep waters (represented by a whirlpool 「洄」). 「回」 was later gradually corrupted into the shape of 「勹」 or 「刀」.
西漢隸602銀雀山簡編三國・魏隸孔羨碑　今楷
Note: as a consequence of this development, we can be certain that 「」 was not really a character before, but was made up to decompose 「沒」 into 「氵・水」 and something else.

References:

季旭昇《說文新證》
《王力古漢語字典》
小學堂
漢字源流


it's 羅綺, in traditional chinese, in Small Seal Script (小篆)

the left character is 羅

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

the right one is 綺

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

1st, it's in vertical writing, you need to read from top to bottom, from right to left

羅庚香色　⒓⒐⒌⒈
綺申似凝　⒔⒑⒍⒉
寫春玉瓊　⒕⒒⒎⒊
　　京樹　　　⒏⒋

characters 1-8 are in traditional chinese, in 隸書:

香色
似凝
玉瓊
京樹

"色凝瓊樹﹒香似玉京" is derived from a 劉禹錫 (a poet of 唐 dynasty)'s poem 和令狐相公詠梔子花

蜀國花已盡﹒越桃今已開﹒色凝瓊樹倚﹒香似玉京來

且賞同心處﹒那憂別葉催﹒佳人如擬詠﹒何必待寒梅

characters 9-14 are in traditional chinese, in 行書:

羅庚
綺申
寫春

庚申 is one of sexagenary cycle, used to record time, day, month & year; 春 is spring; together, it's either spring of 1920, or 1980.

last, "羅綺" is the name of author; "寫" is write.

have fun :)


The interpretation of 我本來 and 衹是 are fine.

抱着 (literally to hug, but should be interpreted as to grasp onto)
試一試的想法 (a thought of just trying)
參加比賽的 (to participate in a competition)

  我本來衹是抱着試一試的想法去參加比賽的

  I originally participated in the competition holding on to the thought of just giving it a go


Is there any difference between 汤 and 羹?

In my opinion, 汤 is a more common to be seen. When it refers to "soup", the "soup" is thin. I mean, most ingredient is water, and you can find other things such as meat, vegetables,etc. inside the water.

羹 is a thick soup. Generally, we will add some 芡粉(qiàn fĕn)(most composition is the starch) to the soup(We call this action "勾芡(gōu  qiàn)"). The starch will absord the water, so it makes the soup "thick".


民谣 could be the following things:

民间歌谣 or rhymes of the folks. Chinese 歌谣s don't have to carry tunes, but they usually do rhyme, or at least carry some tonal quality which makes them sound good. They usually carry some sort of folk wisdom. Sometimes they are also called 民谚 or 谚语.
Regional folk songs. They are created and sung by common folks, and they do carry tunes. More often they are called 民歌.
Short for 独立民谣 or Indie Folk, the music genre becoming popular since 1990s. It's probably the most common usage nowadays.

Somewhat related: 儿歌 and 童谣 are 歌谣 for kids, they don't have to carry tunes, either.

As for your example, it's clearly just a saying, not part of a song.


总而言之，complete version of 总之，less imperative.
综上所述，in summary (of the previous narration or evidences).
以上，very concise and confident way，but use it carefully，more of a meme these days


只 is the measure word for boats, birds, some animals, some containers, and one of certain paired things, e.g. 一只船 [yī zhī chuán,] 两只老虎 [liǎng zhī lǎohǔ,] 两只手 [liǎng zhī shǒu.] 只 is also the character for the adverb only/just/merely, when pronounced as [zhǐ.]

支 is the measure word for long, thin, inflexible objects, e.g. 一支香烟 [yī zhī xiāngyān,] 两支笔 [liǎng zhī bǐ.]

之 is the one that doesn't fit here, because it's not a measure word/classifier, it is the literary equivalent of 的 [de], as well as some other things, usually in a formal context (so you'll find it in 成语 [chéng yǔ,] used in place of an objective noun or pronoun, etc.)

See Wikipedia for a pretty big list of classifiers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers


How do I say "share with me" in Chinese?

He shared this song with me

All the following translations are correct and common, you can use them interchangeably in a loose environment, say daily conversation, normal text.

Suggest sharing

他跟我分享了这首歌.
他和我分享了这首歌.
他与我分享了这首歌.
他同我分享了这首歌.

Suggest owner

他给我分享了这首歌.


One of the most useful resources for checking this sort of thing is the huge database from Academia Sinica (中央研究院), 漢籍電子文獻.

The earliest instance in 漢籍 is just what you cite, 後漢書西域傳, but 漢籍 also lets you look at the context, which can sometimes give a more precise date.  It turns out this line is attributed to 廣武帝, in 廣武二十一年. This would be A.D. 46-7.

Works such as Shi ji, Han shu, San guo zhi, Hou Han shu, and so on, often incorporate early original documents; if you want to date something, this can be very helpful.

I also can't help feeling that this expression is related to the famous line 七十而從心所欲 in the Analects. 從心 is 從心所欲, right?


Apple Watch has a built in response of "一个字。非常棒！". Is this correct?

No it's not correct. "非常棒" are definitely three 字s. So the proper form should be

  一个字。棒！

or

  三个字。非常棒！

According to the context this kind of wording might be used on purpose for joking; you might not need to take them seriously.


The correct word boundary should be 好一番, which means a lot of. In your sentence, "we have to go through a lot of struggles."


Please help identify characters in my seal on a modern brush painting

The seal read 李麟 /Lǐ lín/, It is a name of a person
李 means 'plum' (family name)
麟 as in 麒麟 (Kirin)
麒麟 is one of the four spirit beasts in Chinese myth (the others are 1.dragon  2.phoenix and 4.tortoise)

Note:
Google Translate translates 麒 as 'mythical unicorn'; 麟 as 'female unicorn' Which mean 麒麟 is the general term for 'mythical unicorn', but the image of 麒麟 in Chinese culture is quite different from the unicorn in the western myth which we call 獨角獸 (one-horned beast)


How to determine what 即 means in a sentence

Dictionary gives 6 meanings:

  就是：知识～力量。
  当时或当地：～日。～刻。～席。～景。在～。～兴（xìng ）。
  就，便：黎明～起。
  假如，倘若：～使。～便（biàn ）。～或。～令。
  靠近：不～不离。
  到，开始从事：～位。

With translations and comments, comments in italics:

  is:

  知识即力量 = Knowledge is power.
  This usage of 即 is more formal and less often heard colloquially.

  this (time or place):

  即日 = today;
  即刻 = right now;
  即席 = with improvisation (lit. [in] this seat);
  即景 = the immediate (poetic) environment;
  在即 = soon;
  即兴 = with improvisation (lit. [by] that [time's] mood)

  then:

  黎明即起 = [as soon as] dawn [comes], then [you should] get up
  the example cited is actually Classical Chinese, so you would not hear this colloquially

  if:

  即使 = even if
  即便 = even if
  即或 = even if
  即令 = even if
  I don't even know the last two.

  come near:

  不即不离 = keep at a respectful distance (lit. neither approach nor leave)
  The example cited is a Buddhist term, and I have never heard of it.

  to start working at some position:

  即位 = to start working at some position
  即位 is idiomatic, I would say.

Finally, a list of the words that you would hear colloquially:

即日 = today;
即刻 = right now;
即席 = with improvisation (lit. [in] this seat);
即景 = the immediate (poetic) environment;
在即 = soon;
即兴 = with improvisation (lit. [by] that [time's] mood)
即使 = even if
即便 = even if
即位 = to start working at some position

(From meanings 2,4,6)


很蠢、很笨、笨笨的、呆呆的、没脑子、智商低、白痴、很傻、很呆、脑子不太灵光 etc etc

it depends on the context to decide which one to use...

