All Questions
5
votes
1answer
87 views
How euphemistic is 傢伙?
傢伙 (an example of a Chinese lexeme that does not map bijectively between simplified and traditional characters, the simplified word being 家伙) is translated, in the only translation Wang Xiaobo's work ...
5
votes
4answers
388 views
Stative verbs in Chinese: only for adjectives?
I've recently discovered that in Chinese, adjectives can function as verbs. An answer on this site stated that "all adjectives in Chinese can function as verbs".
This was obviously an interesting ...
5
votes
1answer
124 views
5
votes
3answers
112 views
Are 平常 and 通常 essentially interchangeable?
In a few of my entries on Lang-8.com, several of my Chinese friends have changed 平常 into 通常 and vice versa without providing additional explanation. It it just a matter of personal taste?
5
votes
2answers
281 views
What is the difference between yǐqián (以前) and zhīqián (之前)?
I'd like to have some way to differentiate between yǐqián (以前) and zhīqián (之前), in order to help with memorising them both. Referring to Modern Mandarin Grammar (Claudia Ross, Routledge 2006), it ...
5
votes
2answers
145 views
Is there a comprehensive list of vocabulary differences between 台湾国语 and 大陆普通话？
I've found many articles about differences in certain sentence structures regarding 台湾国语 and 大陆普通话, but does anyone have a large list of commonly-used vocabulary that are different? I spend a lot of ...
5
votes
1answer
1k views
How do we wish someone to get better?
When we know somebody is sick, how do we wish them to get better? What are the best ways and also the standard ones to do that?
I'd like you to differentiate among some things, if and when ...
5
votes
3answers
338 views
Is there an equivalent for the Cantonese phrase “Ng Goi”
The Cantonese phrase "Ng Goi" has many meanings;
"Excuse me"
"Thanks" (casual)
"Hey"
Does it have a 普通话 equivalent? And how can I write it in pinyin? Is it even possible?
5
votes
2answers
251 views
How did 外国人 become 老外?
From Baidu:
老外，是中国人对国外人的一种俗称，类似与老张、老王、老李之类的称呼。称呼中加“老”显得亲热，比如“老乡”“老表”，称呼你老外，就像称呼老张老李那样，大大咧咧，随便亲切。过去中国人对外国人的称呼都是用在第三人称上，只有“老外”可以用于第二人称。
To translate, it says laowai is a colloquial term for ...
5
votes
2answers
401 views
What is the name of this traditional Chinese character font?
The image below is from a book I bought while in Hong Kong (ISBN 957-14-4160-0. It's an edition of a work in classical Chinese, with an ancient commentary in classical Chinese, and a modern commentary ...
5
votes
2answers
120 views
Is there an authoritative reference for the stroke order of simplifed characters?
It seems various people often have various ways to write the same characters. For instance, I have seen the radical "忄" being written in three different ways (left, middle, right; left, right, middle; ...
4
votes
5answers
334 views
What is that use of 得?
I have read the sentence: 你还记得我吗？
But I can’t understand the meaning of 得, here. I don’t think it belongs to the rules explained here
4
votes
5answers
214 views
In this sentence, what is the purpose of 的?
Consider this sentence:
你说的是什么？
I understand that 的 permits creating adjectives, like 我的 would be "my". But here, I can’t see how it works. What is its purpose?
4
votes
6answers
577 views
Could you explain the structure of this sentence?
The sentence 我吃饭的时候看了一本书。 apparently has two verbs (吃 and 看), but I can’t see how the two actions are correlated. Could anyone explain that?
4
votes
4answers
175 views
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 ...
4
votes
3answers
152 views
Where can I find a list of commonly mistaken characters?
I want to quickly identify potential mistakes created by OCR software. Where can I find a list of all Chinese characters that visually look very similar and might often be confused?
4
votes
2answers
187 views
How can I skip characters I can't read when reading aloud?
As an example, I was at the cinema and I wanted to buy tickets for a film named
北京遇上西雅图
However, I can't read all of the characters.
In English I'd say;
Can I get a ticket for that film ...
4
votes
3answers
201 views
Meaning of 一不小心
I read a story where a child dropped a berry into a bucket full of berries and then tried to take it back. When she reached in to pick up her own berry, she grabbed a handful of the other berries. In ...
4
votes
3answers
160 views
Why is 土著人 used for Aboriginal people in Australia?
In Australia it is quite common to talk about Aboriginal people as they feature quite often when talking about sports, Olympics or politics.
The word that is used to describe Aboriginal people by ...
4
votes
9answers
485 views
Is 我很对不起你 a unique sentence structure?
I'd never seen or heard this before until I recently watched a TV series and had to ask my wife to explain.
My initial guess was that it meant "I feel sorry for you" when in fact it means something ...
4
votes
4answers
128 views
Etymology of 汉语
I knew a Chinese woman who taught me a lot about Chinese languages. One of them was about 汉语's etymology.
I was told that all parts of these characters had a meaning connected to the History of ...
4
votes
4answers
377 views
Written Cantonese input?
Although traditionally Cantonese speakers just use standard Chinese (mostly Traditional in my experience) for writing and reading, written Cantonese does exist as you can read about in this Wikipedia ...
4
votes
4answers
169 views
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"?
4
votes
4answers
226 views
What does this character mean?
I've tried a number of online and paper dictionaries (Chinese-Chinese character dictionaries) and I still can't find this character. Since I don't know how it's pronounced or what the right part is ...
4
votes
4answers
649 views
How to convert from hanyu pinyin to IPA?
Where can I find a table showing the relation between hanyu pinyin spelling and IPA for all phonemes in Mandarin?
4
votes
2answers
155 views
What is the proper usage of 而已 in Chinese?
