Questions tagged [meaning]
Questions about understanding the meaning of words, phrases, etc. For in-context meaning, use [meaning-in-context].
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Why is 月 used when speaking about anatomy?
One thing I've been curious about while learning Chinese is the use of 月 in many 汉字 representing anatomical features (for example, 脸， 腰， or 腿).
What is the etymology of the use of 月 as a radical?
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When should I use the 是...的 construction?
I've been told that 是...的 is used to put emphasis on something, but I'm not sure when or why I should use it.
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A unified theory of 就 meaning
就 always bothered me. I couldn't (and maybe still can't) get a hold of its meaning.
By looking at many examples of the usage I came to realization that 就 marks a process of becoming a subject to or ...
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A Complex Chinese Character (Characters Identified: 招財進寶)
I randomly saw this character on the blog a while ago and saved a image of it as shown below.
Is this even a character? If so, what does it mean? When is it used? What was the origin of it? How do ...
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To 了 or not to 了
I'm Chinese learner and as everybody else I'm puzzled by the verbal aspect 了. My research into the subject gave such results:
了 belongs to a class of perfective aspect markers just as many other ...
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Why use combined characters that have the same meaning?
(rèn shí ) both characters means ( to know)and when combined it still have the same meaning.
So why can't I use only one of them ?
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How offensive is 他妈的?
How offensive is the expression 他妈的? What is an English expression with a similar degree of offensiveness? In what situations is this expression appropriate / not appropriate?
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What is the exact meaning of 吃豆腐, and where does the expression come from?
I'm not talking about eating tofu, but the expression that means something more like taking advantage of someone. What exactly does 吃豆腐 mean, and where does this expression come from?
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What's the difference between 星期X and 周X?
When accepting an answer, I noticed that the example used the word 周三 for Wednesday, but in my grammar, the days of the week are 星期一, 星期二, etc...
They seem both correct but, what's the difference? ...
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也 和 并 与 及 跟 而 同 difference? [closed]
I have read about connectives 也 和 并 与 及 and asked some questions about them but still I'm somewhat not satisfied with my understanding. Let me summarize my knowledge:
1. 与
connects: nouns only (...
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Sheep or goat? 一只羊跑过来
In the sentence:
一只羊跑过来
Would a Chinese person typically assume this is a goat or a sheep?
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How gender specific in writing is the character 他
A couple of years ago I wrote this comment below an answer:
On mainland China 他 is used for both male and female. I've only seen 她
used as a stylistic thing for advertising and some old formal ...
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What is the meaning of 相声?
Today I read a blog post talking about a Canadian guy called Mark Rowswell (aka 大山) that appears on Chinese TV shows and who is able to do 相声. This 相声 is referred to as "the art of language".
What ...
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Roots of the difference between 谈,论,说,讲,议, 叙,言,报,告,述
All those talk, discuss, chat and ect. In any language there are a lot of words expressing different connotation of people speaking.
In my own language (russian) there are lot's of them BUT I can ...
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What is the difference between 打算 (dǎ suàn) and 计划 (jì huà)
Are 打算 (dǎ suàn) and 计划 (jì huà) both synonyms for "plan," or are there some additional nuances here?
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Differences between "Verb + Adj", "Adj + Verb", "Verb + 得 + Adj" and "Adj + 地 + Verb"?
I am having some difficulties understanding the differences in meaning between the following structures (the examples are from Line dictionary):
Verb + Adj
e.g:
走快了她会累。
Zŏu kuài le tā huì lĕi.
...
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What's the difference between 周 and 星期? [duplicate]
From a dictionary lookup, it seems that both 周 and 星期 can mean "a week"—is there any difference in usage?
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What is the purpose of verb reduplication?
In English, we can say:
I sneezed a big sneeze.
She sleeps a long sleep.
"Waiting for a king to apologize, one can wait rather a long wait." (from the film The Kings Speech)
and many more such ...
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Why do native speakers often say a character has "no meaning"?
Many times I will know all the characters in a name but one & I'll ask what that one character means. 9 times out of 10 the response is, "That character has no meaning".
While it might be true ...
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Is Sunday 星期天 or 星期日?
I am using the ChineseSkill app to learn Chinese and I learned that 'Sunday' in Chinese is 星期天 (xīngqītiān). However, sometimes on the internet I see 星期日 (xīngqīrì).
Are both correct? Why is there ...
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Very frequently used word in Mandarin that sounds like "nica" or "nigah"
I work in a group where I am the only person that does not speak Chinese, thus I hear Chinese conversations all day every day.
I've noticed that there's a word which is used extremely frequently, in ...
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Why do people say 慢点儿阿("man dianer a") when you leave their shop?
When you leave a shop, you often hear the shopkeeper saying something like "man dianer a", which sounds like 慢点儿阿 (something parents say to their kids to get them to walk more slowly [even if they ...
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Why 干菜类 was mistakenly translated to Fuck Vegetables?
In the following famous sign which appeared in some supermarket in China:
why 干菜类 was mistakenly translated to Fuck Vegetables instead of Dried Vegetables? Is there any hidden meaning in it?
Source:
...
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Why does 有机 as in 有机食品 mean organic?
有 and 机 are some of the first characters we learn in Chinese, but only recently did I find out that they mean "organic" when put together. Can anyone explain why this is?
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Using 老头 / 老头子 when speaking to others
I'm trying to get some clarification on whether or not it is impolite to use 老头 / 老头子 when speaking outside a group of friends when referring to a third party.
From my understanding 老头 is quite ...
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Who exactly is a 干妈
This dictionary translates 干妈 as "Godmother", and my pocket dictionary also gives "nominal mother".
In English, "Godmother" and "Godfather" are very specific titles - Your Godparents are the people ...