I don't think 智商低的发指 is commonly used...发指 normally refers to someone/something very bad.


Why does 我是长头发 mean "I have long hair" and not "I am long hair"?

There is no "why". "是" in Chinese does not equal "be" in English.  This is just how languages work.
In Chinese, almost anything can follow "是". The part after "是" is just a description or explanation of the part before "是", not an equivalent.
Some examples:

他们回国的日期都定了，老张是明天，老李是后天。
我来中国是学习汉语，不是旅游。

You will encounter many more like this in your study of Chinese. Good luck!
PS: If you happen to know Japanese, thinking about how the part before and after "は" are not equivalent may help you understand (though of course the two languages are very different).
Edit: Since this simple answer gets quite a few upvotes, I think I could add a little more content.
I find the book 实用现代汉语语法 by 刘月华 et al. a useful book about modern Chinese grammar. Though the book is entirely in Chinese, it is aimed at learners of Chinese as a second language and covers many things that learners often find difficult.
The book devotes a whole section to sentences with "是", from page 675 to 689. More than a dozen usages of "是" are listed. Some more examples:

他夏天总是一件T恤。
他总是这么一辆破自行车。
老王是个慢性子。
问：你们俩喜欢什么运动？答：他是足球，我是乒乓球。

The book argues that these sentences may seem "illogical" superficially and you can often add some words to the sentence to make it seem more logical (eg. "老王是个慢性子（的人）" ), but the changed sentence is often more cumbersome and less succinct. This kind of sentences with "是" (是字句) express ideas more vividly and vigorously while using less words, and Chinese love that.


Are you learning for the tests, or are you learning for real?

Listen to Chinese radio. Fill your phone with audio books (librivox, tingbook). Watch movies. Immerse yourself, and you will find that those ridiculous tests are too simple for you.


Try a slightly different expression:
I don't like travelling that much.


Word function and back translating '今天难得工作轻松些‘

Congratulations! You got the exact meaning of what the sentence wants to express.

At the very begining, 难得 means hard (难) to come by (得), e.g. 难得的机会 means a chance that is hard to acquire; 这场考试难得高分 means It is difficult to get a high score in this exam. Here, it is an adjective (or a verb), obviously.

Later, 难得 is used to modify a sentence. From my point of view, 今天难得工作轻松些 leaves out the subject 我(I), which should be [(我)今天(难得)工作轻松些] (难得 as an inserted component) / [今天]难得[(我)工作轻松些] (难得 as a sentence adverb). And it can be understood as Today is a rare day when I am easy with work. My opinion can be validated from the point that all the following senetences don't have a subject.

Besides, in the first sentence 上班族常常会有这样的精力, 精力 (spirit, energy) should be 经历 (experience) here. I guess it's a typo.

And it is more natural to say 这些情况往往与办公室噪音有关。 instead of 出现这些情况，往往与办公室噪音有关。


Is there a way to discover unique word combinations from a list of characters?

Ok, I could have gotten this done a lot sooner but I'm a lazy prick, here it is:

Wasn't what I was originally planning on doing when I got off work but here it is. I searched up "100 most basic Chinese characters" and put those through and it pumped out 1500 unique words. I might work on this further in the future but for now I don't event want to look at it. There's a button to switch between Simplified and Traditional but I haven't set it up yet.

Source:

https://github.com/Jkmcameron/ChineseWordGenerator

Executable Jar:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ewp5PVxDQv55GuuvF81pDxl9ktlI3QqK/view?usp=sharing


What is the meaning of the phrase 铁血丹心 ?

Although it looks like an idiom expression (chengyu), I believe it is actually a coined phrase, specifically for the TV adaptation of the Wuxia novel (射鵰英雄傳, 1983 TVB Hongkong) you mentioned.

Literally, 鐵血丹心 can translate to "Iron blood scarlet heart". There is the connotation of the conflict between love and patriotism and such, but its a bit far fetched IMO.


遲 vs. 晚 in Mandarin: when to use which one?

迟(the standard simplified Chinese word, while the Chinese Traditional is 遲) and 晚 both have the meaning of late.

迟 usually means late for the appointed time or a certain time.
example: Party七点开始，你来迟了!—— The party start at 7:00 pm, you came
late!

The word '迟到' is frequently used to describe late for certain time
晚 is more complex

It has the meaning of late for a certain time.
example: Party七点开始，你来晚了!—— The party start at 7:00 pm, you came
late!

It also have the meaning of just being late but not for a
certain time. example: 他很晚到家—— He arrived home very late. example:
他昨晚很晚离开—— He left late last night.

Or it means evening. example:
晚上——evening, example:今晚——tonight, example:昨晚——last night.

Fun fact: to describe public transportation's behind schedule, the word is 晚点, where '点' means the schedule time for public transportation to arrive.


光彩照人
Shine; Brilliant; Radiant

用以形容人或事物十分美好，令人注目、敬仰。
used to describe people or things are very beautiful, and make others impressive and respected.

形容人外表亮麗或事物色彩鮮明，十分美好
Describe a person's appearance bright or things are bright and very beautiful.

光彩照人 coloured and dazzling

a. 公主光彩照人地穿著一身雪白的新禮服來了。
The princess arrived, resplendent in a new white dress.

b. 阿勒頗的阿拉姆瑣瓦，他們講著一個關於前人哈卡姆•伊茲拉•哈馬威的傳說。這個故事說的是使他在非猶太人心目中光彩照人，在東方所有城市中名聲鵲起的某一功績。
In aram zova in aleppo they tell a tale about hakham ezra hamawi of blessed memory concerning a deed which exalted him in the eyes of the gentiles and won him a name in all the cities of the east.

光彩照人 Radiant

He is sparkling and versatile in front of the camera.
镜头前的他光彩照人，多才多艺。
He glimpsed Sonia, resplendent in a red dress.
他瞥了索尼亚一眼，见她一身红衣，光彩照人。
She glittered at the elegant table.
她坐在典雅的桌子旁边显得光彩照人.


Translate: This is a love worth killing for

First talk about translation.

"This is (a love) worth killing for" should be translated as 这是(一份)值得為之而杀戮的(爱).

為之而 = for

"一种爱" means "a kind of love". It is different from "a love" (一份爱)

Basically, your translation is quite accurate, but the problem with straight translation is -- "things get lost in translation". A common English expression may not be understood by many Chinese

The English idiom "at the end of one's rope" literally means "在繩索的末端". Which few if any Chinese could understand it base on the wording. However, the equivalent of this English idiom does exist in Chinese. And it is "窮途末路" (No more road; reaching an dead end). Both idiom metaphorically describe "being hopeless" ; "nowhere to turn"

A similar idiom is 走投無路 (nowhere to run)

For the same reason, I would rather interpret an English expression with a matching one in Chinese than translate the English expression  word for word but doesn't express the metaphorical meaning clearly.

The line "a love worth killing for" in other words is "It is a love worth doing anything to have"

The same sentiment in Chinese would be "一份值得不擇手段去得到的愛" (a love worth having by hook or by crook) meaning you would do anything - including killing, to obtain this love

An idiom similar to 不擇手段 is 不惜一切 (not hesitate to give one's all)


How would a person start translating classical stories from the Han dynasty?

imo, the story is straightforward, and easy to compenhend.

here's my suggested interpretation:

  世間多有狗作變怪．朴殺之．以血塗門戶．然眾得咎殃

there're many canine monsters in the world (世間多有狗作變怪)

kill a dog (朴殺之), use it's blood to paint the door (以血塗門戶); but, people would have bad luck and disaster (然眾得咎殃).

