Is there a place to find extremely simple stories?

Possibilities here

I sometimes read essays written by Chinese children: RuiWang's 作文.  They have all levels for free, starting from 一年级 (grade 1).

You can find many English novels translated into Chinese and available for purchase on JingDong or other sites.  I read Matilda (玛蒂尔达) this way.  I thought it was helpful for improving my reading speed.

You can access Chinese school textbooks for free at 电子课本网: the reading material is 语文.  Again, starting from 一年级 (grade 1).  [After selecting a book chapter, it looks like you need to scan a QR code, but you can just click it and it'll show you the pages.]

Du Chinese is a well-polished reading app---new material is free [it's also new and fresh], and I feel it's reasonably priced for what's clearly a lot of effort.

Hacking Chinese reviews Mandarin Companion's graded readers which are here.  (There is also an article about 语文 which is more advanced.)

There's a list of resources here: Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese, but it's cumbersome.  These kinds of resource questions is why I wrote this post on meta (although it hasn't caught on).
I also note that many books are available for download from Blah.me.


Do characters like 司, 习, and 可 have different first strokes?

We can use zdic's 笔顺 for this:

司

  フ一丨フ一

习

  フ丶一

可

  一丨フ一丨

So technically 司 and 习 begin with a 折 stroke, while 可 begins with a 横 stroke.

笔顺 works like:

笔顺名称    一（横）    丨（竖）    丿（撇）    丶（点）    乛（折）

笔顺编号    1   2   3   4   5


I would say both interpretations are acceptable.

The more works(劳动) you have to do, the busier (劳累) you would get.

A good example in real life.

My sister can't cook, so my brother in law cooks all the meals for the family.

My sister can't drive long distance, so my brother in law has to drive when they need to go to far away place.

My sister's English is poor, so my brother in law does all the talking when they have to deal with English speakers.

He has to do more works because he has more abilities; he is also busier because he has to do more works.

IMO 多劳 means "work more" and "work more" make you "busier".

You can say 能者多劳 means "the more able man get more works and get busier".


演(perform)
唱 (singing)
会 (gathering)
演唱会  = (singing) concert

The key word is '唱'. No matter it is a solo or a group concert, the performer(s) will sing songs.
Sometimes instrumental music might be inserted in the program, but the majority of the show is about singing

演奏 (perform musical instrument)
演奏会 = (instrumental) concert

The key word is '奏'. In a instrumental music concert, the performer(s) will perform instrumental music.
Some singing performance might be added as bonus, but the main draw is the instrumental music

音乐 (music)
音乐会 (music) concert

A music concert can be a mix of singing and instrumental music.
演唱会 and 演奏会 mostly refer to concerts performed by professional singers or musicians and you have to buy ticket to attend
However, free events with amateur performers can still call themselves 演唱会 or 演奏会
Commercial 音乐会 (music concert) are relatively rare compare to commercial 演唱会 (singing concert) and commercial 演奏会 (instrumental concert)


How to translate "inclusive" and "exclusive"?

I think Chinese people just don't use the straight forward translation of these two words to express this kind of situation.

The start date and end date are both inclusive.
起止日期均包含在内。

You didn't mention anything about "search result" in your English version so why bother that in Chinese?

My age is between 1 (inclusive) and 100 (exclusive).
我的年龄在 1（含）至 100（不含）之间。

Excuse me? Why don't you just say your age is between 1 and 99 inclusive? Your age is a float?
By the way, just in case you are going to release your app - your punctuation in English was wrong, there should be a space added before each left bracket. Better review these things carefully before your publish an iOS app, in order not to lower the overall user experience.


Meaning of seal and engraved characters on teapot

For the seal identification portion, as mentioned elsewhere, the characters are 汪寅仙製 (meaning made by 汪寅仙, a very famous Chinese ceramics artist who passed away earlier this year; whether it's really made by 汪寅仙 is another story, as many of these pieces are actually fakes).

「寅」is fairly recognisable in this carving, so I'll provide a breakdown of the other three characters.

This carved seal is slightly more difficult to read than normal, because of the characters being squashed into a circular shape, causing some components to be slightly distorted.

汪

  「汪」is a description of a body of water meaning vast and deep, and is comprised of

  「氵/水」, a semantic component;
  「㞷」simplified to「王」, a phonetic component.

  「水」originally depicted flowing water:

  This directly leads to the seal script form

  Note that the modern component form「氵」is a drastically simplified version, and ancient scripts did not write this component in this manner for a long time.

  「㞷」was the original character for「往」, and was a compound of

  「之」(to go), a semantic component, itself a compound of

  「止」(a depiction of a foot), a semantic component, and
  「一」(an abstraction of the ground), a semantic component

  「土」(a depiction of a lump of earth on the ground, meaning soil), a semantic component.

  The total form emphasises the meaning to go (by travelling on foot covering ground distance).

  「之」originally looked like

  and an ancestral variant of「之」looked like「㞢」; the following is a few samples of the shape to provide an idea of the relation between the shapes:

  「土」originally looked like

  but it was subject to some shape changes:

  A similar change actually happened to「十」, which morphed almost exactly like the top part of「土」. Note that these are not strictly how the character evolved, so don't over-interpret these sequences.

  The original forms lead to the combination

  and the shape of「㞷」should be seen as coming directly from「㞢」and「土」. This directly leads on to the seal script shape

  Note that the top-right part of this component in the original image is cut off to fit inside the circle.

仙

  「仙」is comprised of

  「亻/人」, a semantic component;
  「山」, a phonetic component.

  「人」is a side view of a standing person:

  This directly leads on to the seal script shape

  Note that the left side of this component is distorted to fit inside the circle.

  「山」was originally a depiction of mountain peaks:

  The side peaks eventually simplified into vertical lines, leaving the middle peak in seal script:

製

  「製」is comprised of

  「制」(originally to chop wood), both a semantic and phonetic component, itself comprised of

  「未」(the fragrant smell of a blooming tree (now written「味」)), a semantic component;
  「刂/刀」(a blade, indicating the meaning to cut), a semantic component.

  「衣」(clothes), a semantic component.

  「未」originally depicted a tree「木」with extra branches, representing blooming, and by extension the fragrance of blooming trees:

  For stylistic reasons, the bottom of「未」(and similarly 木, 本, ...) morphed into something resembling「巾」, leading to the seal script form

  Extras:

  In modern regular script, the bottom of 木 and 本 didn't retain「巾」, while「制」did retain this shape.
  In「制」,「未」is just used for its shape as a tree, not its meaning of「味」(fragrance).

  「刀」was originally a picture of a knife or blade:

  This directly leads on to the seal script form

  「衣」was originally a picture of clothing:

  This directly leads on to the seal script form

To summarise:


What is the relationship 驩 required by the 大略 between husband and wife?

水巷孑蠻 wrote:

there's a remark "不得謂不得聖人之禮法" and "驩與歡同" after the verse "老者以養"

Edit:
聖人之禮法 saint's etiquette
君臣不得不尊，without it, retainer  would not respect the ruler
父子不得不親，without it, father and son would not love each other
兄弟不得不順，without it, brothers would not be agreeable to each other
夫婦不得不驩(歡)，without it, husband and wife would not please each other
In saint's etiquette, both 父 and 子 need to love each other; both older and younger brother need to be agreeable to each other. And it is as much a husband's responsibility to please his wife as a wife's responsibility to please her husband. As for 君臣, it is possible that the demand to respect is on the retainers only.
My original post before knowing there's a remark:

君臣不得不尊，ruler and retainer must respect each other
父子不得不親，father and son must love each other
兄弟不得不順，brothers must be agreeable to each other
夫婦不得不驩(歡)，husband and wife must please each other
少者以長，grow the young
老者以養。take care of the old
故天地生之，that's how the world is formed
聖人成之。saint is created
荀子's words mentioned 'mutually respect, love, follow and please' ; but in practice, a retainer is expected to respect his ruler, a son is expected to love his father, a younger brother is expected to follow his older brother and a wife is expected to please her husband. The expectation on the other end is more often, treated like a suggestion.


Probably more natural to be 「我们过去啦！」, which means "Let's go across [the intersection]!"

Reasoning:

啦 can be mistaken as 了 in this context, especially when the stress is on 过去 so that the 啦 is pronounced through quick.
Your friend was smiling, which may imply a positive mood, and the imperative with 啦 can serve as an appropriate expression here.


What is the difference between 准备， 预备 and 打算？

So there's two questions here:

1) Difference between 准备 and 预备:

准 (Zhǔn) = accurate, about to, standard, certainly
预 (Yù) = in advance, beforehand, in the future
备 （Bèi） = prepare (among other unrelated meanings, such as "equipment)

So these root differences tell you that

准备 is more to describe readiness in preparation (accurate, certainty, etc)...

他正在为招待客人作准备 （Tā zhèngzài wèi zhāodài kèrén zuò zhǔnbèi） = He is preparing (planning how to) entertain guests

预备 is more to describe "to make ready"

我给你预备了一件礼物 (Wǒ yě gěi nǐ yùbèile yī jiàn lǐwù) =  I prepared a small gift for you

Although subtle, differences do exist.

2) When to use 准备/预备 vs 计划/打算

打算: 打 (to hit, to do, to make), 算 (calculate, to figure)...

计划: 计划 (to calculate, to count, to plan), 划 (to mark off, to draw a line)

Both 打算 and 计划 are to make calculations/plans, or mark off something. You cannot use them to say you're prepared to do something, or that you've prepared/made something. They're only to say that you've figured/calculated something in the future.

Ex: You cannot say "我打算了一件礼物给你", but you can say "我打算送你一件礼物"

Conversely:

You cannot say "我预备送你一件礼物" but you can say "我给你预备了一件礼物"


How do I say "least" in the superlative sense in Mandarin?

As suggested by some comments, it depends on the context, and what you would like to stress with this phrase.

Without any context, it sounds exactly the same with "the cheapest". In this way, 不贵 is 便宜, 最便宜的 is the translation.

However, if you are trying to say all these things are expensive, but this one is the least expensive one among them, then 最不贵的 is better. However, when you use this phrase, your audience should either have the knowledge that all these things are expensive, or you should explicitly stress mention that. Otherwise, it doesn't sound natural.


How Recent Is the Divergence In Taiwan- and PRC-Accented Mandarin Speech?

Actually, until around the 1990s, the spoken language in official sources were very similar.

Famous singers like Teresa Teng spoke pretty much like people from China nowadays. Here's an example of an interviewee from those earlier days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWEcZvhfnzA&hd=1 (There's a great quote about how Teresa Teng's songs brought comfort for those miserable mainlanders!). There's a lot more stuff from those earlier days you can search via youtube.

There are a couple of important factors as to why they diverged.
1) The northern parts of Taiwan are its political/economic center and early on home to most of the refugees from Mainland China. Because of this, they strongly emphasized standard Mandarin as a sign of status/power etc. However, on the other hand, southern Taiwan has always been home to Chinese variants different from the mainland due to the influence of the people who were there before the KMT came to power.

2) Until the 1990s, the KMT strongly enforced a 国语运动 (presumably the 国语 back then was similar to how mainland Chinese is now). This meant if you were at school, in public, in meeting involving more than 3 people and you were found to be using a (gasp) non-国语 language, you would be heavily punished (3000-10000 元).  (Here's wikipedia on this: http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%9C%8B%E8%AA%9E%E9%81%8B%E5%8B%95)

3) In the 1990s the DPP started to gain traction in south. They advocated a Taiwanization movement. They wanted to have a Taiwan distinct from China. This meant no more 国语运动 and allowing for more of the Chinese variants.

In summary, I would say that Taiwanese variant of Chinese has always had some amount of difference from the mainland. However, because of various political reasons, those variants were never heard publicly. In some aspects, they were suppressed. But with the rise of a more tolerant government and the Taiwanization movement, Taiwan wanted to carve out a distinct variant of 国语, and thus we now have quite a big difference between the mainland and Taiwan.


In theory, we don't need 最 in '痛苦莫過於生存' because 莫過於 (no greater than) already indicated 'the most'.
However, "最X 的Y 莫過於Z" is a common structure of speech. For example 最危險的任務 莫過於 卧底行動  (the most dangerous task is the undercover operation/ no operation is more dangerous than an undercover operation)

最 emphasizes the topic

莫過於 emphasizes the object in the comment (or you can simply say 最危險的任務是卧底行動)

I don't agree with this statement. Life itself is neutral. It can be full of happiness or sadness, and the way 鄭詩君 said it is not quite the standard way


meaning of 都 in 从小就好爱看国外都明星街拍！

都 is in wrong position in your sentence.
"不知道大家是不是都和我一样，从小就好爱看国外明星街拍！" is correct.
or
"不知道大家是不是和我一样，从小就好爱看国外(的)明星街拍！" is also correct.
国外都明星街拍 doesn't make sense.


