Questions tagged [mandarin]
Question specifically about the Mandarin dialect. (Not for arbitrary questions that happen to involve Mandarin.)
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How do we choose the correct characters for a Western name?
Since there are many characters that share a common pronunciation and sometimes also the same tone, how do we properly choose which character best represents our name? Is it totally arbitrary or are ...
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Why there is no 的 after 你 in 你国家的医院好吗?
I got a translation of “Are hospitals in your country good?” from a native speaker of Mandarin as:
你国家的医院好吗？
Why there is no 的 after 你? It is after a pronoun for instance in such a sentence:
...
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Why is 有 (yǒu) the only verb that requires 没 while other verbs can use 不?
To negate something, we use 不 (bù) before the verb, such as in this short dialogue:
A: 你是老师吗？= Are you a teacher?
B: 不是。= I'm not.
However, the verb 有 (yǒu) is the only one that requires 没 (méi) ...
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Tense and use of 了
I struggle a bit to get my head around tenses in Mandarin, and in particular when I need to use 了 (le).
Do you have any tips, examples or resources to help me out with this?
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What is a good technique for remembering tones?
I find it a great struggle to try and remember tones for all the new vocab I learn, and aside from gradually picking up tones by listening and talking with native speakers, I can't really remember ...
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How does foreign word transliteration work in the context of Cantonese vs Mandarin?
If I understand correctly, Cantonese sounds very different from Mandarin, despite being written in the same way (omitting some small differences, which are irrelevant for the question).
If it is the ...
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What do these two characters on cufflinks signify? (Characters identified: 福 and 壽/夀)
I was given a pair of gold cufflinks by my grandfather who was in Shanghai 100 years ago. Each shows a Chinese character (Mandarin, I guess) and I would like to know what these mean. However I have ...
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的确, 确实, 实在, and 真正: what's the difference?
(Related a bit to Difference between 实际, 现实, 确实, and 实在 I guess. Good to link to it for posterity.)
的确, 确实, 实在, 真正
My dictionaries all say that all four can be adverbs with a meaning of "really." ...
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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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Which verbs DO NOT go with 了 and or 过?
I remember reading that some verbs don't accept 了 or 过.
Side question： When I use a word like 昨天 or 以前 do I use 了 or is it redundant? e.g. 昨天我去买了一台电脑 or 昨天我买一台电脑
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What was this online dictionary's name with ancient traditional and simplified characters and glyph origins? [duplicate]
I once found a Mandarin Chinese dictionary which for each character listed the ancient, the traditional and the simplified Chinese characters. For each it described its meaning and how it developed ...
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The development of rhotic vowels in Mandarin
Schuessler's reconstruction of the Old Chinese reading of 二 is *ńźi. It seems there is a correspondence between OC syllables beginning in *ń or *ńź and Mandarin syllables romanised as er.
However, I'...
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Why does the `请` take two duplicate words on its verb occasionally (e.g. `请洗洗你的袜子`)
I've read these sentences in my Rosetta Stone courses:
请洗洗你的袜子
请洗一下楼梯
However, why does the first sentence use two 洗 consecutively before taking the object? Also, how can I tell when to use one verb ...
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Why is there such a difference between "first name" and "last name"?
I'm learning how to translate "What's your last/first name?" with Duolingo and Google Translate. Both apps indicate that the correct translations are
你的姓是什么?
and
你叫什么名字
There are many differences ...
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Can native Chinese speakers distinguish tones in songs?
I already have a hard time distinguishing tones in normal speech. This gets significantly worse when I listen to Chinese songs, since the melody masks tones even further.
Yes, I understand that ...
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Is it easier to learn Chinese after learning Japanese or vice versa?
For those who speak both Chinese and Japanese, would first learning Chinese make it easier to learn Japanese?
Knowing that Japanese Kanji are derived from Chinese characters, how hard is it to do the ...
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Confusion about bian 邊 and miàn 面
I'm having a little trouble with learning directions and positions. It seems that most often the word bian is being used to indicate a position: front side 前邊, back side 後邊, etc.
But then I see stuff ...
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How do we know what characters correspond to Chinese names?
Recently I've asked "How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name?", and now, I'm facing a similar, yet kind of different problem, which I think applies to any westerner or Chinese ...
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Is there a rule of thumb for distinguishing male and female names in Chinese?
I often get tripped up when reading names of Chinese people, and trying to work out if they are male or female. Is there a good rule of thumb to follow to determine which is which?
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Is there a difference between "几点" (jǐdiǎn) and "什么时候" (shénmeshíhou)?
Both "几点" and "什么时候" seem to mean "what time?".
Here are two examples that contain "几点" or "什么时候":
我们什么时候开会？ (My interpretation: "When is the meeting?")
现在几点? (My interpretation: "What time is it?")
...
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Pinyin of 車 in idioms
In Cantonese, 車 has two pronunciations: [ce1] and [geoi1].
In Mandarin, 車 also has two different pinyin: [che1] and [ju1].
[ce1] corresponds to [che1].
[geoi1] corresponds to [ju1].
In most idioms,...
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Pronunciation of 那个
I'm surprised this question hasn't been asked yet!
The pinyin for 那个 is nà gè, but in conversation, Chinese people often pronounce it more like nee-guh than nah-guh. I asked my teacher and she says ...
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Is there a tone sandhi rule that "4 3" changes to "4 0"?