  謹按．桂陽太守汝南李叔堅．少時為從事

here's a legend (謹按): the administrator (太守) of 桂陽, mr 李叔堅, whose was born in 汝南, was a 從事 (an official position) when he was young.

[name and official title were not translated]

edited.

well, a more precise translation of "謹按" is "cautious note" (謹慎+按語). however, mr 應劭 used this term so often, that; these're always part of the text, not as explanatory note of particular sentences/paragraphs.

my apologies for any confusing caused :(

  在家．狗人立行．家言當殺之．叔堅云．犬馬諭君子．狗見人行．效之何傷

[one day] when he's at home (在家), his dog stand, and walk like a man 狗人立行. his family members said they should kill it (家言當殺之).

he said (叔堅云): "dogs and horses are metaphors of superior person (犬馬諭君子). so, our dog observe human's behaviour (狗見人行), and make replication, what's the problem? (效之何傷)"

  Any tips for translating these types of stories in the future

one need certain level of competence to read classical / literary chinese; prior to make translation. the only method is read more, and more.

have fun :)


Connotation of "May you live in interesting times"

I am a native chinese,and I had never ever heard or read this before you typed it.I cant get it...what does it mean?I mean there is on chinese would say that,it make no sense at all


fancy adj. not simple or ordinary 复杂的；花巧的；精致的(From "Oxford Elementary Learner's English-Chinese Dictionary, 4th Edition")
So the translation should be:
她打扮得很精致。
or
她穿着很华丽。


What is the meaning of the Chinese word translated to English as "sincerity"

The original word for the English translation sincerity is: 诚信.

I believe this is the exact original text from the English you quoted above:

  加强公务员诚信管理和教育。建立公务员诚信档案，依法依规将公务员个人有关事项报告、廉政记录、年度考核结果、相关违法违纪违约行为等信用信息纳入档案，将公务员诚信记录作为干部考核、任用和奖惩的重要依据。深入开展公务员诚信、守法和道德教育，加强法律知识和信用知识学习，编制公务员诚信手册，增强公务员法律和诚信意识，建立一支守法守信、高效廉洁的公务员队伍。

Sincerity records are known as: 诚信档案.

MDBG defines this as:

  genuine / honest / in good faith / honesty / integrity


Function of 令 in 你日日喺我耳邊唱歌令我好壓抑 (cantonese)

令 has the meaning of "make"

你日日喺我耳邊唱歌[令]我好壓抑
You sing by my ear side everyday [make] me very depress

對 means "to"

你日日喺我耳邊唱歌, [對]我是一种折磨
You sing by my ear side everyday, [to] me is a kind of torture
You sing by my ear side everyday is a kind of torture [to] me

Notice: "令"(make) is a verb. "對" (to) is a preposition


Where can I find sorted word lists used by native students?

Primary school students use 2 text books per year. Each book is broken down into individual lessons and there is usually about 4 - 8 characters to be learnt for each lesson. At the back of each book it lists all the characters in order from each lesson which are the required characters to be learnt for that half year.

The set of high school (secondary) books I have are slightly out dated so I don't know if this is still how it is done, but the high school books I have are similar to primary school except the texts go across several pages and I can't remember if they list the characters at the end of the books or if it is just at the end of each lesson.

The primary school set of books provides a vocabulary of about 6k characters.

The high school list is much smaller and covers more obscure words.

As well as these standard books that are used in high school, high school students are expected to learn classical literature and poetry.

I just found this site http://www.sanwen8.com/youshengduwu/kwls/ where someone has typed in all of the lessons from 小学, 初中 and 高中 language books.

Although these do not contain the lists of characters required to be learnt from each lesson, I can confirm that these are the lessons that are being used in Chinese schools by native learners (at the time they were typed in) and is in order of complexity.

Disclaimer: Although the site above was fine at the time I went there. I am not responsible for the above site in any way and any crazy pop-ups that may appear or what it may do to your computer. Go to any external site at your own risk.


There's a nuanced difference:

为难 means to be troubled over a difficult issue, indicating that the speaker isn't sure what to do and/or cannot make a decision easily. For example, 美称对台渔民遇害案感到为难 - "Regarding the (Philippine's) killing of Taiwanese fisherman, the United States (as a friend of both) says it is caught between a rock and a hard place."
矛盾 means something is self-contradictory, indicating that the speaker is experiencing opposite desires/emotions/feeling/etc. For example, 愛情令人感到矛盾 - "Love makes people feel conflicted (between fairytale-romance and reality)".


Please read Result complement

Also 了 :  'aspect marker' indicating completed action

'忘' (forget) as a verb cannot be used without a result complement or aspect marker

Example:

  '忘掉'

  掉 is the result complement of 忘.

  It describes the result of forget is the object is 'forgot away' (from one's mind)

  You cannot remove the result complement '掉' from '(忘掉)自己的手電號碼' and write '(忘)自己的手電號碼'

~

  '忘了'

  了 is a aspect marker that indicates 'completion of an action'