What is the difference between 由于 and 因为?

由于 means "due to" or "because of".
因为 means "because".

There are also some differences in usage too,

由于 is usually placed at the beginning of a sentence

  由于天气恶劣，飞机被迫折返梳邦机场降落。 Due to the bad weather, the plane is forced
  to turn back to land at Subang Airport.

因为 can be used where the cause is stated following the effect

  我不需要上学，因为今天是公共假日。 I don't need to go to school because today is a
  public holiday.

因为 can be used in conjunction with 所以

  因为今天是公共假日，所以我不需要上学。 Because today is a public holiday, therefore I
  don't need to go to school.


What is the difference among many "if" words?

如果: simply means 'if'. For example, 如果我知道，我就会告诉你。 If I knew it, I    would tell you.
  如： is short for 例如, meaning 'for example', 'like' or 'as'. It's used    when you give some examples. For example (如)： 手字可以和很多字组词，如：手机.
  假如: supposing or in case. For example: 假如生活欺骗了你, in case/supposing    life deceived you.
  只要: only if or as long as. For example: 只要你做完工作就可以走了。You could go as long as you finish the work.
  即便: even if/even though. For example: 即便是老板，我也不怕。 Even though he is    the boss, I wouldn't fear.
  要说: as for; want to say something; For example, 要说他这个人，没人知道。As for    this person, no one knows. 我没有什么要说。 There is nothing I want to say.


What is the difference between 绝对 and 肯定?

The dictionary definition may help you.

肯定 / kěn dìng /
1 （承认事物的存在或真实性） affirm; approve; confirm; regard as positive:
affirm the achievements
肯定成绩
2 （正面的） affirmative:
Her answer is in the affirmative.
她的回答是肯定的。
3 （明确的; 确定的） definite; positive; sure:
We are not sure yet whether we'll go or not.
去不去， 我们还不能肯定。
It's definite that he'll come.; He is sure to come.
他肯定会来。
4 （一定; 无疑问） certainly; surely; definitely; undoubtedly; as sure as eggs
is eggs; dead cert:
We can certainly have the job finished on time.
我们肯定能按时完成任务
绝对 / jué duì /
1 （没有任何条件; 不受任何限制） absolute:
absolute predominance; overwhelming superiority; absolute superiority;
绝对优势
oppose absolute equalitarianism;
反对绝对平均主义
2 （完全; 一定） absolutely; perfectly; definitely:
absolutely reliable;
绝对可靠
Absolute perfection in a dictionary is rare.
绝对完美的词典是罕见的。

Back to your examples:

老王点点头，给了老董一个肯定的回答。// 绝对 can not be used to replace 肯定

这个人这么胖，绝对不是张英。// 绝对 can be used to replace 肯定

事情都有好的方面，也有不好的方面，不能想得太绝对。//  绝对 can not be used to replace 肯定

河里的水真清，要是不去游游泳，肯定很舒服。//  肯定 can be used to replace 绝对.


"Screw up" is a slang for "to blunder"
搞砸 /gǎo zá/ : blunder
弄糟 /nòng zāo/ : blunder ; mess up

How can I express that someone "screwed [something] up?"

他把事情搞砸了
他把事情弄糟了

砸
: break; smash; shatter
: [slang] fail; fall through; flop


Pronunciation differences between pinyin 'zh' and 'ch', and between 'qi' and 'xi'

The difference between zh and ch has nothing to do with the position of the tongue: these two are pronounced with the tongue in the same position; the difference is aspiration -- ch is aspirated while zh is not. Both are retroflex affricates.

x and q have less in common -- actually q and ch are much closer to an untrained ear, as they're both aspirated affricates -- the only difference being the position of the tongue, ch being a retroflex, and q an alveo-palatal. x on the other hand is not aspirated, and a fricative. Actually x is close to the German Ich-laut (except ch in Ich is a palatal rather than an alveo-palatal).


What is the origin of the character 对/對?

well, to make a reasonable guess; have a look of 漢語多功能字庫, please.

對 (u+5c0d) is a character since 甲骨文 (oracle bone script), which is composed by component "丵" (u+4e35), "土" (u+571f), &  "又 - 手" (又 originally means right hand).

3 pictures of 對 in oracle bone script:

then, 丵 in small seal script (i can't find this one in oracle bone script at this moment)

土 in oracle bone script

又 - 手 in oracle bone script

the synopsis in this page is:

手持工具開闢土地

the initial meaning of 對 is "using hand (又 - 手) tools (丵) to develop land (土)".

later, in 金文 (bronze script), the form of 對 is slightly changed:

闢地分疆﹒植樹於土﹒立下地界

the meaning of 對 at this time is "planting tree along the boundary of the newly developed land"

with nowadays technology, one might think of "building a fence to protect an area" (e.g. set up barbed wire fence to encircle a farm)

then,

後假借為應對、應答之意

對 was "borrowed" to have the meaning of "response", "reply" or "answer"; which matches of the first two explanations in 國語辭典

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=W00000002366

imo, chopping "對" into "業" & "寸"; errh . . . . "off course" :(

imo, quoting "帝作邦作對" to support the above meaning is appealing.

here's the poem 皇矣 ( with James Legge's english translation)

作之屏之﹒其菑其翳
脩之平之﹒其灌其栵
啟之辟之﹒其檉其椐
攘之剔之﹒其檿其柘

verses in the second group is, opened up, made clearing in forest, paved the area.

then, in third group:

帝省其山﹒柞棫斯拔﹒松柏斯兌

柞 has the meaning of "chop down trees"

帝作邦作對

邦 has the meaning of "planting tree as boundary", similar to 對. imo, "作邦作對" is rhetoric,  a "writing in pair". in modern chinese, we still have the saying: 作威作福, or, 作福作威

next, 業 is character since bronze script, which is a 象形字 (pictogram) of "rack for hanging bell, musical instruments". here're 2 samples of 業:

imo, 業 is, unlikely, derived from 對 or 丵.


Are simplified Chinese characters used for handwriting in places using traditional Chinese characters?

They can understand and will occasionally use simplified Chinese

  1、台湾老的文化人都认识简体字。过去，台湾像大陆一样流行简体字。只是在中华人民共和国政府宣布实行简化字方案后，台湾当局才不许公共场合出现简体字，以表示不承认共党政府。但是，老人手写字依然有用简体字。我曾在回答关于“煎体字”问体中附一张照片，是1958年蒋介石写给郝伯村的信，信中就有几十个与我们完全一样的简体字。
  2、书法爱好者认识简体字。简体字大量是行书、草书规范化。经常看古人书帖自然会认识简体字。
  3、经常与大陆往来的人会认识简体字。要说台湾与大陆往来密切，哪里也比不上厦门。厦门一切公共场合，包括与台湾的经济、学术交流，都是规范字，台商工厂中也如是。看多了自然就认识了。
  4、这几年，台湾从大陆购买上百万册简体版图书，说明有很多人认识；原来不认识的，看这些书自然也就认识了。

Taiwan people know Simplified Chinese but in opposition to the Communist Government     of Mainland China, they refused to allow Simplified Chinese to be officially used. (This is more for political reasons)
People who study classical Chinese literature will know simplified Chinese because Simplified Chinese evolved from XingShu and CaoShu styles.
People who frequently go between Taiwan and Mainland obviously will know Simplified Chinese.
Importation of Mainland Literature definitely helps others to learn simplified Chinese.


What's the difference between 谢谢 vs 感谢 vs 跪谢 vs 多谢?

谢谢: thanks, thank you.
感谢: thank you so much, or sometimes: thanks someone gratefully/appreciatively.
跪谢: internet slang, literally meaning: kneel down to someone and say thanks, like 跪求, same as 感谢.
多谢: thanks, thanks a lot, same as 谢谢.


List of all traditional Chinese characters

Download CJSYS-20110919.zip.
Find /CJSYS-20110919/cjsys/yong/mb/cj5-13053.txt
Copy the [DATA] section (from line 9 to 14136) into a spreadsheet.
Remove whatever you don't need.
Sort.
Remove duplicates.

source: 倉頡平台2012

By the way,

cj5-8300.txt has the simplified characters. (8300餘個簡體漢字)

cj5-20902.txt includes both of them. (國際標準碼20902個簡繁漢字)

cj5-70000.txt includes the rare-used characters. (國際標準碼75000個簡繁中日韓越漢字)

cj5-ftzk.txt is a table of the traditional phrases. (繁體詞庫)

cj5-jtzk.txt is a table of the simplified phrases. (簡體詞庫)


Kinda hard to be honest. I had to use the internet for some of them. Note that for L, 著 and 着 are separate in simplified Chinese and are combined into 著 in traditional （着 is considered a variant of 著）. In L, it’s pronounced yuán zhù 原著, but in 21, it’s pronounced bīng xíng xiǎn zhāo 兵行险着
Pardon my handwriting. I did this on my phone.


How do I get the enumeration comma (、) in Google input tools?


I believe you are talking about 食客/门客 in the ancient Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods. Sponger maybe more accurate than parasite.
But you have missunderstanding about them. They are not honoured guests, their relationship is more like master and indentured worker which means you provider me with what I want, and I will pay back for you when you need. Basicly level, you provider me with food, I will do basic work when you need as to do some basic work for you(though some masters don't need it and just provider free food for nothing). Second one, you provider me with good life and I just pay my life for you. Best one, you provider me with everything I want and I will do what I can to help you by intellectual or asassinate the rival when you are in great danger or oppotunities.

Some one translate to hanger-on, or retainer, but realy these words can't identify their property. 食客 has the meaning of pay back, they are not just only an attendant. There is no contract to limit them with masters.


How to translate "evaluate, estimate" [time for smt.]?

I want to estimate how long it will take me to prepare for examination

In this case, I will use 预估.
我想预估一下我要花多长时间来备考。 备考 is short for 准备考试.


I'm afraid different people may use these terms in slightly different ways. But the way I understand it,

standard form 標準體 is one of several ways of writing a character, chosen as standard in a particular place and time (there are different standards: standard mainland forms, standard Taiwanese forms, standard Hong Kong forms, standard Kangxi forms, etc.),
variant form 異體字 is a non-standard form of the character, that nevertheless is or was in use at some point,
archaic/ancient/old form 古字 is a form that was used in the past, but is not anymore,
simplified form 簡體字 (in the narrow sense) is a form that has undergone simplification in mainland China,
inherited form 傳承字 is a form that hasn't undergone simplification, but is regarded as standard in mainland China,
simplified form 簡體字 (in the wide sense) is a simplified form or an inherited form,
traditional form 繁體字 (in the narrow sense) is a form of a simplified character before the simplification,
traditional form 繁體字 (in the wide sense) is basically any form that has been used to write Chinese, other than the simplified form in the narrow sense,
orthodox form 正字 is a form that was regarded as standard in the past, especially in the influential Kangxi dictionary (another term which refers to something similar is 舊字形),
vulgar form 俗字, 俗體字 is a non-orthodox form of the character.
I don't think alternative form is a well-defined term with a very specific meaning. In Wiktionary it seems to refer to different ways of writing the same characters in different languages (e.g. in Chinese and in Japanese), or to variant forms, when used in the context of a specific language. There are some Wiktionary editors here on Chinese SE, perhaps they can clarify this.

But as I said, these terms may vary. For example, 正字 sometimes means the same thing as 標準繁體字 (standard traditional form), and there are also contexts where it means 楷書 (regular script, one of the calligraphic styles).

And in case you are interested in the development of 明 and other ways it was written (such as 朙 and 眀), going all the way back to the earliest forms, such as , Chen Zhiqun wrote a whole chapter about 明 (chapter 5).

For a list of 古字, you can search for "old variant of", "archaic variant of", "ancient variant of" and "classical variant of" in the MDBG dictionary. I'm not sure whether “old”, “archaic”, “ancient” and “classical” are understood in different ways in MDBG.

For something more academic, you may want to take a look at the Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants, which contains over 100,000 variants, mostly ancient. But note that the dictionary is Chinese-only and has a terrible user interface.


The comments have the right idea.「行李」originally referred to a kind of messenger sent to run an errand, extended to mean the act of delivering a message/running an errand, further extended to mean to travel, and then finally the items taken along a journey; luggage.

「李」was used as a phonetic loan for「理」since the Warring States period, and for whatever reason,「行李」became more popular than「行理」, which is now restricted to meaning messenger.