This is a followup to my earlier question about the tones in the word "豆腐":
On their own "豆" and "腐" have the tones 4 and 3: dòu, fǔ
As a two-syllable / two-character word, "豆腐" has tone 4 but "fu" ...
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How many syllables does Chinese have?
I'm just reading a book about China and Chinese customs from Heike Barai. She says that Chinese only has around 300 different syllables, whereas modern German has about 10 000 and I suppose English is ...
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Does Chinese have a phrase equivalent to "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", ...
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How to say, “In Chinese" in Chinese
If I want to tell someone they can speak to me in Chinese, how can I say it?
My guess is:
你可以给我说用中文
Is this correct, and is there any other way to say it, for example using the 把 structure (i.e. ...
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Selecting resources to improve reading for upper-intermediate level? [closed]
There is a great question on 'how to practice reading for beginners' at the moment that's got a lot of really useful answers, and so I figured I'd ask for some useful things closer to my level. Does ...
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Characteristics of Northern and Southern accents
My first language is Cantonese. I learned Mandarin as a second language. Native speakers of Mandarin often understand me with no major issues. Of course, they recognize the Southern accents right ...
user382
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Mandarin pronunciation for <hen> and <yuan>
Consider for example the words 很 (hěn) and 员 (yuán). I constantly hear each term pronounced in at least two distinct ways by native speakers. The issue is really the vowel sound in the finals.
...
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Using 色 with colors [duplicate]
I'm making something to teach students Chinese colors... Let's say they have to match a color to a square- Is it okay to just use 红， 蓝， 紫， etc on each block just as long as they know 色 means color... ...
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How to determine if character can be used separetely?
This question might be weird, but I haven't been able to find an answer to this.
Some characters seem to be used only in combination with other characters. For instance, I believe 儿 cannot be used ...
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Does 芋頭 have a different pronunciation in Taiwan Mandarin vs Mainland?
My friends in Kaohsiung just taught me the word for "taro" 芋頭.
I looked it up and found yu4 tou5 but my friends here insist it's yu4 tou2.
Is this a pronunciation difference between Taiwan vs the ...
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Mandarin: different ways of asking if someone prefers A to B
This question is similar but doesn't address this question of comparing different ways to express the notion of preferring A to B.
Are all these ways valid grammar for asking if someone prefers A to ...
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How would you say "he does not take criticism well" in Cantonese and in Mandarin? [closed]
How would you say this in Cantonese and how would you say this in Mandarin?
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Difference between 製作 and 製造?
Both 製作 and 製造 mean "to make" according to this dictionary:
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2913/
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/6021/
It seems like 製造 might ...
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How to describe differences between Cantonese and Mandarin?
When I tell people I speak Cantonese I'm often asked, "What's the difference between that and Mandarin?". This inevitably leads to a very poor explanation that includes references to the differences ...
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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 this an exception in the use of 的?
I know that, when expressing possessives, we add 的 to the usual personal pronouns, such as 我的.
However, in a question in my grammar textbook I saw:
你爸爸忙吗? = Is your father busy?
Why not "你的爸爸忙吗？"?...
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Is "biang" a phonologically possible syllable in Mandarin Chinese?
One of the local specialty favourite dishes in Shaanxi province where I am now is Biángbiáng miàn.
Photo by hippietrail
The hanzi character for "biáng" is usually the focus of discusssions of this ...
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Various ways to say "nice to meet you"
When I first started learning Chinese I knew the in order to say "Nice to meet you" or "Pleased to meet you," I had to use the following expression:
很高兴见到您。
But recently I've come across other ...
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Are there rules about the differences between pinyin spelling and pronunciation?
I noticed that sometimes certain finals in Chinese sound differently when combined with different initials.
For e.g., what is spelled "u" sometimes is pronounced "ü". Other times, ...
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Are there differences in writing between Chinese languages, such as Mandarin and Shanghainese
There are already many questions about the different spoken languages that can be called Chinese. This question on the other hand asks about the written one(s?).
Well, to start, is the written ...
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我(也)很好 and tone sandhi
What are the (resultant) tones in those sentences, where all the words in isolation have 3rd tone?
我很好。
我也很好。
Reading tone shandhi rules on Wikipedia, there is no explanation about tree or four ...
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Are people's names always pronounced the same in Mandarin?
In many languages, you can not be really sure how to pronounce a person's name, so you have to ask them first, and remember. For instance, "Broglie" can be brɔɪ or brɔˈgli, "中島" ...
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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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What software can correct pronunciation?
What software is available which can record my voice and warn me about problems with my pronunciation and tones?
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Asking "what's the pinyin/character for X?"
How do we ask someone to "translate" a character or some pinyin into the other one? The expressions I'm referring to are:
What's the pinyin for this/that (character)/... ?
What's the character ...
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What is the correct pronunciation of 垃圾?
The word 垃圾 is sometimes pronounced laji, but other times I've seen it pronounced as lese, which pronunciation is deemed to be more correct? Are they both interchangeable?
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Why can't 去 or 回来 be used with 在 or 正在 to become progressive
So first off, I feel I should specify I am a beginner at Chinese. In my Chinese class, we were asked to write down a progressive question, using the 在...(呢) format. My question was, 你们没在去吗？ which I ...
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Origin of beautiful kingdom and hero kingdom
Why in Mandarin chinese, USA is beautiful kingdom and England is hero kingdom?
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