  You cannot remove the aspect marker '了' from '(忘了)自己的手電號碼' and write '(忘)自己的手電號碼'

~~~~~~~~~

'忘' = 'forget'
'记' = 'remember/ recollect'
'忘记' (forget to remember) = 'to forget'

'忘记' is a compound word verb

It can be used with or without a result complement or aspect marker

Example:

忘记自己的手電號碼 = forget one's own cell-phone number

忘记(掉)自己的手電號碼 = forget one's own cell-phone number (away)

(忘记了)自己的手電號碼 = (forgotten) one's own cell-phone number

Terms like '忘本'，'忘情' that directly apply the verb 忘 before a noun, are in effect, compound words  as in "做人忘本" (being ungrateful), 忘情演出 (passionately perform).

The other cases of 忘 directly apply before a noun are 1. 'in idiomatic form',  like "見利忘義" 2. 'with an adverb',  like 難忘, 不忘, 未忘, and they are all literary terms


Are "身份证" and "身分证" totally interchangeable?

The character 分 has two different readings. As fen1, it has a range of meanings.  As fen4, it can mean a role or part played by a person, a more general part or portion of something, or a component.  Fen4 can also be written 份, and dictionaries I consulted from both Taiwan and the mainland don’t seem to differ here.

The Far East Chinese-English Dictionary, pretty much the standard bilingual dictionary in Taiwan, has the following: 身分證  or  身份證 shēnfènzhèng ‘ID card’.

The Chinese-English Dictionary from the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press is a mainland publication.  It has 身分证  or 身份证  shēnfenzhèng ‘ID card’.  This dictionary does one thing a bit differently – it divides the meanings of fen4 into those which can be written with either character and those which use only 分.  In the latter category is 分外  ‘especially’.  But this doesn’t affect the term for ID card.

There may be some cross-strait difference in actual usage between分 and 份 in this word, but as I have shown here, according to dictionaries both forms are acceptable wherever you are!


Usage of negation 没 with 在 and 着 particle?

The negation for 我吃着饭 should be 我没在吃饭 or 我不在吃饭, not 我没吃饭. You should change 着 to 在 when you turn the sentence to a negative one.
With this clarified, I think your confusion can be removed. Otherwise, let me know.


Is 受得了 the Mandarin equivalent of 頂得住 in Cantonese?

They are similar in meaning of withstanding the suffering.

The difference is, 受得了 can be referring more to long term withstanding of suffering, while 顶得住 is more referring to short term, very high intense withstanding of suffering.

Also, 受得了 is more passive while 顶得住 is more initiative.


The interpretation of a sentence in the Qieyun (切韵) preface

There are many errors in the 百度百科's article you gave, so I show my punctuation of the preface first.
The content comes from the 水巷孑蠻's answer.

  1) 昔，開皇初，有儀同劉臻等八人，同詣法言門宿。
  2) 夜永酒闌，論及音韻。
  3) 以今聲調，既自有別，諸家取捨，亦復不同。
  4) 吳楚，則時傷輕淺；燕趙，則多傷重濁；秦隴，則去聲為入；梁益，則平聲似去。
  5) 又，支（章移切）脂（旨夷切）、魚（語居切）虞（遇俱切），共為一韻；先（蘇前切）仙（相然切）、尤（于求切）侯（胡溝切），俱論是切。
  6) 欲廣文路，自可清、濁皆通；若賞知音，即須輕、重有異。
  7) 呂靜《韻集》、夏侯該《韻略》、陽休之《韻略》、周思言《音韻》、李季節《音譜》、杜臺卿《韻略》等，各有乖互。
  8) 江東取韻與河北復殊。
  9) 因論南北是非，古今通塞。
  10) 欲更捃選精切，除削疏緩，蕭、顏多所決定。

  11) 魏著作謂法言曰：「向來論難，疑處悉盡，何不隨口記之？我輩數人定，則定矣！」
  12) 法言即燭下握筆，略記綱紀；博問英辯，殆得精華。
  13) 於是，更涉餘學，兼從薄宦，十數年間，不遑修集。

  14) 今反初服，私訓諸弟子：「凡有文藻，即須明聲韻。」
  15) 屏居山野，交游阻絕，疑惑之所，質問無從。
  16) 亡者，則生死路殊，空懷可作之歎；存者，則貴賤禮隔，以報絕交之旨。
  17) 遂取諸家音韻、古今字書，以前所記者，定之為《切韻》五卷，剖析毫氂，分別黍累。

  18) 何煩泣玉，未得縣金。
  19) 藏之名山，昔怪馬遷之言大；持以蓋醬，今歎楊雄之口吃。
  20) 非是小子專輒，乃述羣賢遺意。
  21) 寧敢施行人世？直欲不出戶庭。

  22) 于時，歲次辛酉，大隋仁壽元年。

Here, 陸法言 stated the reason that he wrote this book.
1) and 2) were the story why the subject was raised. (The eight guests actually visited 陸法言's father, 陸爽.)
3) to 8) were the phenomenons they found.
9) and 10) were what they did after finding those phenomenons.
11) and 12) were the reason that 陸法言 started to write. (Because he was the youngest one among them, I think.)
13) was the reason that the book was delayed about 18 years.
14) to 16) were the situations 陸法言 faced after he was fired.
17) was the way he wrote the book.
18) and 21) were what he felt after finishing the writing.
22) was the date.

The punctuation of the sentence in question should be as follows.

  支脂、魚虞，共為一韻；先仙、尤侯，俱論是切。

This sentence has nothing to do with the previous and the next ones.
Its meaning is as follows.

支、脂混用一韻。
魚、虞混用一韻。
先、仙混用一韻。
尤、侯混用一韻。

There are four groups here, not just two.
俱論是切 is the same as 共為一韻 in this case.
They all mean that the rhyme of each pair was mixed up.
The author used different expressions to avoid the repetition.
This 切 means the 下字 of the 反切, i.e. the 韻母.
This sentence states that the rhyme of each pair should be different in their opinions, but it was mixed up in some areas or books.
俱, 論, 是 and 切 are equivalent to 共, 為, 一 and 韻 respectively.
論為 means 被當成, that is to be treated as.
是 here means 此 or 這個, i.e. this.
Since it is singular, 是 means 此一 or 這一個, which implies 同一個, the same one.

There are many errors in the 百度百科's interpretation you gave.
北京 首都师范大学 文学院 冯蒸教授 has a much better interpretation, 《切韻˙序》今譯與新注.
He is an expert in this field.

Although he is a native Chinese in China, this article was still written in Traditional Chinese.
It is a copyrighted article.
Open 大江東去, and search 切韻序今譯與新注.


Basically they have the same meanings. Now let's focus on the difference, but first wrap your head in duct tapes in case it explodes.
往往 is usually used with conditions supplied. Without any condition it is usually wrong:

我常常加班。 -- Good.
我往往加班。 -- Wrong.
北京常常下雪。-- Good.
北京往往下雪。 -- Wrong.
北京往往在冬天下雪。-- Good. Notice the constraint.
努力的人常常会成功。-- Good.
努力的人往往会成功。-- Good, maybe better.

However, 往往 can only live in the result, not in the condition:

如果你常常努力，你就会成功。-- 往往 is wrong.
如果你努力，那你往往会成功。-- Good. 常常 is also OK.

往往 focuses on the experience of previous observations, 常常 focuses on existing phenomena. This may not matter much depending on the context:

猫往往会把猎物带给主人。 -- It's an observation, a summary, and maybe also a prediction.
猫常常会把猎物带给主人。 -- It's just an observation, but really, no big difference.

When 往往 is used, there is often a slight enhancement of emotion or stress:

我常常加班到深夜。-- A general statement.
我往往加班到深夜。-- Notice the sense of disapproval.
我常常一加班就头疼。-- A general statement, but...
我往往一加班就头疼。-- The negative sense of 头疼 eludes the difference of 常常 and 往往.
小明常常在班里考第一名。-- A general statement.
小明往往在班里考第一名。-- Good. Though not negative, it sounds more emotional.
小明往往在班里考倒数第一名。-- Good. Negative and emotional.
北京常常在冬天下雪。-- A general statement.
北京在冬天常常下雪。-- Notice although 常常 appeared at different places, it's more of a decorator of the whole sentence.
北京往往在冬天下雪。-- Notice the slight stress. Winter, not spring.
北京在冬天往往下雪。-- Snows, not rains.

常常 can be used in the subjunctive mood. 往往 can't:

你要常常来找我玩哦。-- 往往 is wrong.
我建议你常常复习一下。-- 往往 is wrong.

常常 can be used in the imperative mood. 往往 can't:

常常来找我玩哦！-- 往往 is wrong.
常常复习一下！-- 往往 is wrong.
如果有时间，就常常复习一下！-- 往往 wrong, even with conditions supplied.

Also the negative form:

我不常常吹牛。-- 不常常 is good.
我常常不吹牛。-- 常常不 sounds weird because 吹牛 is an explicit action.
我常常不在家。-- 常常不 sounds OK because 在家 is a status.
懒散的人往往不会成功。-- 往往不 is good. It's the only form of negation.
懒散的人不往往会成功。-- 不往往 is absolutely wrong.


Both A也好, B也好 and A也罢, B也罢 construction mean "whether A or B". It is usually spoken to show indifference when faced with two options or when the choice really doesn't matter. The explanation from 汉典 says the following:

A也好, B也好

  表示不论这样还是那样都不是条件
  Example: 插秧也好，收割也好，都不要误了农时。

A也罢, B也罢

  表示不以所列举的情况为条件
  Example: 运砖也罢，整地也罢，保证超额完成任务。

When used together, people would normally associate 也好 to a positive choice or action and 也罢 to a negative one. For example:

你去也好，不去也罢，都与我无关。

Note that for this A也好, B也罢 construction, the sequence is always 也好 first followed by 也罢.


Where was the heartland of the pre-historic Chinese branch of languages (or that of the entire language family)?

This wiki page, History of China, provides some "basic" knowledge:
The "earliest written record of Chinese" (aka oracle script) was found in bones (of ox, cow) and shells (of tortoise) in 安陽. It's about 商 dynasty (1600–1046 b.c.).
About the preceding one, 夏 dynasty (bc 2070 - 1600), there was one newest discovery, related to the myth "great flood", and 鯀 & 禹.
This megaflood occurred in 1922 ±28 b.c., in the place of 喇家, in today  Qinghai.
A relevant article: Rocks tell story of China's great flood.
have fun :)


壽 (shòu), longevity. Simplified: 寿

Common words: 长寿, long life; 寿司, sushi.


Depending on the context, there are different strategies for translating this word. In the most strict sense, leaving nothing unsaid, it is （符）合犹太教规的 when it comes to food preparation. If reference to 犹太教 isn't essential to the context, it can simply be 合礼法的, because the notion of doing things according to 礼法 is prevalent in Chinese culture.


What does this seal stamp on Chinese painting mean?

The signature is 石青,
After googled the name, I found at least 3 painters named 石青 on the web, both mainly draw birds and flowers.

But compare the calligraphy, it does not look like same person.

All the 壬戌 year:

2年、62年、122年、182年、242年、302年、362年、422年、482年、542年、602年、662年、722年、782年、842年、902年、962年, 1022年、1082年、1142年、1202年、1262年、1322年、1382年、1442年、1502年、1562年、1622年、1682年、1742年、1802年、1862年、1922年、1982年。

Based on the style of the calligraphy and the poem, I think it is painted in 1982.


What font size for reading simplified characters on screen?

The default font size in MS Word(or other soft) is 12pt, and that's quite ok to be read.

If you want to make it easier, 14pt is quite acceptable.


[Once an X, always an X] is the short form of [once (become) an X, (will) always (be) an X]

"X" in this structure is a stigma or branding that cannot be removed from you. For example: "once a murderer, always a murderer"

The label "murderer" cannot be removed from someone who committed murder. This label will be attached to him forever, because "murderer" is permanent label, you can never un-murder someone. The same goes to the label "liar". Once you are caught lying, the fact that you lied cannot be erased.

In Chinese, it is translated as "一旦成為殺人犯，一生也是殺人犯" (once someone became a murderer, the status of murderer can never be removed from him)

you can replace "一生" with "終生" or "永遠"

  [Once a Y, always a Y] is the short form of [once (become) a Y, (will) always (be) a Y]

"Y" in this structure is a nature or attributes that cannot be taken away from you. For example: "once a soldier, always a soldier"

Technically, when someone retired from the armed forces, he would no longed be considered a soldier, however, the attributes of a soldier will always be in him.  "Once a soldier, always a soldier" is not a literal but a figurative phrase (I am no longer a soldier, but the heart of a soldier is still in me).

In Chinese, it is translated as "一日身為士兵，一生也是士兵" (Even being a soldier for one day, the attributes of a soldier will never be taken away from me)

you can replace "一生" with "終生" or "永遠"


What's the difference in use between 教 and 教给?

We use "教" as "teach", e.g., "我可以教你" = "I can teach you", "他教数学" = "He teaches math", "(这道题)我教过你了" = "I have taught you (how to solve) this question."

When we say "教给" we usually mean "give", like "这件事/物品交给你了" = "This thing is given to you，(and from now on you should be responsible for it)", "把这本书教给Tom" = "Give/Bring this book to Tom". However, sometimes we can use "教给" as "teach", depending on "what" you give to someone. For example, "你来教他这个技术" = "(你)把这个技术/方法教给他" = "(You) teach him the technique/way (of doing ...)"


Too many synonyms. How do I know which words are too formal/informal?

Use lexical occurence to choose the most frequent variants.

Use disyllabic variants if possible. That will make it more clear to most listeners.

Then there are verbs and verbs. 感觉 is a verb, but 感觉到 is a resultative verb, conveying the result of the action of feeling something. It is the same difference as in 看 and 看到, it adds some complexity.

Furthermore, words are not always synonyms, even if they share meaning. 感觉 foremost means to feel, whereas 觉得 mainly means to think (as in I think, not as in thinking hard). Think and feel are blurred in meaning, both in English and Chinese.

抵抗 means resist, and so does 抵制, but the latter mainly means boycott. 抗拒 means resist, but in the sense of defiance. 抵抗 is more of a struggle against oppression. 反抗 has a revolutionary flavor to it, and means to oppose or revolt, and therefore also resist.

反抗 has 31.5 occurences per million characters of text, 抵制 10, 抵抗 3.3, 反抗 30.4.

Listening a lot will make you pick up the right words in the right context.


Number of unique characters in the X most common words?

I write a simple script to compute the plot from an old phrase frequency data.

If you're interested, here is the raw data.

These data are for Taiwan's traditional Chinese,
but the statistics should be very similar to simplified Chinese.


生产纸币: to manufacture paper money/ to produce paper money
制造纸币: to make paper money / to produce paper money
发行纸币: to issue paper money
印制纸币: to print paper money

米凯乐 wrote: 宋朝用了这个发明做纸钱
It should be 宋朝用这个发明来制造纸币 (来= to)- Song Dynasty used this invention to make paper money
'做' means 'being', it should be '制造'(make)

Note the difference between 制造 and 制作 Difference between 製作 and 製造?


How many homophones for "shi" are there in Chinese - with or without considering tones?

Please see the pictures，the characters in the red box are common used.
The link is https://zidian.911cha.com/pinyin_shi.html


What's the difference between 帐户 and 账户?

账户 is the correct form, and 帐户 is a common typo seen a lot in online services.

账 or 账本 means "books", and 记账 is the action of "accounting". The word 账户 means a "bank account", and is also used as "online account" nowadays.

帐 has meanings related to cloth, like "mosquito net"(蚊帐) or "tent"(帐篷).

P.S. There is no entry for 帐户 in The Standard Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese.


How many words for I are there in Chinese?

I would like to share an interesting “I”, 朕.

In modern day (or post-Qin Dynasty) usage, 朕 was a first person pronoun reserved solely for the Emperor to refer to himself in front of all his subjects.

However, before the Qin Dynasty, 朕 was a word used by all commoners to refer to themselves, among the large variety of words which conveyed the same meaning. (予、僕、吾、我）

屈原, who lived in the Warring States period of the Zhou dynasty, wrote a poem called 离骚. The first line says:

  帝高阳之苗裔兮，朕皇考曰伯庸。

“(I am) a descendant of 帝高阳, my (late) father’s name is 伯庸.”


怎么用草船借箭这个成语 how／when to use 草船借箭