The literal meanings of the three words share much in common: to cause damage or harm. Usages can sometimes be distinguished by the intention and effect of the action.

损害: to damage, to undermine

损伤: to injure or harm

伤害: to hurt

The drum player says he feels hurt by his neighbours‘ complaint that his loud music harms people's hearing and damages the image of the peaceful neighbourhood.

鼓手说他感到伤害，因为邻居们投诉他大声的音乐损伤听觉，并且损害社区安宁的形象。


阖府统请 (Simplified Chinese)

闔府統請 (Traditional Chinese)


How are the terms for "male/female" and "man/woman" divided exactly?

It's hard for average Chinese to answer the etymology of the words, I think. Why isn't "son" 男儿? For me, I would say because "男儿" has another meaning in both classic and modern Chinese.

男儿 young man,  vital man.
男儿何不带吴钩，收取关山五十州. By the poet 李贺 in 唐 Dynasty
nán ér hé bù dài wú gōu ,shōu qŭ guān shān wŭ shí zhōu.
As a man, why not I take the sharp swords to retrieve the lost lands?

In classic Chinese,

子 infant, child
儿 teenager, son
女 daughter, female(gender)

In modern chinese(actually, in vernacular Chinese from 宋 dynasty), 子 and 儿 are common suffix words. I believe this is how 女儿 and 儿子 evovle.


How to end an email asking for permission from my boss in Chinese?

Consider 敬上

书信
古代用于书信结尾的敬语或谦词，表示对收信人的尊敬。现多见于日语。
用法：
......（正文）
xxx（写信人）
敬上

I've received many messages set-up this way. "Thank you for your time" or "Thank you for your consideration" are very English-isms, you're best just to go with the Chinese way to do things.


The closest I can think of is:

霸氣外露 (bà qì wài lù)

Or

霸气侧露 Bàqì cè lù

It is a proverb but nowadays commonly used as a slang


Mandarin equivalent of the English opening word 'since'?

Maybe you would like to know the word 既然 for since.
ABC English's entry for since says:

2 因为 yīnwèi; 既然 jìrán
Since you're so smart, you do it.
既然你这么聪明,你来做吧。
Jìrán nǐ zhème cōngming, nǐ lái zuò ba.

But, I think you've already grasped something more fundamentally important from the example sentence you wrote: you don't translate since into colloquial Chinese. You can just as simply put two sentences together and the context will be clear, while words like 既然 are seldom heard in spoken Chinese.


What's the Cantonese/Mandarin equivalent of "condone"?

Here are some words that are similar in meaning to condone (and indeed some dictionaries even translate them to condone):

• 容忍 or 容受 -> tolerate; put up with.

• 赦免 -> absolve, excuse, remit a punishment

The essence of condone is to accept with reluctance -- consequently, it's usually used in the negative in English (as in "We do not condone the violence") or with a negative connotation ("They took the silence to indicate that she condoned their behavior" is a sentence that implies the behavior is somehow "wrong"). With this in mind, I feel 容忍 (in Mandarin at least) works well.


I'm not sure if translation questions should be on-topic or not, but I think a literal "Rocket minesweeper" or "missile minsweeper" would be appropriate. Military vehicles don't usually have elegant names.

I found one example of the term "rocket minesweeper" specifically referring to a Chinese military vehicle.


Is 解决 a common euphemism for going to the bathroom?

The real meaning of the word is solving an issue/problem/conflict. The first context is going to the bathroom, second one sounds more like a solving a conflict, the word 解决 is not that common to use for going to bathroom, the word '方便' probably more common.


It's just conventional. Even common Chinese don't know why.

You do can say 16, for example,  一十六 or 十六.  When we emphasizing something, we say 一十六. While in common usage, we say 十六, because it's tired to add a prefix 一. It's redundant.


The sentence still makes sense, even if you remove 就.

  你怎么睡在这里了呀？

Therefore, 就 is an adverb here, and emphasizes the verb, "sleep".

A few more examples are from 现代汉语词典:

  表示加强肯定

    我就知道他会来的，今天他果然来了
    我就不信我学不会
    那就是他的家
    幼儿园就在这个胡同里。

  现代汉语词典, page 697


Of course, if you want to you can say '我想要一份面’ or even '请给我带来一份 ...‘
In 'I would like' 'would' is the imperfect subjunctive of 'will'. ‘I would like' is incomplete, because a subjunctive needs a condition 'if ...'. Out of a strange, twisted form of over-politeness, it became popular in English to say 'I would like' short for 'I would like, if it is not too much trouble, ....' or some other condition after 'if ...'.

Now, you are in a restaurant. The restaurant sells food to make money. It is definitely not too much trouble to bring you what you want to eat. That is their job and how they make their living.

Forget 'I would like', that is not Chinese. Try 'for me the ...' or  'I'm ordering ...'

Precede what you say with '请‘ and you are super polite.

Try ‘给我来一份面’ 或者 ‘我点一份拉面’ neither would be considered impolite.


Reference: （彝语）杀只鸡，你死了我开心

"Slaughter a chicken as an offering to thanks gods" is a common expression in Chinese, meaning: "something to celebrate for; something to thanks gods for"

In Cantonese, it is 要劏雞還神

Example: 如果你死咗，我就要劏雞還神 ( if you died，I will have to celebrate / thanks the gods )

The wording differs from dialect to dialect. For example,  要劏雞還神 in Mandarin would be 要殺雞酬神 and in other dialects, including Yi,  屠 or 宰 may replace 劏 or 殺; other animal may replace chicken, but the basic premise would not be too far apart in writing.


How do you say "I will have (something) in Mandarin?

Yes, you can use 我將有.

For example,
我將有一週的假期。
I will have a week of vacation.
I will have a one-week holiday.


臵 （U+81F5） [ gé ｜ ㄍㄜˊ ]

From 《康熙字典》:

《集韻》「各額」切，音「格」。與「」同。「至」也。
Same as . It means "to arrive" or "to go to".

又《六書原》徦，俗作臵。
The original or formal form of 徦.

徦 （U+5FA6） [ jiǎ | ㄐㄧㄚˇ ]
1. 至；到。(to arrive; to go to)
2. 來。(to come)
3. 姓。(surname)


It seems that that at some time dweg (or died while eating gumbo) has been used in English by some people. Although I can't find many references to it. The definition for dweg can be found on this website: http://www.abbrt.com/dweg

For some reason this ended up in the Comprehensive English-Chinese Dictionary which is one of the sources of Nciku. Nciku also has the definition for dweg and 吃秋葵时过世 is their tranlation of died while eating gumbo.

It is definitely not a Chinese expression and not something that is worthwhile learning.


兼语 is a structure where VO & SV combine to form V(O/S)V.

e.g.

让他（VO）+他吃饭（SV）=让他吃饭（兼语句式）

兼语 is inherited from Classical Chinese, ans is still common today.

e.g.

权即遣肃行。（《资治通鉴》）

Often we can omit (O/S) if the context permits:

权即遣行。

计未定，求人可使报秦者。（《史记•廉颇蔺相如列传》）

EDIT:

It's clear that 动宾短语 is Verb-Object Phrase~

（孙）权即遣（鲁）肃行

孙权 immediately send 鲁肃 to go (to build up alliance).


How do I overcome my inability to think in Chinese? I instead translate what I read into English

Everyone learn differently, everyone progress in different speed.
I would say this question will not has a definite answer.

In my opinion, it is not a bad thing that you automatically translate foreign language into your native language in your mind at the beginning of your study. Eventually, you will get familiar with that second language enough and able to think in that second language. It will take years and you need to listen, speak and write that second language day in and day out to get better.

I learned English by watching a lot of T.V, read news paper everyday and talk to a lot of people.  Nowadays I often encounter some English words that I understand their meanings but can't translate it into Chinese. At this point, I think my English is quite o.k.


How to pronounce 你是什么意思 in spoken Chinese?

Except for established elisions – e.g. 之於 (zhī yú) -> 諸 (zhū), 不用 (bú yòng) -> 甭 (béng), 這一 (zhè yī) -> 這 (zhèi), even if you write out what you hear in pinyin (assuming you followed all the orthographic rules, of course), it is meaningless, because normally you cannot correlate multiple syllables with one character, or multiple characters with one syllable. Pinyin is a system of romanisation, not of phonetic notation.

Using IPA to truthfully record your observation is however acceptable, because it is a rigorous system of phonetic notation. (See how IPA was used in elision studies of Taiwanese Mandarin here) So you may argue a native could understand [ni˨˩ s/ʂɯ˧˥ mi˥˧ sɯ꜊] or even [ni˨˩ s/ʂmi˥˧ sɯ꜊] as 你什麼意思？ or 你是什麼意思？, but this 1) requires more linguistic proof, 2) is not a 'good' pronunciation (from a prescriptivist point of view), and 3) does not have an equivalent in pinyin.

However, I can support the /n/ to [m] assimilation in 什麼 shén me (see here), which may have a role in the elision of your sentence. The dropping of one of the consonants in 是什 out of similarity is also likely. Finally, 意 begins with a semivowel, which may also facilitate its merging with the previous consonant [m] in 麼.


V+了+object requires the object to have specified quantity

No, it is wrong.

The following sentences are all legitimate:

我买了苹果 = I bought apple (not mentioning how many)

我买了两个苹果 = I bought two apples (stating the quantity)

我买了酒 = I bought alcoholic drink (not mentioning how much, not even what kind)

我买了三瓶白酒 = (I bought three bottles of white wine)

  http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/460/

  [1] [aspect marker] indicating completed action

  [2] [final particle] indicating change of situation

  In all the examples above, 了 is a aspect marker that indicates the action (verb) is completed

~

我买了苹果了 = I bought apple

我买了两个苹果了 = I bought two apples

我买了酒了 = I bought alcoholic drink (not mentioning how much, not even what kind)

我买了三瓶白酒了 = I bought three bottles of white wine

  In all four examples above, the second 了 at the end is a final particle. It serves to emphasize the fact and stress an affirmative tone.

  Your teacher said it is colloquial because we do use final particles mainly in speech, but it doesn't mean we don't use it in writing.

~

我去买苹果(了) = I go to buy apple

我去买酒(了)  = I go to buy wine

*You can add final particle 了 to the two examples above (了 stress an affirmative tone - seriously, I am going to buy apple/ wine)*

~

我买两个苹果 = I buy two apples

我买三瓶白酒 = I buy three bottles of wine

You shouldn't add final particle 了 to the two examples above because they are plain factual statements


Can 吧 be used right after every other verb to indicate that one can go ahead and do that?

看吧 is more complex than your expression.
看吧 is often used on the context of showing "After all, What I did/told/spoke/said is right."
e.g.
看吧~~~往東邊才是對的。 (lengthen the sound of 吧)
看吧！就跟你說車子壞了。


脚 is 'foot', 腿 is 'leg', but in some dialects of Chinese 脚 is used for both foot and leg (I know this is the case in some Sichuan dialects).


Translation for "things you don't agree on"

Here's some off the top of my head...

In the first year...

你们有时候会有不相同的看法 (Nǐmen yǒu shíhou huì yǒu bù xiāngtóng de kànfǎ)

你们有时候会彼此不同意 (Nǐmen yǒu shíhou huì bǐcǐ bù tóngyì)

有的事你们不会有相同意见 (Yǒu de shì nǐmen bù huì yǒu xiāngtóng yìjiàn)

会有一些事情，你们会不同意 (Huì yǒu yīxiē shìqíng, nǐ huì bù tóngyì)

有的时候有些事情是你们不赞同的 （Yǒu de shíhou yǒuxiē shìqíng shì nǐmen bù zàntóng de）


If there is an object, it should be inserted between 起来
我也学习英语起来 --> 我也学习起英语来

[(v) + (起来)] = [(start) + (v)]

e.g. "他忽然笑(起来)" -- "he suddenly start laughing"

~

[v + (起) + object + (来)] = [(start) + v + object]

e.g. "他学起英语来" -- "He started to learn English"

~

[(v) + (起来) + statement] = [(upon/ when) + (v) + statement]

e.g. "他笑起来很恐怖" - "He is scary when he laughs"


That's an interesting question. The answer basically boils down to differences in grammatical role of these words:

所有 “all (of the)”, refers to all entities pertaining to a certain context. Given the meaning of 所 and 有 alone you can effectively think of it as meaning "all (things) that are here". It is mainly used with 的 before a noun or in a relative sentence and it often comes with a 都 "all".