I always hear Chinese people making sentences using 而已 - but I've never quite 100% how to use this in sentences myself. What is the correct way to apply it, and what is the English equivalent?
4
votes
5answers
174 views
Is there a site that can split characters into radicals?
For example, let's examine character heaven. It has a Ren radical (men). And then we add a strip to become Tha (big). And then we add another strip to get heaven.
Now, is there a site to do so?
I ...
4
votes
3answers
129 views
Idiomatic expressions for attitude (agreement or disagreement)
I have recently seen two phrases which, in my understanding, looked very similar to each other:
再看吧 [zài kàn ba]
考虑考虑 [kǎo lǜ kǎo lǜ]
However, I've been told that the first one means almost ...
4
votes
4answers
208 views
How to pronounce 儿 in conjunction with other characters
The textbook I'm reading now has liberal sprinklings of the 儿 character suffixing words that I have not previously seen suffixed.
For example: 空儿。
How should this be pronounced? Are there any rules ...
4
votes
2answers
280 views
Different pronounciation for the number 'one'?
Was talking to my friend (native Chinese) the other day and when she read out a phone number she said "yao" for all the "ones" in the phone number.
However, as far as I remember, for all other cases ...
4
votes
3answers
190 views
What is the difference between 做番 vs. 做返?
A friend (Mainland Chinese, living in Hong Kong) recently posted the following sentence on Facebook:
聖誕節買禮物?做番中國人啦!
As I had never seen the "做番" construction before, I asked if perhaps she had ...
4
votes
1answer
124 views
Is the traditional character for 雪 the same as itself?
Is the traditional character for ?
Or are both and considered the same character (汉字) with simply different font styles?
4
votes
2answers
223 views
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 ...
4
votes
4answers
2k views
How to say “hope you'll have a great day”?
I was writing a card to a friend and wanted to finish with "Hope you'll have a great day" but realised what I could think of wasn't quite the same meaning, or just sounded odd/weird.
What I wrote in ...
4
votes
2answers
151 views
What's the difference between 房子 and 屋?
It seems like "house" is usually translated to 房子 (fáng zi) in standard Chinese, although 屋 (wū) is also a common translation, especially in Cantonese.
Is there a difference between the two? When ...
4
votes
2answers
168 views
Useful resources for learning Taiwanese?
My girlfriend is from Fujian and speaks 闽南语, so I am trying to learn so I can communicate with her family better.
The struggle is finding any useful resources (even in Chinese), so I'm wondering if ...
4
votes
5answers
454 views
How to politely ask someone to please be quiet
There are particularly loud Chinese fellows working together in the university study room I'm working in. How do I politely ask them to quiet down?
I found a literal translation on Google Translate ...
4
votes
4answers
156 views
How do I practise grouping characters into words? At which stage of learning should one expect to be good at this?
I just got the following sentence in a newsletter:
请问我可以跟你借支笔吗？
Being a beginner that I am, I read it as "Can I please get one pay-check in advance?" because I saw this in my dictionary:
借支 = ...
4
votes
2answers
220 views
What is the classical Chinese meaning of 或?
I am reading a text that uses the following phrase:
或謂鄭相曰
I understand it generally to mean that
someone told to the prime minister of Zheng saying
However, I don't understand exactly ...
4
votes
1answer
78 views
Difference between 更好 and 比较好?
I'm confused about the difference between 更好 and 比较好. Since both seem to mean "better", how are these used differently? In what cases would you use them?
4
votes
2answers
199 views
Errors and Unnatural Language in a Translation Challenge
I was recently challenged to translate the following sentence from English into Chinese:
You should stay away from that bar. A friend of mine went there before, and he ended up in the hospital after ...
4
votes
2answers
151 views
What's the difference between 証 and 證?
I realized 证 could be 証 and 證. Is there any difference between them?
4
votes
4answers
128 views
What is the difference between 东西 and 用品?
What is the difference between 东西 and 用品? They both seem to have the meaning "stuff" in certain circumstances, but then 用品 is used in more formal situations, such as 医药用品 which I am assuming is not in ...
4
votes
3answers
365 views
Saying “I have to go” in chat
Today I was chatting online with a Chinese person. I wanted to say "I have to go" to end the conversation and disconnect, so I wrote this:
我得走了
but I don't know if there is a better sentence. ...
4
votes
3answers
88 views
Is 在瞬间 something like 'at some point'?
The phrase 在瞬间 zài shùnjiān seems literally to mean 'in an instant.' But usage-wise, is it more like 'at some point'? Or am I off the mark?
4
votes
4answers
228 views
What does 厉害 mean, and in what context does it mean what?
This has to be one of the more ambiguous words I have struggled with.
厉害 can be:
very well performed = 玩得很厉害;
harsh = 骂得很厉害;
severe = 生病得很厉害;
probably a bunch of other stuff...
Can anyone give a ...
4
votes
1answer
194 views
Did a king ask for a ball? How did 王 + 求 become 球?
The character 球 means ball and is composed of
王 meaning king and
求 meaning demand.
Where does this composition come from? Did a king ask for a ball?
4
votes
3answers
230 views
What's the main difference between 为 and 是?
It seems like both 为 and 是 mean "to be". In which cases is one used but not the other? Is it something like the difference between "estar" and "ser" in Spanish and Portuguese? (In the sense that one ...
4
votes
2answers
83 views
How to use 凭 as a preposition
I understand 凭 as a verb to mean rely. But I often read it and the seemingly related 凭着 in familiar contexts but still do not know what function it serves. Seeing example sentences doesn't make it any ...
4
votes
4answers
164 views
For all I know
There is an expression in English:
"For all I know, ...."
The following clause often has a modal expressing uncertainty or the hypothetical nature of the assertion, like "might", "may", "could", ...