It's not a 成语, actually. As a Chinese person who was born and raised in mainland China, I've never ever used it as a 成语, and I've never heard anybody use it as a 成语. When our teacher told the story of 草船借箭 to us in primary school, she didn't say 草船借箭 is a 成语 at all. It's just a famous story. And we rarely talk about this story.


What is the difference of 犯不着 用不着 and 犯不上？

[犯不着/犯不上]为这点小事生气。 oral chinese
用不着为这点小事生气。mostly we use this way in written.
they are all ok. and the meanings of 犯不着/犯不上/用不着 are almost the same. it's up to you.


"____或____" = "____or____"

Example :

我沒有姐姐或(者)哥哥 (I don't have sister or brother)

  "是____或是____" = "is ____or____"

Example :

來的是姐姐或是哥哥都不要緊 (It doesn't matter the one who comes is sister or brother)

~

  "或____或____" = "either____ or____"

Example:

全部隊員或(者)死或(者)傷，我们已經沒法再戦 (All team members either died or injured, we can fight no longer)

  "或是____或是____" = "is either____ or____"

Example:
來的或是姐姐, 或是哥哥, 總之不會是父母 (The one who comes is either sister or brother, in short, will not be parents)

  I was about to write 我沒有或姐姐或哥哥。

As user6065 stated:

我既沒有姐姐也没有哥哥 (I have neither sister nor brother)

我既有姐姐也有哥哥 (I have sister and also brother)


"Banking" alternatives for digit characters?

0、1、2、3、4、5、6、7、8、9、10、100、1,000(1K)、10,000(10K)、100,000,000(100M)

Traditional Chinese
零、壹、 貳、參、肆、伍、陸、柒、捌、玖、拾、佰、仟、萬、億

or

Simplified Chinese
零、壹、 贰、叁、肆、伍、陆、柒、捌、玖、拾、佰、仟、万、亿


Pinyin "jiu" / "you" final pronunciation difference

The pinyin Final "iu" contains a hidden "o", so it is pronounced "iou".

"y" is actually an "i" Final being used as an Initial.

So the answer is: if both are the same tones, no :)

Same tones as in: 就 (jiù) and 又 (yòu)


Give further examples of morphological alternation patterns such as Verb/Noun (处 chu3 / chu4) and Active/Inactive Verb (好 hao4 / hao3)

好(hǎo hào)
正(chēng zhèng)
应(yīng yìng)
奔(bēn bèn)
卷(juǎn juàn)
调(tiáo diào)
转(zhuǎn zhuàn)
兴(xīng xìng)
模(mó mú)
系(xì jì)
挨(āi ái)
挑(tiāo tiǎo)
盛(chéng shèng)
冠(guān guàn)
壳(ké qiào)
载(zǎi zài)
散(sǎn sàn)
强(qiáng qiǎng)
供(gōng gòng)
薄(báo bó)
尽(jǐn jìn)
难(nán nàn)
种(zhǒng zhòng)
更(gēng gèng)
处(chǔ chù)
乐(lè yuè)


Is it possible to use 比如 at the end of a list of examples?

在文章中，我們通常不那麼用。
We usually don't write in that way.

但在口語上，這是可能的。
But, it is possible in speaking.

它的目的是用來補充句子。
Its purpose is to supplement the sentence.

因為一開始講太快，沒能把順序講對，所以，在最後補上。
When we speak too fast at the beginning, and the order is not right, we supplement it at the end.

For example:

原本想要問：
Originally, I want to ask:

你昨天到哪裡去了？

但因說得很急，講成：
But I put it in a hurry, and say:

你到哪裡去了？

突然發覺不完整，就再補上「昨天」，變成：
I suddenly notice incomplete, then make up "昨天", to become:

你到哪裡去了，昨天？

「比如」也是一樣。
It is the same for 比如.

列出一些項目，但發覺這些只是其中的一部分，所以在最後補上。
List some items, but find that these are just a few of them, so make a final supplement.

問：妳喜歡什麼？
Q: What's your favorite?

答：游泳、爬山、吃美食，比如（說）。
A: Swimming, hiking, eating fine food, for example.

We usually don't write in this way because the grammar is not correct.


Is the "shi" in "jin tian shi ji hao" optional, and can I ask "jin tian ji ri?"

These are correct expressions:

今天是星期几？
今天星期几？
今天是几号？
今天几号？

是 is omissible. Interesting enough that we don't usually say 今天几日.  If you say 今天几日，I would probably have to digest it a little bit internally to figure out what you mean.


Does an existential sentence with "有" only carry a non-specific noun?

Yes, normally, in standard usage

  zhūozishàng yǒu wǒde zuòyè 桌子上有我的作业

isn't supposed to be correct. You'll hear it a lot, though, especially if a different specific noun phrase is contrasted, such as

  … dàn méiyǒu nǐde zuòyè 但没有你的作业.

My Better Half, a native speaker, swears there's nothing wrong with

  … yǒu wǒde zuòyè 有我的作业.

Addendum: The preferred way of dealing with stating the location of a specified noun (modified by a personal pronoun (wǒ 我, etc.) or a deictic pronoun (nà 那, etc.) is to make it the topic of the sentence, giving it greatest focus, as befits a specified noun. So

  wǒde zuòyè zài zhūozishàng 我的作业在桌子上

etc.


An excellent resource for answering questions like this is 漢字古今音資料庫 at http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/ccr/.  Unfortunately it doesn't have Song or Yuan reconstructions, but it does list the 攝, which is a Song era classification. 祯 was in 梗攝, and 蒸 was in 曾攝 so they shouldn't have been complete homonyms.  The difference, however, was probably in the vowel, not the final nasal -ng.  The modern zhen for 祯 is a post Song change; some of the 梗 words kept -ng, some changed to -n, but it's unclear when or how it happened.


Meaning of 如何 as a single-word declarative sentence?

You haven't provided much context for it. I'm guessing 如何 probably is used to mean "How was it". Usually, in this scenario, we say 你看怎么样，我说的对吧， and etc indicating that one should have taken their advice for doing something, given the negative consequence shown up.


Is the usage of European punctuation acceptable in Chinese writing?

On the Internet and other informal environments, that's OK.

In official publications, the answer is no.

As far as I know, if you write a book and do not use Chinese punctuation, the government won't allow you to publish it.


Why in Chinese Bible (和合本), "you" was translated as "你" instead of "您"?

"I thought 您 is more polite and honorific and thus should be used when address Jehovah. Why was "you" translated as "你" instead of "您"?"

你 is, in fact, the correct translation, not only linguistically; but theologically as well. Because God is Father, the familiar form of the second person is appropriate.
A little diversion on the English terms, "thou" is the singular form in Early Modern English, and "you" the plural. The plural form came to be used as a polite form of address later, and "thou" the singular and familiar form. Over time, "you" took over and now Modern English uses "you" as both singular and plural and that distinction between formal (polite) and informal (familiar) is lost.
The translation of the Bible into English has maintained the difference between formal and informal; and it is also correct to maintain the same when translating into Chinese, "Thou/ thee" (informal and familiar) as "你" and "thy" as "你的". It is linguistically faithful. Theologically it is also the correct form since we are talking about a father-child relationship, and it is definitely not formal.


屋:

In standard Mandarin, 屋 is not commonly used as a noun by itself. Though, 房屋 is a common word, which is very similar to real estate in English. e.g. 房屋中介 = Real estate agency.

Another common usage of 屋 is in forming a name of a special kind of house. In such usage, it normally has a quite cozy feeling, e.g. 小屋 is a hut, 淑女屋 is a female clothing brand name.

I get feeling that the use of 屋 was may be introduced from Japan in modern times. Just a wild guess because 屋 seems much more common in Japanese.

房子:

It is quite widely used, and is very similar to the English word "house".
E.g. 我有一幢房子 = I have a house. 老房子 = Old house, etc.

In general, 屋 is not as widely used in Mandarin as 房子. And 屋 is used in a more formal fashion compared with 房子.


What is the difference between 演奏 and 表演?

表演 is a general term for 'perform (v)' or 'performance (n)'; 演奏 is a specific term for 'perform playing a musical instrument(v)' or 'musical instrument playing performance(n)'