  我们家被偷了，所有的在保险柜里的钱也被偷了 Our house was robbed, all (of the) money that was in the safe was stolen too.
  我所有认识的人都念过大学 All the people (that) I know went to university.

In general 全部 means "everything, all" and refers to one single entity in its entirety. So for instance it can't be used to refer to a group of things, unless you use a collective noun.

  他说什么，我没听到全部 I didn't hear everything he said
  这本小说，我还没全部看完 I haven't finished this book yet (haven't read it in its entirety)
  这群人我并不认识全部 I don't know everyone in this group of people

整个 "whole“ is used in place of a number (actually 一 "one" can be omitted) and before a classifier to mean "one whole thing" (obviously you can change the number to say N whole things):

  她吃掉了一整桶冰淇淋 She ate a whole bucket of ice cream.
  一整天不够讲完这个故事 A whole day isn't enough to tell this story

完整 "complete". You often use it as an adjective in noun phrases with 的, as:

  一个完整的句子 a complete sentence
  一个完整的解决方案 a complete solution


What are some examples of stative -le and iterative aspect in Mandarin?

I recommend you look for the book Charles N. Li, Sandra A. Thompson. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. I found it to be currently one of the best references in English that explain in depth Chinese grammar and that also has a lot of examples. It uses only pinyin, which from your question I think could be an advantage for you. There, they separate 了 in two types:

Perfective 了 (this is your bounded state + 了 and I think also the example you gave for Semelfactive + -le + adverbial). This is the chapter 6.1 of the book. I gave a summary of the different types and examples in this answer.

Sentence-final particle 了 or Current Relevant State (CRS) 了 (this refer to the example you gave for Unbounded state + -le). This is chapter 7.1 of the book. I have also written a summary here.


各 is more like "each". It is more frequently used when the intention is to describe some sort of individuality of some group. It is more common to see this character in describing the difference in each item in a group. Example: 各种不同的花 (many different kinds of flower).

每 is more like "every". It is used more when the intention is to describe a group's collective property that all members share, and consequently seen more often when describing the sameness of items in a group. Example: 每种花都一样 (all the flowers are of the same kind).

The confusion is that they are both used when describing some property of the individual in a group, but with different intentions. You can see them as two kinds of "every" with different connotations.


What is the difference of the meaning of 挂牌 in 挂牌督办 and 挂牌上市?

There won't be a real sign hanged.

挂牌 originally means setting up a sign as you know. When use it in 挂牌督办, since only authority department can 督办, 挂牌 means the department show the case to public to urge other lower department which is in charge of the case.

The case under 挂牌督办 always has a deadline, so the lower department have to get it done in time, otherwise somebody would get things real bad.

As 挂牌上市, that is a totally different commercial definition, it means a company list their shares in stock market.


Is there an etymological connection between 只得 (zhǐdé) = "be obliged to" and 得 (děi) = "to have to"?

The pronounciation of "得 (děi)" is not a formal usuage, which is from a dialect.

"只得 (zhǐdé)" has two kinds of meanings in this pronouciation.
1, Meaning "only have": "我只得这么一个弟弟” - “I only have this one little brother”;
2, Meaning similar as "不得不” (have to), usually connect with a Verb, and indicating there is limitaiton from objective circumstance. While "只得 (zhǐdé)" usually follow by actions out of personal choice / decision,  "不得不” usually follow by actions with no choice.
e.g. "由于下雨，我只得取消徒步计划” - “I have to cancel my hiking plan since it is raining” (I can still go out for hiking but I decided not to)


What's the difference between 应急出口 (yìngjí chūkǒu) and 安全出口 (ānquán chūkǒu) which both mean "emergency exit"?

They are just two different ways to tell you where you can go safely in emergency case.
As you said,

应急 = emergency
(actually emergency is 紧急; 应急 is "for emergency", which is short for 因应紧急)
安全 = safety

And they really are

应急出口
(safety) exit for emergency
安全出口
safety exit (for emergency)


What's the difference between 一份工作 and 一家工作?

The correct measure word for 工作 is 份, so 一份工作 is correct.

一家工作 you linked in is shorthand for 一家公司工作. In spoken, you might hear one say 我在这一家工作了很久 == 我在这一家公司/单位工作了很久.


How is "biang" as in "biáng biáng miàn" pronounced in other dialects?

I don't think this is the answer you want but it's the answer you're getting, at least from me.
明末洪帮图符研究 on the Wikipedia page for Biángbiáng面 notes:

流传于四川盆地的两个妇孺皆知的复杂汉字“”和“”，其内部结构与“缺字图片”字十分类似。类似结构的汉字流传于10多个省市，300多年来均有出现，却仅限民间相传，从无传统典籍收录。
重庆一带的“”字和四川一带的“”字，均念为“ zuí ”，即当地方言中的“贼”，意指强盗。为了方便记忆，它们同样也有歌谣对应[注 8][注 9][注 10]，在当地乡村中人人均能背诵。[14][13]

According to:

余云华. 怪字“”、“”、“”考. 民俗研究. 2002, (02).

and

王纯五. 洪门·青帮·袍哥——中国旧时民间黑社会习俗. 四川: 四川人民出版社. 1993: 71. ISBN 7-220-02058-9.

The biáng character is used for the pronunciation zuí in Sichuanese and Chongqingese.
The characters, though, have slight variations:
Here's the Chongqing variation

重庆一带zuí字

and the Sichuanese variation:

四川一带zuí字[13]

According to the materials they mean the same as 贼 or thief.
Sichuanese/Chongqingese words like:

贼呵呵
贼脚摸手
贼脚摸爪
贼眉贼眼
贼娃子
贼货

Could, in theory, be written with biáng instead of 贼.

Funnily enough, though,《广安方言与民俗词典》from Sichuan has also recorded an entry for:

biáng

which they have defined as:

普通话中无“b-i-ang”发音，属于群众自创方音。象声词，本义指用力扯面中面条击打案板之声。生活中常作为口语化的象声词，如巴掌打在脸上的声音、面积较大的东西摔在地上的声音等。为了方便记忆，民间还有此字歌谣：“一点一横长，二字下来口字方，两边丝绕绕，中间马大王，你也长，我也长，心字底，月字旁，打把金钩挂衣裳。”

The rhyme matches the footnote on Wikipedia for:

重庆一带“”字歌谣为：“一点一横长，二字下来口字方；两边丝绕绕，拉根板凳来坐倒；你也长，我也长，中间夹个马儿郎；心字来打底，月字来包墙，打个金钩银钩挂衣裳。”

perfectly.

So, in Sichuan/Chongqing, is it zuí or biáng?
I guess it depends on the context.

Lastly, according to 辞书收录 on the Wikipedia page for Biángbiáng面:

《都市方言辞典（陕西卷）》[16]收录此词条，并详细介绍了相关饮食文化：
 biáng[piaŋ24]     ①“儿面”的biáng。
②指人死掉，含庆幸语气：狗日的这回才～了。
面 biángbiangmiàn[piaŋ24piaŋ24-31miã55] 详见下边词条
儿面 biángbiangrmiàn[piaŋ24.piẽr miã55] 陕西最爱吃的面食之一……

It would go to show that the majority of dialects would follow the rising tone of [piaŋ24] because after all it is a 陕西 thing.


What were the tools that Chinese teachers could use in China before the introduction of Zhuyin and Pinyn

If you can read traditional Chinese characters, I recommend the book "釧影樓回憶錄" by 包天笑 (PDF file).
It is in written vernacular Chinese, an easy read, with numerous "gems". The author talks about his own experience of learning, and attending examinations at about 1883. related chapter: p43~p54, p72~p78, p83~p114.
Briefly, when children had a teacher, or went to a private school (私塾), they were given a book (without punctuations); the teacher would pronounce a verse, students recited what the teacher said; again and again, until they can recall from memory.
While reciting the teacher's words, the students look at the characters, so they could gradually connect each character wiht its pronunciation.
Also, at the same time, students marked the pause and stop (句讀) with dots & circles.
Such activities were repeated daily, weekly, and monthly.
They started from the trimetrical classic (三字經), thousand character writing (千字文) or other "books for children learning" (童蒙讀物). afterwards, the "proper" reading materials are four books and five classic (四書五經).
Back to your question: in the past, no one cared about unifying the pronunciation; each learned in his/her dialect.
About the tools needed: just books, brush pens and black ink, red ink. Possibly a  "夏楚" (a stick?) as a punishment instrument.


There is an article on 属地原则 at 互动百科. It seems to be some variation of the territoriality principle, but that's public international law, and I've found several places where it's used to talk about regional versus national authority. Hard to say how to translate if Chinese has adapted a word to its own purposes.
(Dang! Second paragraph got chopped off, added below; also a comment on the correct translation given in the comments above)
If you add a 化 -ize, 属地化 would apparently mean something like 'territorialize', definitely no colonial implications though. The 属地化管理 article at 百度 gives a bunch of odd definitions, including the transfer of geological surveys from the State Council to the provincial level, or the transfer of "family management" responsibilities to local authorities for the "mobile population".  None of this fits in very well with the examples given, which all involve overseas business.  Would "territorially based management" work?
Localized management
As  user3306356 notes above, "localized management" is the correct translation. Quite interesting; "Localized management" on google leads to articles on control  of white-tailed deer, sinus and prostate problems, and apparently some kind of server-network controls. "Localization management" is mixed up with these, but that's all about translating stuff for international businesses.
When "localized management" in a business context does turn up, most of the references are to Chinese sources.  This looks like a case where Chinese has managed to establish a new usage in English. Can anyone find "localized management" in business that is not from China based sources?


Appropriate responses to unexpected gift?

Since you are using the reference "dong gua tong" (冬瓜湯, white gourd soup), I assume the restaurant owner is a Cantonese speaker.

The following are some commonly used responses to express your gratefulness from receiving a gift in Cantonese/Mandarin. The last two are not quite suitable in your case. They are generally used when you receive something which is bought by others as presents.

乜咁客氣呀! / 你太客氣了!

That's very generous of you!

多謝晒! / 謝謝你!

Thank you!

乜咁破費呀, 多謝晒! / 要你破費真不好意思, 謝謝啦!

Thanks so much for spending money on buying this gift for me!

多謝晒! 我好中意呢份禮物呀! / 謝謝! 我好喜歡這份禮物!

Thanks! I really like this gift so much!

Note

In general, the difference between "唔該" and "多謝" in Cantonese can be summarized as follows:

唔該

Used to express your thankfulness towards someone who did something to help you out.

多謝

Used to express your thankfulness towards someone who offered you something without requesting anything in return.

The aforementioned difference in Mandarin is not as obvious as it does in Cantonese. You may use "謝謝" in both situations. The phrase "勞煩你了" or "麻煩你了" in Mandarin is similar to "唔該" in Cantonese. "勞煩你了"/"麻煩你了" can be literally translated as "Have you troubled/bothered".


Why is 西藏 Tibet but not Xizang in English as are other names of place in China?

The name 西藏 / Xīzàng is fairly recent.

Both Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica agree that the name "Tibet" is derived from a different language than Chinese, probably Persian "Tubbat", but that may not be the original source of the name (Wikipedia). Britannica says:

  The name Tibet is derived from the Mongolian Thubet, the Chinese
  Tufan, the Tai Thibet, and the Arabic Tubbat.

Dr. Elliot Sperling wrote that " in discussing Tibet as an integral historical unit the name is clearly of limited utility and can create confusion" and that the Chinese edition of the book Authenticating Tibet therefore uses a different name, namely "Tubote" (a name closer to the non-Chinese origin of the name "Tibet"):

  Indeed, it is due to the specific limitations of that term that it was
  decided that the Chinese edition of Authenticating Tibet would employ
  the term “Tubote” 圖伯特, a name that is used now by a growing number of
  writers and bloggers on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. As a result,
  I prepared the following introductory essay for the Chinese-language
  edition of Authenticating Tibet in order to explain the choice while
  at the same time pointing out that the term “Tubote”is not a recent
  concoction: it has a history as a recognized Chinese-language
  designation for Tibet.

His essay Tubote, Tibet, and the Power of Naming also discusses the etymology of 西藏 / Xīzàng.

The origin of the name "Peking" instead of Beijing is a different story. European commercial travellers to China often came to the country through ports in south-east China, where dialects other than Mandarin are spoken. For this reason, some people think that the name "Peking" derives from one of those dialects, most likely Cantonese, where the pronunciation may have sounded like [pakkiŋ]. An alternative theory is that the European name was borrowed from Mandarin before the shift in pronunciation from [k] to [ʧ]. See Bill Poser's article BEIJING, PEKING, PEIPING AND ALL THAT on Language Log.