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What is the difference between 國語 and 普通話?
I am still a beginner, but after 1 year I'm still not sure about the difference. I've been talking with some citizens from China mainland on the Internet, when I mentioned that I'm learning 國語, I ...
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犬子: who's the dog?
犬子 (literally, dog + son) is an archaic, self-depreciatory term to refer to your son (occasionally it's used to insult other people's sons).
This answer raises a question though; who is the dog ...
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What is the meaning of 真是的
What is a meaning of 真是的. I heard for many times in context something like 你真是的！ And yet I have doubts about proper meaning of this expression.
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Why say 少说两句 to break up a fight?
In the movie 北京遇上西雅图 (~25m45s), during an argument the protagonist calls another pregnant woman a 骚货 ("slut") and they start physically fighting. A third woman tries to break them up and ...
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太: Meaning in 灰太狼
灰太狼
灰太狼 (A character in a TV show) is translated in English as "Grey Wolf".
What has happened to the 太, wouldn't 灰狼 be enough to mean "Grey Wolf"?
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Meaning of 差 in 现在差一刻九点?
I have difficulties understanding sentence.
What is meaning of 差 in the following sentence?
我看一下，现在差一刻九点。
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When to use 想 versus 喜欢?
Could someone please give we a hint when to use either of those?!
My take is that 想 is used for actions and 喜欢 for things!? Am I right?
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Difference between 我饿了 and 我很饿?
Someone tried to explain the difference in this answer https://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/43/38 saying that 我饿了 means "I became hungry", but I don't see the difference because we don't say I became ...
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Difference between 正在 and 在?
I am a beginner in Chinese (Mandarin), and I am following a phone app to learn.
However I cannot understand what is the difference between 正在 and 在 ? For example:
你正在干什么？
and
你在干什么？
The app ...
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What does the `的` mean in `我是九点去上班的`?
In the reply to 你是什么时候去上班的?, what does the 的 in 我是九点去上班的 mean? I think that without the 的, the sentence makes sense in and of itself, right?
And the meaning is that I start to work at 9:00 am...., ...
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Is there a difference between 担心 (dānxīn) and 着急 (zháojí)?
They're both verbs, they both have meanings "to worry, to be anxious", they both seem to be able to be used as adjectives also.
I just want to know if there's any difference: is one used more in ...
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How is 马马虎虎 used?
I think it's used like 'so so' in English. Like
问题：你觉得怎么样？
回答：马马虎虎。
Am I correct in this?
Are there other ways to use it?
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Why is 饰界 used to mean "hinges" in a 1908 book?
I've got this translation here:
The door turns on its hinges.
门靠着饰界转
I'm assuming 饰界 matches up with hinges. It's not a word I've encountered before or that's readily searchable online. The ...
Mou某♦
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What is the difference between 魂 and 魄?
Maybe this is a religious technical question and therefore a bit tricky. In English, soul and spirit are used more or less interchangeably, although their origins are dissimilar.
spirit: mid-13c., "...
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What is the meaning of 子 in words like 菓子(과자), 帽子(모자), or 獅子(사자)?
I'm learning Sino-Korean vocabulary at the moment and have noticed that many words seem to end in a '子' that doesn't seem to add much semantically to the other character in the word.
What should I ...
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How to translate the phrase 利而物利章 in context?
I am reading a passage from 呂氏春秋. I think I understand the basic meaning of the three first quarters, but then it becomes difficult. The hard part is the tiny snippet below and especially the last ...
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What is the difference between 嘗試，試圖，and 企圖?
I'm trying to translate this sentence to Mandarin:
She's trying to recover the torn photo.
So I was trying to find a meaning of "to try" in Pinpin Dictionary, and I came up with three different ...
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演 ＝ 氵+ 寅 but what's it got to do with water!? How did it get its modern meanings?
氵+ 寅 = 演
zisea
拼音:yan3
①根据事理推广发挥：推～。讲～（亦作“演讲”）。～义（以史书及传说的材料为基础，增添一些细节，用章回体写成的小说）。～绎（一种推理方法，由一般原理推出关于特殊情况下的结论）。
②依照程式练习：～练。～示。～算。～武。～习。～兵场。
③不断变化：～变。～化。
④把技艺当众表现出来：表～。～出。～播。～奏。主～。义～。
I can't really ...
Mou某♦
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What does 尽信书不如无书 mean?
After pointing out the many bugs in an online Chinese "how to give a presentation in English" webpage, one of my colleagues wrote this on WeChat:
尽信书不如无书
Jìn xìn shū bùrú wú shū
Question: What ...
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Official definition of (單)字, (單)詞, 片語, 成語
As stated in the title, is there an official, or unified, definition of these terms?
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What does j8傻逼 mean?
In the following picture:
I understand the meaning of 傻逼 but what is the "j8" before it?
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Who should be counted when responding to 你家有几口人 (nǐjiā yǒu jǐkǒurén) "how many people are there in your family"?
An early question in Chinese people learn is:
你家有几口人？
How many people are there in your family?
(nǐjiā yǒu jǐkǒurén)
My Chinese text book contains these example responses:
五口人。他们是我爸爸，我哥哥，我弟弟和我。你呢？(...
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What does 三声无奈 mean?
There is this Min song called 三声无奈, lit. "three sounds helpless". This seems to be an idiomatic expression. I am not totally sure what it means though. It seems to mean "completely helpless". This is ...
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Difference in MEANING (NOT structure) between 得 vs 地
Please, don't explain when to use 得 or 地. I already know that the grammar difference between them both, which is:
V 得 adjective (老师话说得很快。)
adverb 地 V (老师快快地说话。)
Also there are many posts on this ...
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