You can 表演 (perform) any kind of performance and any performance (表演) can be performed

Example: 胸口碎大石，高空踏鋼線，肚皮舞，單手打蛋，倒掛金勾射球，書法，騎射 and so on

演奏 (n) =  (musical instrument) playing performance; 演奏 (v) = perform playing (musical instrument)

Example:
(v) 演奏小提琴，演奏鋼琴，演奏二胡
(n) 小提琴演奏，鋼琴演奏，二胡演奏

演唱 (v): perform singing; (n): singing performance

Technically, playing piano and singing song (表演彈鋼琴; 表演唱歌) is 表演 too, but they have their own dedicated words 演奏 and 演唱, therefore, 表演 is not used for musical instrument performance or singing performance.
No one says 表演'陽關三疊' (name of the music), only 演奏'陽關三疊''; No one says 表演'明月千里寄相思' (name of the song), only 演唱'明月千里寄相思'
演出 (v): 'perform'/ (n):'show' is mostly for stage-play or opera. e.g. 演出舞台劇; 演出歌劇


桃原圖

As for the other two seals, I'm fairly sure that they're both referring to one person mentioned on this page:

明義父

I won't presume the order that you're supposed to read this, so the characters in their positions are:
惇　　平
信＊　印

＊Not sure of this character, looks like some sort of modification from「言」.


I guess "high-crime" makes more sense.

治安不好的小区
high-crime neighborhood


"C'est la vie" (such is life) in Chinese

"(上)力威" has no meaning in Chinese. "這就是生活/这就是生活/生活就是這樣/生活就是这样" is correct.


Looks like classical Chinese.
zdic

◎ 多早晚 duōzǎowǎn
[when] 多咱,什么时候(“多咱”来于“多早晚”)

多早晚
什麼時候。紅樓夢．第十四回：「我且問你，你們這夜書多早晚纔念呢？」或作「多早」、「多咱」、「多咱晚」、「多偺」、「多喒」。
甚晚、很晚。

百度百科

中文名 多早晚
外文名 Much sooner or later
性质 词语
来源 红楼梦
多早晚 duōzǎowǎn [when] 多咱，什么时候(“多咱”来于“多早晚”)
《红楼梦》第六四回：“黛玉道：‘可是你没的说了！好好的，我多早晚又伤心了？’”
茅盾《霜叶红似二月花》：“我早就想过，多早晚，我们村子里一人一股香，大家上县里去，一步一拜，打伙儿跪在王伯申大门前，求他高抬贵手。”

As the encyclopedia entry mentions 多咱 comes from 多早晚 and is in common usage in Northern China. You might be hard pressed to find usage of 多早晚 outside of 红楼梦 though.


Yes, it's still used and a common phrase, which is used to express that an event or object does not contain something new/creative (a bit more than just rehash a dead conversation).

You can search using the keyword "炒冷饭 没有新意" to find the use of this phrase.


Is there a reason the 月 radical occurs many times in body part names?

Similar questions have been asked in both Chinese and Japanese StackExchange before. In summary, what appears as 月 in printed text is actually the graphical merger between ⺼ (simplified form of 肉 (meat; flesh)) and 月 (moon). Traditionally, you wouldn't handwrite characters with the ⺼ radical with two horizontal lines as the inner two strokes; they would be diagonal.

The similarity in appearance is normally not a source of confusion, as the vast majority of characters which contain a ⺼ component does not have ⺼ appearing on the right, and the vast majority of characters which have a proper 月 component appears on the right, with some rare exceptions (see this).

As a final note, if you wish to understand why characters are written a certain way, looking at the Simplified Chinese form is generally not helpful. 头 has undergone a very contrived simplification from the traditional 頭 (see this excellent answer on Zhihu), and like 頭, characters to do with 'head' may be written with the 頁 component instead of ⺼ (e.g. 頸, neck).


This article posits 神甫 is a slightly derogatory term, first used by Qing officials, to address religious Fathers in their official communications to the Emperor. The author supports their argument by a) that 神父 is etymologically orthodox and traceable to the Ming dynasty, and b) that 神甫 is not a loyal translation to 'Father' (despite 甫 potentially being a title for a respectable man), which, in Catholic tradition, is a cordial address to a Priest (Lat. Sarcedos, Chin. 司鐸).

I believe the above argument is not baseless. There are many occasions where historical translations to Western entities are far from decent. Of course, that has more to do with 19th century history.

大不列顛 Great Britain
煲顛茶, 砵甸乍 Pottinger, first Governor of Hong Kong
爹核士 Davis, second Governor of Hong Kong
麥當奴 MacDonnell, sixth Governor of Hong Kong

In summary, 神甫 is a historical translation that has been outcompeted by the far more understandable translation 神父. Translative differences do not render 甫 and 父 etymologically connected.


What's the English expression that means 感叹词："坏了"

What about:

"Shoot!"

"Shoot; it's raining."
"Shoot; I forgot to bring my phone."
"Shoot; I'm late."

"Darn."

"Darn, it's raining."
"Darn! I forgot to bring my phone."
"Darn; I'm late."

"Oh no."

"Oh no, it's raining."
"Oh no. I forgot to bring my phone."
"Oh no; I'm late."

To emphasize that "astonishing strike," perhaps something like

"Shoot, shoot, shoot! Darn it! I forgot to bring my phone!"
"坏了，坏了！忘带手机了！"


Does anyone know the meaning of this character ()?

The Nom Foundation has a lookup tool that might give a clue:

Although I don't understand which entry belongs to which character, or what the relationship among the characters is (Han Nom was less standardized than Chinese Hanzi, so some of the 4 shown here might even be distinct variants), my best guess based on the expressions is 'mold/mould' as in molding/moulding (or the derived meanings like 'shape/pattern'). The 木 radical might also support the meaning, since molds tended be made from wood in earlier times (additionally, the Mandarin Chinese equivalent for mold/mould is also based on the 木 radical: 模 [mó/mú]).

EDIT: If the two-character expression used in your description is transliterated as 'khuôn mặt' (literally "face shape"), I guess the character in the title means 'shape'.


Does anyone know what this means or the origins of this artwork?

耶稣进前來对他们说:天上地下所有的权柄都赐
给我了，所以你们要去使万民作我的门徒，奉父、子
、圣灵的名给他们施洗， 凡我所吩咐你的，都教训他
们遵守，我就常与你们同在，直到世界的末了。
?? 馬太福音 二十八章 十八之二十節
(?? is not clear I can't understand. Something like 恭奉?)
Its from 馬太福音(Gospel of Matthew)  28:18-20
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”


What is the meaning of 成器 and how do you use it？

It is a fixed saying, in modern times, it is usually used in negative expressing. i.e. 不成器

我感觉绝望，我就想成器.

People don't use 器 to refer himself, because the criterion is too low, imply that you are not even an ordinary human.

If you really want to use it, use it like this:

他不成器.
一个不成器的家伙.
老话说: 玉不琢不成器, 我要修理修理你.

There is another famous quote from Confucius: 君子不器 which has a totally different meaning, and the view point is not appropriate in modern times.


Safe to always use 之後 instead of 以後, and 之前 instead of 以前?

In the three example sentences of 以后 in your link, 以后 cannot be replaced by 之后.

(1)以后 再 也 不 来 这里 吃饭 了 ， 又 贵 又 难吃 。
(2)以后 我 可能 会 去 国外 上 大学 。
(3)以后 的 事情 以后 再 说 吧 。

(Actually you can use 之后 in (2), but need a context before that. E.g. 我打算高中毕业之后去北京工作两年;之后我可能会去国外上大学。)

Similarly 之前 and 以前 cannot always replace each other.


Besides the radical, what meaning does the rest of a Chinese character have (especially when it was originally created)?

Radicals do not have anything to do with meaning.
I'll start off with a rather lengthy correction to a common misconception. Radicals (部首, literally section 部 header 首) are just a dictionary organisation tool, specifically used for texts which collate and refer to a large collection of characters, serving as the head of each section of a dictionary. They are functionally equivalent to first letters of English words, as English dictionaries organise words under the first letter of each word.