I think there's a mistake in the lyrics, IMO it should be 掉[得]那么地刺耳 since 刺耳 is an adverb for the verb 掉 here. So the lyrics basically says (tears) are dropping so harshly.

BTW there are tons of grammar errors in Chinese pop lyrics.


For apps like Duolingo, the correct answer is the best translation, not necessary any correct equivalent translation.  In this case, the authors of the app have decided that Beijing is a big place is most closely translated to 北京是个大地方.  It's not bad, Beijing [北京] is [是] a [个] big [大] place [地方], but such clean and direct translations are uncommon.

The long structure is:

  [noun] 是一个 [adjective] 的 [noun]

Where we have:

  北京是一个大的地方
  Běijīng shì yīgè dà de dìfāng

In this structure, we can replace the nouns and adjectives at will:

  她是一个美丽的女人
  那是一辆旧的汽车

(Note we need to change the measure word accordingly.)

However, 北京是一个大的地方 (while grammatical) is rather long.  Thus we...

Drop the 一个 (see Connecting nouns with "shi").  We can also replace 一个 with just 个 (see Measure word "ge"; Omitting the Number).

So we can say either of:

  [noun] 是 [adjective] 的 [noun]
  [noun] 是个 [adjective] 的 [noun]

  北京是大的地方
  北京是个大的地方

In the case of 大的地方 we can drop the 的 (which we cannot do in general).  In general, precisely when we can and cannot drop the 的 is tricky.  As I understand, it is okay to drop the 的 in 大的[noun] (for one and two-hanzi nouns) and in most cases of single-hanzi adjectives (as in this case: 大).  （There's likely exceptions to this.)  Thus all of these are okay too:

  北京是大地方
  北京是个大地方
  北京是一个大地方

As dan notes in the comments, in the case of 大地方 it's natural to think of this as a noun in its own right.  In this case we're using the [noun] 是一个 [noun] construct with 大地方 as the second noun.  This is not generally true; something like 大机场 (big airport) would probably be interpreted simply as a short form of 大的机场.

(Side note: The most common case of dropping the 的 is to express closeness, e.g., 我妹妹, see Expressing close possession without "de", but it's not the only possibility.)

In total, that's six different grammatical ways of saying the same thing.  So the app has chosen the one they consider most faithful to the English.

In response to What's the difference between adding and omitting a 个?  If you include a solitary 个, it implies there's only one (of whatever your talking about).  This is also mentioned in Measure word "ge"; Omitting the Number.  However, there's obviously only one Beijing (so the distinction doesn't arise here).  A case where it's relevant is 我们是好朋友 ("we are good friends"): you can't add a solitary 个 here because there's two people (not one), but you can say 我们是两个好朋友.

Finally, I feel it's more precise to say 城市 (chéng shì) = "city" instead of 地方 = "place".  I also feel that 大 is an inadequate adjective to describe the "bigness" of Beijing.  Thus I would say:

  北京是个非常大的城市
  Běijīng shìgè fēicháng dà de chéngshì


Is it correct to say 人在中国喜欢乒乓球比踢足球, 但是人在美国喜欢踢足球比乒乓球?

I understand what you mean, but this might be a better way of saying it:

中国人喜欢打乒乓球，而美国人更喜欢踢足球。

Or, if you really meant people living in China/USA (and not Chinese people), then you can say:

在中国，人们喜欢打乒乓球。而在美国，人们更喜欢踢足球。


Media Source for "Natural" Sounding Mandarin Chinese

the radio television hong kong has channel in mandarin; in their website, they've archive of past programme, or podcasts.

http://programme.rthk.hk/channel/radio/index.php?c=pth&m=archive

the site design is a little bit "non-standard", just click any links, until you see "收聽 listen" with a headphone icon.

have fun :)


Why is it incorrect to say (Someone) 想要了一 (Something)?

I think the problem is the usage of the character "了".

When "想要" and "了" are used together, the object is usually placed between them.  e.g. "我剛才不渴, 但現在想要一杯茶了."  The object may be omitted too, e.g. "親愛的, 我想要了."  (....the wife whispering to her husband....)

You may also have noted the difference between "想要" and "想要....了".  When "想要" is used alone, it refers to the intention/though/request itself.  When "想要....了" is used, it usually signifies a recent change or a decision just made.

As for "想" vs "要" vs "想要", cingS has given a clear answer already.


There are many resources which "decompose characters", but most of them do not give any insight as to how Chinese characters actually work in relation to the language, and looking at these resources is very counterproductive. The answer accepted here on the character decomposition of 「你」 is from one of the few resources which do give a correct idea of how characters work.
Someone can tell you "what 「尔」 really means" through its decomposition (in this case, decomposition produces only one component, as 「尔」 isn't made up from anything apart from itself),

 商甲前7.36.1合集3298西周金史墻盤集成10175戰國・晉金中山王鼎集成2840篆八部說文解字隸定　今楷

 「尔」 is a structural abbreviation of 「爾」.

 「爾」 depicts a spiked weapon (similar to what is now written as 刺) adorned with decorative feathers. Some variants of the character left out the adornments, leading to the character 「尔」.
 The meaning you for the character 「尔」 is a phonetic loan (rebus borrowing).

but, before there is an understanding of how Chinese characters work in relation to the language, any kind of character decomposition is not going to help at all, so it pays to understand the relationship between characters and the Chinese language first, before indulging in any kind of character decomposition.

What does a Chinese character represent?
Chinese characters represent morphosyllables: that is, they represent

morphemes, the smallest meaningful units in any language, but whose sound is consistently organised as

syllables.

In colloquial terms, this means a Chinese character simultaneously represents meaning and sound, and the sound is (almost) always one syllable.
It pays to thoroughly understand what a morpheme is, so I'll paste Wikipedia's English examples of morphemes below:

Every morpheme can be classified as either free or bound. Since the categories are mutually exclusive, a given morpheme will belong to exactly one of them.

Free morphemes can function independently as words (e.g. town, dog) and can appear within lexemes (e.g. town hall, doghouse).
Bound morphemes appear only as parts of words, always in conjunction with a root and sometimes with other bound morphemes. For example, un- appears only accompanied by other morphemes to form a word. Most bound morphemes in English are affixes, particularly prefixes and suffixes. Examples of suffixes are -tion, -sion, -tive, -ation, -ible, and -ing.

Please note that morphemes are not, in general words; free morphemes can function as words, while bound morphemes cannot. English is a word-based orthography; the writing is divided by spaces into words. Chinese is a morpheme-based orthography; the writing is composed from characters, with each character representing a morpheme.

How do Chinese characters work?
Each Chinese character is composed of one or more components. Since we know that each Chinese character represents a morphosyllable, that is, a morpheme having simultaneously meaning and a one-syllable sound, then the only things that these one or more components do is throw hints at what the morphosyllable represented by the character is.
How do character components hint at a morphosyllable? For each of the one or more components, they can hint at the morphosyllable in one of several ways. The three major ones are:

The component can hint at the meaning of the morphosyllable
The component can hint at the sound of the morphosyllable
The component can simultaneously hint at the meaning and sound of the morphosyllable.

Components which employ the above morphosyllable hint methods are characters in their own right. However, it is generally not a good idea to further decompose character components into their own constituents; that is, perform recursive decomposition, because these further decomposed components either only peripherally hint at the morphosyllable, or do not hint at the moprhosyllable at all.
Correct and not-so-correct ways of decomposing characters can be shown through an example:

 Worked example: Character decomposition of 「鴻」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*[ɡ]ˤoŋ/, Mandarin: hóng, a type of swan)
 「鴻」 is comprised of the following morphosyllable hints:

   Morphosyllable hint type 2 - Sound hint: 「江」 (/*kˤroŋ/, Mandarin: jiāng)

    The meaning of 「江」, river, is not relevant to morphosyllable represented by 「鴻」.

   Morphosyllable hint type 1 - Meaning hint: 「鳥」 (bird)

    The sound of 「鳥」, /*tˤiwʔ/, Mandarin: niǎo, is not relevant to the morphosyllable represented by 「鴻」.

 Even though the character 「鴻」 is written in the following stroke sequence,

 presenting the "decomposition" of 「鴻」 as the character's strokes, ㇔㇔㇀㇐㇑㇀㇒㇑㇕㇐㇐㇐㇆㇒㇔㇔㇔, does not tell you anything about the morphosyllable represented by 「鴻」, and asking whether any of these strokes have meaning is not productive.

 Strokes, and the other commonly misunderstood radicals, do not have anything to do with the Chinese language. Chinese characters are not made up of strokes or radicals; they are made up of morphosyllable hints and (almost) nothing else.

In this context, 「尔」 is a character with one component, and good references will not break it down any further. Incorrect decompositions, like the one you've posted in the question*, will suggest very random things that have nothing to do with the meaning or sound of 「尔」, leading people down a time-wasting and misleading journey, and giving a very incorrect idea of what 「尔」 is and how characters work in general. Hopefully, by this stage it is better understood why the following questions and statements are not correct questions to ask and statements to make:
*This particular decomposition comes from the ancient dictionary Shuowen Jiezi.

What does 亅 mean?

「亅」 is a stroke in 「尔」, not a character component of 「尔」 (which only has one component). The meaning of 「亅」, if it has one, is not relevant to 「尔」.

What's the meaning of the hat like character on top of 尔

「尔」 only has one component, which is itself. It does not contain a hat-like character on top.

The er consist of character dao and xiao.

「尔」 only has one component, which is itself. It is not comprised of 「刀」 and 「小」.

The character xiao consist of number 8 pa with vertical hook.

This decomposition is not correct. 「小」 only has one component (which is itself); it is not comprised of 「八」 and 「亅」. Also, since 「尔」 only has one component (which is itself), it does not contain 「小」; 「小」 has nothing to do with 「尔」.

If the concepts above are understood, then one might start to guess at what a proper description of 「尔」 should or shouldn't look like,

 「尔」 contains one component, which is a morphosyllable hint of type 2: Sound hint (see the top of this answer for the glyph origins and explanation)

, and what role it plays in the character 「你」.

 「你」 is cognate to 「尔」, and they once represented the same word long ago.
 「你」 (Zhengzhang OC: /*nɯʔ/, Mandarin: nǐ, you [second person pronoun]) is comprised of

  Morphosyllable hint type 1 - Meaning hint: 「亻」 (person);
  Morphosyllable hint type 3 - Simultaneous sound and meaning hint: 「尔」 (/*njelʔ/, Mandarin: ěr, you).


It is traditional Chinese

絹本麒麟送子中堂
絹本六子戲彿中堂

絹本 means "silk cloth".  It describes the material of the scroll
《麒麟送子》 (Qilin Delivers Baby) is the title of scroll 1
《六子戲彿》 (Six Children Playing With Buddha) is the title of scroll 2
中堂 is a hanging shaft hung on the central wall of a room. It describes the function of the scroll


How can "binary cross-entropy" be expressed in Mandarin Chinese?

I cannot find the Keras page you linked now. But I can still find the Keras document through search.

Binary cross entropy in the document is just a special case when the output can take only one of two classes. Make the context clear, there is no need to distinguish them in normal text. The mathematical formula of cross entropy just can deal with any number of classes (2 and above). So whether it is "binary" is implied in the problem you want to solve. There is no need to make it explicit.

So why the Keras documents explicitly distinguish them? This is because when the output can take only two classes, the input can take a different format than when there are multiple classes, and may save some space. So they have "binary_crossentropy" and "categorical_crossentropy", which deals with different input. Note that even you have only two classes, you can still use "categorical_crossentropy" by manipulating your input format to fit the requirements of "categorical_crossentropy".

As the translation, you may use "二类的交叉熵" and "多类的交叉熵". But these are only words that I coined up. There is no specific term for this, as this is only a software thing.


How do I use a chengyu (idiom) to describe a "one extreme to the other" kind of transformation?

Depend on what the emphasis is, there are quite a few idioms you can use in this context.

Some suggestion:

判若兩人 (like a different person)

前後判若兩人 (like a different person from before)

大起大落 (up and down to the extreme/ high and low to the extreme)

峰迴路轉 (surprising, unexpected)

前後反覆 (change completely from before/ turn 180 degree)

一百八十度轉變 (turn 180 degree)

If you are looking for an idiom 前後判若兩人 fit in this context the best, but 一百八十度轉變 itself is a common phrase


I'm not sure where you could get an accurate count for how many there are. Considering that loanwords have been coming into Chinese for thousands of years, it definitely won't be a trivial task.

There is certainly quite a few, however, not all of which is current/widespread/universal. I'll list some here, and edit more in if I think of any later:

Angel: 安琪兒 = 天使
Bacon: 培根 = 煙肉
Blog: 博客 / 部落格 = 網誌
Boycott: 杯葛 = 抵制
Bus: 巴士 = 公共汽車
Bye-Bye: 掰掰 = 再見
Camera: 開麥拉 / 卡麥拉 = 照相機
Cheese: 芝士 / 起司 / 起士 = 奶酪 / 乳酪
Cream: 克林姆 = 奶油
Copy: 拷貝 = 複製
Daddy: 爹地 = 爸爸
E-mail: 伊媚兒 / 依妹兒 = 電子郵件
Engine: 引擎 = 發動機 / 動力機 / 機
Fillet: 菲力 = 柳
Gas: 瓦斯 = 天然氣
(House) Party: 轟趴 = 聚會
Index: 引得 = 索引 / 檢目 / 總檢
Laser: 雷射 = 激光
Logic: 邏輯 = 理則
Mommy: 媽咪 = 媽媽
Motel: 摩鐵 = 汽車旅館
Mini: 迷你 = 小
Party: 派對 = 舞會 / 聚會 / 聯歡會
Polish: 泡立水 = 蟲膠清漆 / 酒精清漆
Rifle: 來福槍 = 步槍
Romantic: 羅曼蒂克 = 浪漫
Sardine: 沙丁魚 = 鰛 / 鰯
Sauce: 沙司 = 醬
Sauna: 桑拿 = 蒸氣浴
Scooter: 速可達 = 輕機車
Shampoo: 香波 = 洗髮精
Shopping: 血拼 = 逛街購物
Show: 秀 = 節目
Tank: 坦克 = 戰車
Taxi:  的士 = 計程車 / 出租車
Tobacco: 淡巴菰 = 菸草
Typhoon: 颱風 = 颶風
Quduq: 胡同 / 衚衕 = 小巷
おばさん: 歐巴桑 = 老太婆
おじさん: 歐吉桑 = 老頭子
パチンコ: 柏青哥 / 扒金宫 = 彈珠機
たたみ: 塌塌米 = 疊蓆


All the 5 tones in Mandarin exist in English already, but not used in the same way.

1st tone:  I am a STUUUUU-dent.

When you read this sentence in the normal way, the syllable STUUUUU carries the first tone.

2nd tone:  Are you a stu-DENT?

When we ask a yes-no question in English, we need to raise the last syllable of the sentence. The syllable of DENT? carries the 2nd tone.

3rd tone:

Your friend tells you an unusual story, and you are surprised, and you ask in surprise: REA-ly? in the way that the syllable of REA goes down, and the syllable of ly goes up. In this case, the syllable of REA carries the 3rd tone, and ly carries the 2nd tone.

4th tone: pay lay day lie pie tie buy my high (Those words, when read alone, carry the 4th tone.)

Another example: you accidently hit yourself on a corner of a table, it really hurts, right? So what do you say? You say: Ouch!, which carries the 4th tone.

5th tone (the neutral tone): Go A-head.

The schwa A carries the 5th tone.

See this video for the tones: Mandarin Made Easy

From my Mandarin teaching experience, I think mastering the 4 tones individually is easy for English speakers, but consciously applying the tones on each syllable in Mandarin is very challenging for English speakers, because tones are not used in English in this way.

You can practise tones by reading the following sentences aloud. You may have already noticed that all characters in each sentence have the same tone.

1st tone:  今天三家三星分公司开张。

2nd tone:  德国游人年年来长城游玩。

3rd tone:  祖母总给予我理解与鼓舞。

4th tone:  第二次世界大战正在迫近。

If you can read aloud those sentences correctly without any hesitation, then you know you have won the battle with tones.


著作权的"相邻权" is not 'related laws' but 'related rights'. Related laws is 相关的法律。It is not the same as 相邻权 of real estates. I think the Chinese term might be a bit hard to understand, because 相邻 means adjacency not related.

Chinese definition

著作权(知识产权)的相邻权或邻接权，是表演者、录音录像制作者和广播企业对其节目、录音录像制品所拥有的权利，这一权利主要通过1961年10月26日的《关于表演者、唱片制作者和广播组织的国际公约》(罗马公约)， 1971年10月29日的《保护唱片制作者防止唱片被擅自复制公约》(唱片公约) 以及1996年12月20日由世界知识产权组织制定的《表演和录音制品条约》进行调整。

English explanation

The purpose of related rights is to protect the legal interests of certain persons and legal entities who contribute to making works available to the public; or who produce subject matter which, while not qualifying as works under the copyright systems of all countries, contain sufficient creativity or technical and organizational skill to justify recognition of a copyright-like property right.

From http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/intproperty/909/wipo_pub_909.pdf (Page 16)


I'd like to know why that particular character is used. (I have seen it used in stamps before too).

because

正 is a common character
正 has five stokes
All five stokes are straight and no overlap, so it is easier to count each stoke.
The character neatly form a square shape, make counting multiple copies easier
The stoke order and stoke type are simple . It just repeat two different straight stokes:

Left to right horizontal straight line
Top to bottom vertical straight line

One can write 正 faster than most other five stokes characters


Is this book in simplified or traditional Chinese?

Just looking at the title you can tell it's simplified.

Why?

耸 is the simplified version 聳.

Although, technically possible, it's highly unlikely that a book with a simplified title would be "in" traditional.


How is it decided as to which character is used on the tech terminology?

'深度學習' = 'in-depth learning'
'深層学習' = 'deep level learning'

As you mentioned, Japanese use '深層學習' instead of '深度學習' for 'deep learning'

(深層學習 is the preferred translation of 'Deep learning' in Hong Kong too)

Different countries and regions have different translations of some technological terms from foreign language. Hard to say which is better.

Blaszard wrote:

  I didn't ask which is better or what meaning each word exactly has; I asked how it is determined and by who.

When a new terminology is coined in foreign language, different medias and publications  may have trouble deciding on an unified translation.

Eventually, they will follow the lead of the authority in that particular field. If the Science journal in China translates 'Deep learning' as 深度学習, the news would adopt it and the general public will follow.  Finally, dictionaries would make it official by listing it.


胡说八道 hu2 shuo1 ba1 dao4

This is a 四字词 which means to talk rubbish.


号 is a common designation word for naming man-made vehicles like  ships, planes and trains.

For example:

Ronald Reagan = 罗纳德·里根

USS Ronald Reagan = 罗纳德·里根号 (super-carrier named after Ronald Reagan)

“青年文明号" is a youth organization that emphasize on "Youth movement " And the word 号 in the organization's name signified this fact.

It is in fact, comparing itself to a ship or train (Something that move purposefully ; a vehicle for advancing development )


They all mean restaurant, but a little difference:

餐馆 is normal, not so big, but formal restaurant.

饭馆 is smaller, and casual restaurant.

饭店 is bigger restaurant with higher qualification, be able to perform ceremony such as wedding.

酒家 is an ancient word which means a kind of restaurant providing liquor. Nowadays used for the name of restaurant for antique flavour.


It's not.

However it does share the same pronunciation of 我操 or 我肏, basically the Chinese equivalent of WTF. Term 卧草 became more popular due to widely existing profanity filtering on different internet platforms which mostly will filter out the origin term, while it also feels slightly more polite (Think about shoot vs. shit).


我看了化验结果 vs 我看化验结果了 which one is correct?

了 in 我看了化验结果 is an aspect marker that indicates the verb 看 (read) is a completed action. You can add the final practice 了 to 我看了化验结果 and write 我看了化验结果了 (the final practice 了 indicates the sentence is finished, adds emphasis to the sentence and/or soften the tone of speech)

了 in 我看化验结果了 is in the position of final practice, but it can be treated as an aspect marker if you consider '看化验结果' as a verb phrase, meaning the act of 'reading the test result' is a completed act. But it is not the way people normally talk even you can argue that it is technically grammatical. It is more likely that people  would treat the 了 at the end as a final practice and interpret 我看化验结果了 as 'I'll read the test result now')

in 我看了化验结果了, the 了 after 看 is an aspect marker and the 了 at the end is a final particle


What was this exchange 花粥 had with the crowd?

Her response should be "你们这个排面搞得我，我现在有一点膨胀了。“

"排面"（pái miàn) can be roughly translated to "grandeur" or "flamboyance", but there is a subtle difference between the Chinese word and these two translations. Let me try to give an example where the word 排面 can be used quite naturally in Chinese:

A young entrepreneur in a middle-sized city in China had established a small company, and he arranged a dinner party to celebrate the anniversary of its establishment. He is still not very rich but wanted to showcase the financial capacity of his company, so he arranged the dinner party in the banquet hall of a five-star hotel and ordered it to be decorated with flamboyant ornaments, and invited an orchestra band to play music throughout the party. He even invited quite a few notable officials in the municipal government to attend the party. In this case, it would be very natural for an attendee of the dinner party to comment "这聚会真有排面啊”. However, if the entrepreneur is of the conceited and ambitious type of people, he may feel a little unhappy when hearing someone commenting as such in public, because 排面 is usually not applied to members of the upper-class society or to those genuinely rich people (unlike "grandeur", which often implies being rich), but rather to those who are showcasing a little bit beyond their financial capacity.

However, on the other hand, 排面 can also simply refer to things that seem a little unnecessarily well-arranged. For example, when a young worker born in a relatively poor family in rural China returns to his home during the Spring Festival, and saw that his mom prepared six different dishes for dinner to welcome him back instead of only three as he would expect, he may also comment "这桌饭可真有排面啊。“ In this case it has nothing to do with grandeur or flamboyance, but only being more well-prepared that one would expect, and here it actually expresses gratefulness.

膨胀 literally means "to inflate". And just like in English, it also has a figurative meaning in Chinese: “我膨胀了” does not mean "I inflated", but rather "I was so flattered that I'm getting overly complacent."

When 花粥 said "排面" in this song, she is likely referring to the fact that her fans shouting "花粥带我回家“ in such a coordinated way made her feel too flattered. Here 排面 does not have any implication of fortune, social rank or luxury like the words "grandeur" and "flamboyance" do, but only means that the fans are shouting so passionately together and makes 花粥 feel that she's not quite worth that kind of passion. So it's more of the second kind of usage of this word that I mentioned.

Also, ”坦言搞得“ is not grammatical in Chinese.


What is the difference between 只要 and 如果?

The difference is, 只要 is used for the only condition, while 如果 usually doesn't.

  只要明天不下雨， 我们就去爬山。

[ As long as it doesn't rain tomorrow, ... ]

"It doesn't rain tomorrow" is the only one condition, the other things don't matter, e.g. wind blowing. So you could follow the sentence with 即使刮风我们也去。 (Even it's windy we still will go.)

  如果明天不下雨， 我们就去爬山。

[ If it doesn't rain tomorrow, ... ]

"It doesn't rain tomorrow" isn't the only condition, that means if it's windy tomorrow, we might not go climbing too.


Can 余 (more than) go after the measure word?

五百多人 is correct and colloquial.
五百余人 is correct and formal.
五百人多 is not correct.
五百人余 is not grammatical in modern Mandarin but contextually valid in ancient Chinese. It may appear a lot in ancient stories written in vernacular language.


Why is it correct to omit 很 in 小男孩嫌小鱼儿丑?

When there's a verb before the object, you usually don't need 很 before the adjective
Since 嫌(dislike) is a verb, 嫌鱼儿丑 ( 這鱼儿我嫌丑) is a perfectly acceptable sentence,
More example:
天氣很冷
怕天氣冷 (天氣我怕冷)
這詩很好
讚這詩好 (這詩我讚好)


Passage in Seal Script - 18th C Japanese Book of Chinese Poems (Poem identified: 唐・賈至《西亭春望》)

In modern script:

唐　賈至　《西亭春望》
日長風暖柳青青　北雁歸飛人窅冥
岳陽城上聞吹笛　能使春心滿洞庭

With the character variants inserted in their place:


What did Eastern Han Chinese sound like?

The main go-to source is Schuessler's 2009 work Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese.

As this "Later Han Chinese" is of the 1st century CE, it falls directly in between the Zhou Dynasty's Classical Chinese and Qieyun 切韵 of the Sui dynasty. It is the pronunciation of the 说文解字, of the 释名, as well as early Buddhist literature with all their transcriptions of Pali and Sanskrit.

However, Schuessler states that:

  The conservative strain of LHan, which is provided in this manual, could perhaps also be called Mid-Han; it can be converted to that of Eastern Han mainstream literature using the following paradigms:

... and then proceeds to list six points, five of which are vowel changes, one of which is velar palatisation.