When characters were originally created, there was no such thing as dictionaries, and certainly then there was no such thing as radicals. Since dictionaries must categorise all characters in use under a dictionary section header, the radicals of a significant number of characters were arbitrarily forced on to them, and really have nothing to do with the character's functionality. For example, see Radical 3 「⼂」, with meaning terminal punctuation mark:

Radical meaning
《說文》：「『丶』，有所絶止，『丶』而識之也」
"「⼂」, if there is a place of termination, 「⼂」 is that which marks this place."
Radical sound
「主」 (Mandarin: zhǔ)
Characters grouped under this radical:

「丷」, handwritten form of two strokes which may appear as 「八」 in print shapes
「丸」, wán, small round object
「丹」, dān, cinnabar (the colour)

This is not to deny that a large number of characters do have radicals which appear to hint at the character's meaning, but this is far from a rule. 「始」 is one such character, but using proper terminology, we do not use the word radical to describe 「女」 in 「始」; rather, this meaning hint is called a semantic component.
This terminology is not just a matter of being pedantic, as many (semantic) components are not radicals at all. For example,

The character 「哥」 (to sing, now complexified into 「歌」) is made up from two simultaneously semantic and phonetic 「可」 (to sing). 「可」 is not a radical.
This is an example of complexification by piling on more components due to overuse/phonetic loaning: To sing was originally written as 「可」, but since this character became phonetically borrowed for the meaning can, able to, it was duplicated to form 「哥」, which later became borrowed for the meaning elder brother, so the meaning to sing was further complexified into 「歌」.

Now, for the rest of the query:
The rest of character 始 is composed of two other characters.
This is not correct: the rest of the character is only comprised of one other character. The character 「始」 is comprised of 「女」 and 「台」, not 「女」 and 「厶」 and 「口」 (you've performed recursive decomposition here, which generally is a very bad idea!). Don't worry about not getting this right, as this is not something you are expected to know intuitively - instead, you should rely on an accurate source of character breakdowns to give you this information. Bad reference material will not break down characters properly, and give you incorrect information.

「始」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*l̥əʔ/, elder sister, i.e. the "first female sibling" > initial, first) is comprised from semantic 「女」 (female) and phonetic 「台」 (/*lə/).

... only put there to help people pronounce the overall word 始, to provide additional meaning, or both?
In general, characters have an arbitrary number of components, and each one of these components could be for meaning, sound, or both. It's not up to you as a learner to figure out; it's up to a good reference material to tell you.
then why would there ever by more than one additional character to indicate pronunciation? It seems one character would always be enough to provide help with pronunciation.
Because history is long, and characters may change over time in ways which reflect the contemporary language or change as a result of accumulating scribal errors. For example,

「耻」 (/*n̥rəʔ/, humiliation/shame) is made up from phonetic 「耳」 (/*C.nəʔ/) and phonetic 「止」 (/*təʔ/). The 「止」 part was from a series of shape corruptions from the original semantic component 「心」(heart, indicating emotions).
See What is the history of the character “耻”? for a more detailed treatment of the glyph origins.


比较 here doesn't so much accentuate the comparison between two or more objects/methods. It more gives you an idea of something that has a quality to a somewhat significant degree or above the average. (So in some way, it is a comparison, but a comparison to an unreferenced standard/average).

It can be loosely translated into 'relatively', 'fairly', 'rather' or 'somewhat'.

Another example would be:

  玛丽长得比较胖

  Mary is rather obese/overweight.


The last 3 characters are 柳子谷, an artist's name and the ninth character is 雨. But I am not quite confident about the meanings.

EDIT:

Ah I see: 凌霄 is 凌霄花, 凌霄带雨 is a metaphor for adamancy and bravery.

EDIT 2:

See the comments below (*°∀°)=3


It's 寿（in simplified Chinese）: old age, long life; lifespan. It is used for expressing best wishes: wish people who wear it to have a good long life.

See Ref on Wikipedia.


How to describe the state of a locked door

‘门上了锁’ is correct.

I think you can best understand '上' here as 'put, set'.

Here there are 16 different definitions for 上：
8，11，13 and 14 approach the meaning here.

门上了锁 door set lock = the door has been locked = the door is locked

If there is a padlock on a door, it is also locked. (padlock is 挂锁）

'门上了锁。' could mean 'There is a padlock on the door.' or 'The door is locked.' or 'The door has been locked.' or even '(someone) put a padlock on the door.' depending on context.

'房门上锁是为了防盗。' was translated: 'The doors were padlocked to prevent theft.'

都可以：

门锁了。The door is locked. / There is a padlock on the door.
门被锁了.
门上了锁。
门锁上了。
门（被）上锁了。

*门（被）锁了上。 【不好】


早已 and 早就 are different. They can be exchangeable in practice and may or may not have the same meaning. But their grammar structure are different.

Examples-1:

他搬走了.(He moved) (To answer what happened to him?)

他已经搬走了.(Since he moved, he is no longer here)

他早已经搬走了.(1) (Since he moved, he is no longer here. That happened long time ago.)

他早已搬走了.(same as 1)

Examples-2:

他搬走了.(He moved)

他早搬走了.(He moved)(That happened long time ago.)

他早就搬走了.(He moved)(I am sure that happened long time ago.) (How come you do not even know it ??? )

早已 has the basic meaning of 已经. The combination logic is the 早 is used to modify 已经.

早就 has the basic meaning of 早 as adverb to modify the verb 搬走. 就 is to emphasize and to be very sure about it.


屌丝" seems to be a "dirty word" but also accepted and openly used. Am I missing something?

To most people the origin of 屌 is not really that clear.

KEY dictionary

2. {TW usage} swagger, be cocky/brash; be imposing, be "bad-ass"

cc c-edict

3. cool or extraordinary (colloquial)

Jay Chou 周杰伦 always goes around saying:

超屌

On Baidu there are even people who ask:

周杰伦总是说“超屌”,为什么这两个字被禁了呢?

Why is Jay Chou's “超屌” always getting censored?

So to most people 屌 just means cool...despite it's origin...and while others may think it sounds vulgar they know that is certainly doesn't not mean genitals.

As far as the origin goes this baidu user explains pretty well:

吊丝是早年李毅吧和三巨头吧互掐的时候三巨头用来骂毅丝的，之后被毅丝们用来自嘲，为什么会火，
那是因为李毅吧有内涵，号称百度卢浮宫

basically it was just a way for people to call Li Yi's fans on 贴吧...
丝 is from 粉丝 for "fans" and well 屌 you already know...


NY Times 翻译: He presented the choice in binary terms - 他用非此即彼的二元论来表述这个选择. Too complex?

他用非此即彼 is a sentence fragment, thus Google translate does not translate it well.

非此即彼 literally means "if not this, then it is that", leaving no other choice.
I think 非此即彼的二元论 means "binary terms, which means leaving only two choices", it is not a literal translation but one with additional information as ordinary people may not know what 二元论 means.