The relevant points under its general phonology section are:

No consonant clusters
Velar palatisation (notably of 支)
Tones emerge definitively
Final -s is preserved from Old Chinese
"Vowel bending" - a definite great vowel shift for Chinese in this period, intermediate between Old Chinese reconstructions and the system in Middle Chinese.


It came from 牛逼. 牛逼 means cow's genital orginally and it is derivatized into impressive due to it's wide. Many people are saying it even it's bad meaning. You can both use 太牛了 and 太牛逼了 though.


"Actually" as a sentence-starter of speech filler

"其实" or "其实呢" is more similar to what you wanted, casually. E.g.

  其实我没有兄弟姐妹.

"事实上" is not wrong, but it is literally "in fact" or "as a matter of fact".


How to say "she short changed me" (without negative conotation)?

You can say:

你少给了我10块钱。

Pinyin: nǐ shǎo gěi le wǒ shí kuài qián

Be sure to show the bank teller the money he/she gave you.


Replacement for "他一个人" when used in a sentence about an animal

An alternative way is to say 它自己在搬东西. but what your son said (he's cute!) feels natural to my ears too. What he used in this sentence is a technique called 拟人手法. :)


和 comes from old verb "to mix two things into one". From "to mix" 和 developed meaning "with" and "and". But the old meaning still lingers there, that's why 和 can't be used in some situations.

  老板喜欢咖啡和茶。

works like charm cause you literally can "mix" coffe and tee.

  今天和明天都可以吗？

the same here.
but

  *我去了超市和买了水果

-- not good. WHat are you "mixing"? "market" and "buying"? Noun and verb?

about而且:

且 means 'further'. It was used as a future tense marker in old Chinese, just like 'will' is used in English.
而 is a subordinate conjunction. That is, it serves functions of 'but, and, where, who, when ect.' thus subordinating one sentence clause to the other. But how one should translate 而 is unknown (to me at least), it's quite volatile in it's meaning.
而且 means "further than this", 'but more' or 'even more'.

So 而且(even more) and 和 (to mix) are quite different in their meaning.


Why do Chinese writers have three different names?

You probably know something about the intricacies of Chinese names prior to the downfall of the last dynasty, picking names at different stages of life was common among intellectuals.

In the case of Huang Yuanyong, check the Chinese language version of the Wiki article.

It reads:

  原名黄为基，字远庸，笔名远生

Thus, his original name was 为基, his 字 name was 远庸 and his pen name was 远生. In the pre-Republican era, it was common to pick a 字 name (or courtesy name in English). This name was most likely chosen by a teacher, and henceforth an educated person was to be referred to by his courtesy name, the given name was only used within the family. Since Huang Yuanyong was socialized in the late 19th century, there is nothing uncommon with him having three different names.

But having alternate names is not something restricted to China or Chinese writers. Many Western intellectuals, writers or revolutionaries are in the need of an alternate name at some point, some even used multiples (Lenin e.g. was known as Ulyanov, Ilyin, Karpov, Mueller or Frei, just to name a few.)
Although it is true that the Chinese name system is more elaborate, but until the modern ages it was common for Western scholars to Latinize (Linné used Linnæus in Latin) their names or pick a Latin name, this is somewhat similar to the Chinese courtesy name.


Your correct, 帮忙 just means to help (someone). It can also be split apart two word, 幫 as help and 忙 as busy.

The way the sentence is composed is in a more creative way, that uses the meaning of the characters creatively, both combined and uncombined. However, it's a common technique that shouldn't be over thought.

你可以幫一個忙嗎? vs 你可以幫忙嗎? are just two different ways of asking if you can help.


about 論語﹒八佾　子曰﹒人而不仁﹒如禮何﹒人而不仁﹒如樂何

james legge's translation:

(子曰) the master said
(人而不仁) if a man be without the virtues proper to humanity
(如禮何) what has he to do with the rites of propriety
(人而不仁) if a man be without the virtues proper to humanity
(如樂何) what has he to do with music

traditionally, there're several ways to explain:

one is to expand the verses to "子曰﹒人而不仁﹒何以為禮樂"

(子曰) the master said
(人而不仁) if a man has no benevolence
(如禮何) how can he perform ritual
(人而不仁) if a man has no benevolence
(如樂何) how can he perform music

another is to treat it as "子曰﹒人而不仁﹒禮樂沒奈何"

(子曰) the master said
(人而不仁) if a man has no benevolence
(如禮何) what can ritual do
(人而不仁) if a man has no benevolence
(如樂何) what can music do

have fun :)

edited, add links.

the internet archive has some james legge's books, these two are english translation of the classic four:

the four books

註釋校正華英四書


Quenching thirst by thinking about plums

望梅止渴    wàng méi zhǐ kě lit. to quench one"s thirst by thinking of plums (idiom), fig. to console oneself with illusions
The expression is a chengyu (成语, cheng2yu3).

There's a story behind it: in the Three Kingdoms period, general Cao Cao (曹操    Cáo Cāo (155-220)) was leading his troops on a journey to battle. They were in a dry place and his troops were very thirsty. Cao Cao tricked them by telling them they were not far from a wood of plum trees, where the plums were juicy and sweet; they would be able to quench their thirst there. Thinking of the plums got the soldiers' mouths watering. They no longer felt so thirsty and were able to continue their route. Soon after they arrived at a place where they found water.

I got this info from a very good French-Chinese book called "Il était une fois Au pays des chengyu" by Fei-Fei CHEN and Claire JOURNIAC.


Is the phrase "that guy so inch" related to Putonghua?

It is Cantonese

串 /cyun3 /
[7] [粵] [adj] arrogant; cocky | [Var] 寸

"that guy so inch" is literal translations of "嗰條友咁寸(串)" in Cantonese.
The 'arrogant; cocky' definition of 串 is not used in Mandarin.
"嗰條友咁串" in Mandarin would be "那傢伙太囂張了" meaning "that guy is so arrogant"

咁串
太嚣张了。


Fear no more, for there is now:
「」
(Unicode: U+2D865)


What do 肯定 and 一定 do in 这些行动是积极的，值得肯定，对于减少烟毒有一定的意义?

The whole sentence is : 这些行动是积极的(These actions are positive), 值得肯定(worthy of recognition),对于减少烟毒有一定的意义。(have certain significance to reduce the smoke toxicity).

Here 肯定 means recognition by people or society.比如 他的事迹得到了社会的肯定。
There is no 一定的意 in Chinese
一定的意义 means certain significance.比如 你的建议对我有一定的价值，我会好好想想。(Your suggestions has some certain value for me, and I will think over it.)


What does this Chinese reporter say about APEC and Putin?

光艺展示，巨型的视频网幕，和焰火三个部分。

光艺展示: Display of light effects

巨型的视频网幕: Giant video display,

各个经济体的领导人在饶有兴致地交谈，刚才我们看到普京总统特地地把一件外套披在了彭丽媛的身上。

经济体: Economic entity

饶有兴致: With quite some interest

特地：Specially, with the quality of caring and thoughtfulness.


How to say "it was nice meeting you yesterday"

Way to go! You have made a perfect first Chinese sentence "我昨天很高兴见到了你。"!

In 我昨天很高兴见到, you might have to put a target for the verb '见到', so it would be like “我昨天很高兴见到你。”, which has the same meaning as "我昨天很高兴见到了你。"

‘了’ in this case can be omitted.


当 is necessary here, it means work as; serve as; be.

有一天    他  会    当          医生
One day   he  will  work as     a doctor.

As you see, without 当, the sentence does not make sense.


Resources for the Chinese section of the Gaokao?

2015年高考真题：http://wenku.baidu.com/topic/2015gaokao_zhenti 不过需要下载分。
2015年高考真题、答案和其它资源：http://www.eol.cn/html/g/gkst/ 可以直接下载，但是需要在论坛里多找找。
历年高考作文：http://www.gaokao.com/guangdong/gdgkzw/
另外，请善用百度站内的搜索（百度文库禁止GoogleBot访问）：http://wenku.baidu.com/search?word=2015%B8%DF%BF%BC+%CA%FD%D1%A7+%BA%FE%B1%B1

附部分题目：
2015 Essay Prompt Guangdong: 2015年广东卷作文题

  阅读下面的文字，根据要求作文。

  　　看天光云影，能测阴晴雨雪，但难逾目力所及；打开电视，可知全球天气，缺少了静观云卷云舒的乐趣。

  　　漫步林间，常看草长莺飞、枝叶枯荣，但未必能细说花鸟之名、树木之性；轻点鼠标，可知生物的纲目属种、迁徙演化，却无法嗅到花果清香、丛林气息。

  　　从不同的途径去感知自然，自然似乎很“近”，又似乎很“远”。

  　　要求：1，自选角度，确定立意，自拟标题，文体不限

  　　2，不要脱离材料内容及含义的范围

  　　3，不少于800字

  　　4，不得套作，不得抄袭

2014 Essay Prompt Guangdong: 2014年广东卷作文题

  阅读下面的文字，根据要求作文。

  　　黑白胶片的时代，照片很少，只记录下人生的几个瞬间，在家人一次次的翻看中，它能唤起许多永不褪色的记忆。但照片渐渐泛黄，日益模糊。

  　　数码科技的时代，照片很多，记录着日常生活的点点滴滴，可以随时上传到网络与人分享。它从不泛黄，永不模糊，但在快速浏览与频繁更新中，值得珍惜的“点滴”也可能被稀释。

  　　要求：

  　　1、自选角度，确定立意，自拟标题，文体不限。

  　　2、不要脱离材料内容及含义的范围。

  　　3、不少于800字。

  　　4、不得套作，不得抄袭。

2015 Math Hubei 2015年湖北数学卷 出自《九章算术·卷第五　商功》第（一五）题

  今有阳马，广五尺，袤七尺，高八尺。问︰积几何？

Discussion: http://www.guokr.com/question/605347/


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

Plurals
Chinese nouns and other parts of speech are not generally marked for number, meaning that plural forms are mostly the same as the singular. However, there is a plural marker 们 [們] men, which has limited usage. It is used with personal pronouns, as in 我们 [我們] wǒmen, meaning "we" or "us" (from 我 wǒ, "I, me"), and can be used with nouns representing humans, most commonly those with two syllables, like in 朋友们 [朋友們] péngyoumén "friends" (from 朋友 péngyou "friend"). Its use in such cases is optional.[13] It is never used when the noun has indefinite reference, or when it is qualified by a numeral.[14]
The demonstrative pronouns 这 [這] zhè "this" and 那 nà "that" may be optionally pluralized by the addition of 些 xiē, making 这些 [這些] zhèxiē "these" and 那些 nàxiē "those".

Since Chinese nouns usually do not have plural form, we have to use plural markers to indicate plural like the Wiki article stated, you can also indicate a noun is singular or plural with measure words like 一個(a /one), 兩個 (two); or predeterminer like 所有(all) 有些(some)

In the case of " 桃是水果" we can deduct from the context that we are talking about "all peaches" , because 一個桃是水果 (a peach is fruit) doesn't make sense.

In 桃都是水果, 所有 is implied


What is the grammatical structure of: 我把你们带到茶馆来。

Here unfortunately, 来 doesn't indicate completion. Instead, it indicates direction of an action.
我把你们带到茶馆来=我把你们带来茶馆（indicating that the speaker's location is (or was, depending on context) 茶馆）
Comparison:
我把你们带到茶馆去=我把你们带去茶馆（indicating that the speaker is not at 茶馆）


Looks like the character for laughter in Chinese 笑'xiao'


利益 benefits/ interest (mainly of monetary or material gain)

优势 advantage

好处 benefits (general term for benefits, e.g improve health, avoid criticism and of course, monetary gain)

利益 is more literary and 好处 is more colloquial

Example sentences:

军事优势 = military advantage

国家利益 = national interest

获取利益 = gain benefits

在美国留学的好处 = Benefits of studying in the United States


What does the following phrase mean: 故虽有珉之雕雕,不若玉之章章——《荀子》

Even 珉 is beautiful and looks like 玉, it's still stone.

So 故虽有珉之雕雕,不若玉之章章 means, even 珉 is beautiful and has high value to  be engraved (to artwork), it's still not as clear and beautiful as 玉.


Size of vocabulary of highly educated Chinese person

What differentiates Chinese characters from English words is that most Chinese characters are not only words but also morphemes.

e.g.

  In the English word unlikely, there are three morphemes, un, like and
  ly, but only like is a word.

  In this Chinese compound word 不可能, there are also three morphemes,
  不、可、能, but each of them constitutes a word.

The estimated 5000-word vocabulary is not an indicator of the number of words like 不可能 one masters, but of morphemes like 不、可、能.

A senior high school student is requested to master at least 6600 common characters. A Ph.D. is likely to have a similar, if not higher, vocabulary, as however difficult the jargons he possesses are, these jargons can be translated into Chinese with common characters, for example, polychlorinated biphenyl is translated as 多氯联苯, which every junior high student should be able to recognize but perhaps not fully understand.


Usage of 在 in Place complement, Time Complement

when to use and omit 在 in Place complement, Time Complement?

when a sentence need to let other person fully understand or the subject is important or
 in a sentence.

(在)包里，他拿了一本书。 在 can also omit.

It can express as

他拿了一本(在)包里的书。

Place

我在家。

Here 在 is a important word to tell other information about where you are.


Here are some documents about Nantong dialect, but it's still difficult for Chinese in other areas.

http://wapwenku.baidu.com/view/09e3c92aaaea998fcc220e42.html?ssid=0&from=1099b&uid=0&pu=usm@3,sz@1320_2001,ta@iphone_1_9.2_3_601&bd_page_type=1&baiduid=2B26F0FC87EAF856CC6D8FCB7EA56F60&tj=wenku_3_0_10_title#2


Which is correct:了 or 过 in 我去。。。他家，知道他住在哪里

了 indicates the verb is 'completed action'
过 indicates the verb is 'experienced action'
我去过 他家，知道他住在哪里.  (I had gone to his house before,  so I know where he lives) is the correct one
去过 = had gone before
去了 = have gone to


Are my answers to this question about 不仅 appropriate, and how can I make them more elaborate?

You should pay attention to the word after 不仅, 还, and etc. Typically, the things after those words are the emphasis point.

So:

The first one 李老师不仅 喜欢 看电影, 也喜欢 xxx. xxx could be something
he likes, such as 玩游戏，看电视，踢足球, ... E.g. 李老师不仅喜欢看电影, 也喜欢踢足球.
The second one 还 喜欢 游泳 indicates that 他不仅喜欢 xxx has been
said. And again xxx could be something he likes, such as 玩游戏，看电视，踢足球,
... E.g. 他不仅喜欢玩游戏, 还喜欢游泳
The third one 不仅 我 会做中国菜 suggests that the later part should be
而且xxx也会（做中国菜）. xxx can be any person. E.g. 不仅我会做中国菜, 而且他们也会（做中国菜）.

Hope this can help you.


予以 is a conjunction-like thing that is something like English "as a means of", "for purposes of", and is often used in officialese to keep things comfortably vague. Use it when you are writing a report to your boss.

Postscript:

My answer works when 予以 occurs between two verb phrases.  I would call the phrases I used 'functional equivalents', not literal translations.

As Shawn's answer notes, 予以 sometimes occurs between noun phrase and verb. In this case, you will have to translate a different way. Here is another example:

有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚
Those who have made special contributions should be recognized.

The grammar used here is literary Chinese, and the original meaning of 予以 as 'give + indirect obj marker' is very clear.  The subject is the direct object, hence in English, the whole thing is passive. Many native speakers don't really know how to use this type of literary construction.


This is a language phenomenon called “topic and comment” (or: “theme and rheme”) that exists in many (if not all?) languages, but is realized differently from language to language.

In both of your examples, the first part (他对Victoria的爱 and 他对我的热情) is introduced as the topic and then commented upon in the second part.

To make it look more correct, you can imagine an omitted 至于 (“As to...”) in the beginning of the sentence:

  (至于)他对Victoria的爱，所有人都看在眼里。

  As to his love for Victoria, everyone could see it in his eyes.

  (至于)她对我的热情已经冷起来了

  As to her warmth for me, they had already cooled down

Since your second example does not end in a period, one could expect it to continue. For example:

  (至于)她对我的热情已经冷起来了[我干什么也没办法。]

  As to her warmth for me having already cooled down [there is nothing I can do about it.]

This structure does not necessarily follow the typical SVO structure of Chinese grammar, but there are many very typical Chinese patterns which do not follow SVO.

On the other hand, your second example could be read as a simple sentence:
她对我的热情 is the (extended) subject, 已经冷起来了 is the predicate (with adverbial).

  Her warmth for me has already cooled down


The key character in 相信 is 信 which means faith/trust. (相 is just there to turn 信 into a standard two-character word. It can be omitted in spoken language.)  I.e. there's some emotion involved. The object can also be a person or a belief (i.e. equivalent to "believe in").
For example, 我相信你 means "I trust you"/"I have faith in you/what you said".
认为... is literally "recognise ... as" and can be roughly translated as "have the opinion that". It involves no emotion, but a mere statement of thought. Also, it must be followed by a statement clause and not a simple subject.
Compare and contrast
相信 and 认为 are not interchangeable due to context:

我相信未来会更好 （Using 认为 will sound presumptuous)
科学家认为大爆炸是宇宙的起源 (相信 will make the belief sounds less scientific and more wishful thinking)

我相信我儿子是不会做坏事的
警方认为你儿子触犯了法律 (认为 is treated as stating a fact. When used with a character judgement, some kind of authority or evidence is required. Otherwise, it will sound libellous.)

They are not interchangeable due to grammatical structure:

我相信进化论 (= I believe in evolution.)
我认为进化论是真理 (= I believe that evolution is true.)


刚刚 is an adverb.
刚才 is a noun.

我刚刚起床 means: I just got up.

我刚才起床 is kind of nonsensical as it is as it means something like:  I a moment ago got up.

刚刚 is going to be the more likely choice when you're expressing things you did just now a moment ago.


How to say "offer" (as in "job offer") in Chinese?

I looked for example sentences using "offer" on Tatoeba.org, and most of them use 提议 as Bojin Li mentioned.

It was foolish of you to accept his offer.
你真笨去接受他的提議。

However, one did specifically relate to a job offer and used 工作錄取.

The job offer still stands.
這份工作錄取仍然有效。

Another one used 工作机会, but that seems closer to "job opportunity" than "job offer".

I received a good job offer.
我得到了一个好的工作机会。

I found 16 total sentences that used "offer" as a noun. They translated it using the following terms:

提议 - 7 sentences
报价 - 4 sentences used this, but it's specifically related to making an offer in a business transaction when negotiating a price.
工作錄取 - 1 sentence.
工作机会 - 1 sentence, but it seems closer to opportunity than offer.
请求 - 1 sentence translated offer of support as 支援请求
资助 - 1 sentence used this, but again it's specifically a financial offer of help.
建议 - 1 sentence, but it seems closer to suggestion than offer.


I wouldn't worry too much on this one. The only difference, if you really argue there should be any, is that 选取 sounds more formal and elegant, and you probably will see it more being used in publications like academic research papers.


《行行重行行》是产生于汉代的一首文人五言诗，是《古诗十九首》中的第一首，作者不详。
1: I don't think we should understand 申诉 as the word in its legal sense here. Maybe it's a combination of:
申明：state, express +
诉苦：grumble, complain, grievance
申诉现在之思念，: express present longing, repine the past
诗歌后十句写相思之意，
The last ten lines of the poem express yearning,
申诉现在之思念，
repine the past,
措辞前显，
the previous verses express
寓意深厚。
a profound meaning.
2: 申（明）足此意: amply express this idea.
“行行重行行”的意思是：走啊走啊走一直在不停的走。
It is easier to translate the poem in contemporary language:
你走啊走啊老是不停的走，
Keep going, keep going, never stop going,
就这样活生生分开了你我。
thus you and I in this life are parted.
从此你我之间相距千万里， (You know 千万里 just means "a great distance" ?)
Henceforth a million miles separate you and I,
我在天这头你就在天那头。
me in this corner of heaven, you in that corner of heaven.
The older text:(there are experts here who understand these old texts. I am not one of them!)
”行行重行行“ 言行之不止，
"Go on again go on" words and deeds endlessly,
致有“想去万余里”“个在天一涯”。(maybe should be: 各在天一涯）
cause (us to) "want to go more than 10000 miles" "each in their own bit of heaven".
三、四句表现极其遥远之概念，
these 3, 4 lines express the idea of great distance,
以申（明）足此意。
and amply express this idea.


The following text was copied from 重編國語辭典修訂本 website (http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/cbdic/gsweb.cgi?o=dcbdic&searchid=W00000002040), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Taiwan, with the attribution to the Ministry of Education, R.O.C.

蛋

  [名]

[noun]

  1 鳥類和爬蟲類所生帶有硬殼的卵，受精之後可孵出小動物。如：「雞蛋」、「蛇蛋」、「下蛋」。

The hard-shell oval from birds or reptiles, which can produce small animals after fertilization. e.g. 雞蛋 (chicken egg), 蛇蛋 (snake egg), 下蛋 (to lay eggs).

  2 形狀像蛋的東西。如：「臉蛋兒」、「山藥蛋」。

An egg-shaped thing. e.g. 臉蛋兒 (face), 山藥蛋 (potato).

  3 斥責或罵人的話。用以比喻人或動作。如：「渾蛋」、「笨蛋」、「壞蛋」、「滾蛋」、「完蛋」、「糊塗蛋」。

A word to insult people, used as a metaphor for the action of humans. e.g. 渾蛋 (fucking asshole), 笨蛋 (stupid asshole), 壞蛋 (scoundrel asshole), 滾蛋 (Go fucking away!), 完蛋 (to be fucking finished), 糊塗蛋 (confused asshole).

  4 中國南方沿海少數民族之一。同「蜑」。如：「胡夷蛋蠻」。《宋史．卷三一．高宗本紀八》：「閏月丙午，罷廉州貢珠，縱蛋丁自便。」

A minor ethnicity in coastal South China, also written as 蜑. e.g. 胡夷蛋蠻.

蛋 in 完蛋 is definitely the third meaning: a word to insult people, used as a metaphor for the action of humans. This meaning is similar to ‘balls’ in English, the slang term of ‘testicles’.


I was secretly expecting this question. :)

In handwritten and calligraphic realization, these characters can be tough to distinguish, although the context will help you a lot.

In printed text, the middle 横 héng stroke in 曰 is not touching the right side of the character, in 日 the middle stroke is entirely through, at least in most fonts. If not, it is only the width of the character that can give you a clue and the context, of course.

Needless to say, 曰 is not very common today, it is mostly used in Confucian text, like 子曰, "The Master said...". So most of the time you see these characters in modern texts, chances are it is 日 and not 曰.

The stroke order is the same.


Is 靠 structure "A (pronoun/noun) 靠 B (pronoun/noun) do something"?

The thing  missing is 'to achieve something'

  "A (pronoun/noun) 靠 B (pronoun/noun) to do something to achieve something"

他们全家的生活靠父亲一个人工作 = the whole family's living depend on the father working alone
他们全家的生活靠父亲一个人工作(來維持) = the whole family's living depend on the father working alone (to maintain)

("to maintain living, the whole family depend on the father to work alone".  Not "生活(subject) 靠 父亲一个人工")

他们的收入靠经营宾馆 = their income depend on running an inn
他们的收入靠经营宾馆(而來) = their income depend on running an inn (to obtain)

(to obtain income, they depend on running an inn . Not 收入(subject) 靠 经营宾馆)

Note:

If 靠 means 'solely depend on' you should use the full term 全靠 instead of just 靠

他们全家的生活全靠父亲一个人工作來維持 = the whole family's living solely depend on the father working alone to maintain
他们的收入全靠经营宾馆而來 = their income sole depend on running an inn to obtain

A simpler example

汽車依靠汽油 (car depend on gas)

汽車依靠汽油來運行 (car depend on gas to run)


Expressing existence with 有: Are measure words compulsory?

"我家有花" and "这里以前有桥" are legit sentences. By not having measure word and classifier, it mean "I have flower in my home" and "there used to be bridge here" -- The quantity or number is unspecified. It can be a single flower or a houseful of it; It can be a single bridge or a few of them. It just stated 'there's flower' and 'there's bridge' in general

If you add measure word and classifier, the quantity  or number would become specific

我家有(兩盆)花 = I have (two pot of) flower in my home -- Not one, not three, but two
这里以前有(一座)桥 = "there used to be (a) bridge here" -- Not two, not three, but one

  (1) 宿舍东便有商店，图书馆和食堂。 (2) 宿舍东边有一家商店，一家图书馆和一个食堂。

Both are correct.

Sentence (1) didn't state the number of the objects (there could be any number of stores, libraries and cafeterias)

Sentence (2) specifically stated the number of each object --  (one shop, one library and one cafeteria)