Questions tagged [writing]
Questions related to written Chinese. Note: there are separate tags for 'handwriting' and 'characters'.
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When years are (or were) written using Hanzi numerals, what are the usual variants/options?
I believe that these days, years would be written almost all of the time using Western/Arabic numerals in the Gregorian calendar.
But they must sometimes be written using the Hanzi numerals, e.g. in ...
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How to Format Chinese Address? [closed]
I have something to return on Aliexpress and the seller provided this address:
"Liu Kai
China Guangdong Province Dongguan Shatian Town san sheng cun yan he lu 50 hao er lou
CN 523000 Dongguan ...
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How do written Chinese works, such as novels, handle dialogue from characters with accents?
For example, how does modern or translated Chinese fiction denote that a character is speaking in standard but heavily accented language, aside from appending an outside-dialogue note? English fiction ...
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Ideas for Chinese leetspeak/computerized speech?
Leetspeak is the idea of replacing letters with characters that resemble them. For instance replacing "o"s with "0"s: n00b. This sort of text can also seem like computerized speech,...
Mou某♦
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Writer looking for Chinese name for a character
I'm writing a novel and I have a character that is of Chinese descent. The story takes place centuries into the future on another planet with only a handful (few several thousand) humans left. Of ...
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HSK5 writing exam
i am going to be taking the HSK5 exam soon, and i was wondering if there are any tips regarding the writing part, how to study for it, as far as characters go i can write them, but to make a paragraph ...
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Seeking Help Deciphering Characters on Small (Lead?) Vase with Teapot Enclosed
I have no skill in reading Chinese characters (hopefully someday) and would be grateful if anyone can help me decipher the writing on this object, which belonged to my grandparents. They traveled to ...
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应用文翻译成什么比较合适 ？ Practical writing?
应用文（借用百度的定义）这种文体，英语到底翻译成什么？
关于“应用文”的概念，学界尚无统一严格的定义，也不可能会有这样的定义，不同的学者和书籍往往有不同的归纳和概括。学习者可从以下几个方面把握其本质特征：
写作目的明确（实用性)
语言表达规范（规范性）
格式体例稳定
时间要素明确
Google 查了半天，只查到 practical writing 感觉有点怪，很Chinglish的感觉
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Naming characters in a xianxia short fiction!
I am in the midst of trying to learn mandarin but haven't learned enough to feel confident in my naming for some short fiction I'm writing. I'd love suggestions or changes!
Cáo Shīhán, a protagonist &...
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Usage of “了” in sentences where a period of time is involved
Consider the following sentences:
A. 我看了一个小时书 - I read a book for an hour
B. 我看一个小时书了 - ?
C. 我看了一个小时书了 - I have read a book for an hour and am still reading
D. 我看一个小时书 - ?
Question 1: is sentence B ...
Haziq Bin Yazid
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What are characters called when they have three of the same radical used?
I sometimes encounter characters like 鑫, which is made of three 金 radicals, or 龘, which is made of three 龍 radicals. What are they called and is there a reason for their existence? Ive tried looking ...
user31212
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What does 飄過 mean in this context?
Was playing some game that usually has a decent amount of Chinese speakers and at the beginning of the match somebody spammed this:
What would 飄過 mean here? I know it can mean to float but otherwise ...
user31212
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Can someone provide a translation of this old HK smoking ad?
I came across this interesting smoking ad from Hong Kong, but while I understand a good number of the characters, its hard for me to piece together everything that is being said here:
From what I can ...
user31212
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Different first stroke forms of 月 (yuè)
There seem to be two different forms of the first stroke in 月 (yuè). When the character stands alone by itself ("moon"), then the stroke seems to bend to the left after going straight down, ...
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How much less of chinese written language does GB2312 cover versus GB18030 and UTF8?
My daily work often involves handling databases from around the world, as I support customers. Frequently encoded in CSV / TXT.
For legacy reasons, encoding often needs to be done into GB2312 (Windows ...
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Tips and suggestions for learning Chinese (reading and writing) as a native
Just joined this site to post this question that I hope someone can help me with.
Just a little background about myself. I’m a Malaysian Chinese, and obviously I’m born in Malaysia. We live in a ...
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How can I write my simple text better? Number 2
I'm learning a lot by having you guys correct my stupid texts. Thanks a lot!
I wanted to do it again, so here we go:
Text:
我的工作室程序员，我知道java很好。
我想想会是警察，这样我学习学习的。
我学习韩语因为汉语学习是我的爱好。
谢谢你们因为你们看了我的写作。
What ...
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Is it viable to write Chinese in emoji?
I know this may be an absurd question. It's just a silly curiosity of mine. If I have a sentence like "the horse walks to the mountain to eat apples," which I very clumsily translate (...
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Why is Chinese written in different directions?
Example Given: The Peony Pavilion
Wikipedia: 牡丹亭
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peony_Pavilion
And another example on this pavilion can be seen below: 亭丹牡
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Is writing characters top-to-bottom and then left-to-right acceptable?
I know 草莓西瓜果泥 reads STRAWBERRY WATERMELON PUREE
Would this be acceptable too?
草 西 果
莓 瓜 泥
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Is there such a thing as dyslexia in Chinese?
A friend asked if there is such a disorder as dyslexia in Chinese and if so, how does it manifest itself?
dyslexia: a medical condition affecting the brain that makes it difficult for someone to read ...
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Correct writing of 酉
Wenlin dictionary describes the writing of 酉 by a third stroke as a 𠃍 héngzhé and not a ㇆ héngzhégōu.
When i look at https://www.zdic.net/hans/酉 it is more a ㇆ héngzhégōu.
When i look at https://...
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在 ... 之余 : It looks like there is a grammar point using 之 in that construction (found on archchinese). Who can explain that point?
On the website "archchinese" there are a few expressions using 在 followed by a part of sentence ending with 之余, 之前, 之后, 之际 :
在 … 之余
在 … 之前
在 … 之后
在 … 之际
Anyone can give a few explanations ?...
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can I get help with the concept of "balance" in chinese writing/speech?
Sorry about the broad title, but I am a newish Chinese student (just finished HSK1) and there's a concept that continually appears in my classes that I can't grasp.
Basically, there are lots of ...
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What's a mnemonic for remembering the characters in 建议 and 意见?
This is a little bit embarrassing, considering I'm currently studying HSK6-level content, but I cannot memorize how to write the HSK4 words:
建议 (jiànyì)
CC-CEDICT: to propose / to suggest / to ...
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Background guy in tik toks
Often in chinese tik tok compilations, there is a guy in the background who says something sounding like "ayodema" or something like that... I'd like to ask you what he is actual saying and ...
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How can I answer the question "你什么时候开始学中文的?"
How can I answer the question "你什么时候开始学中文的?"
I cannot answer the "什么时候" questions. Can anybody help me please?
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How are Chinese people taught Chinese Hanzi?
I don't study Chinese at all, nor have any plans to, I just wanted wanted to ask a basic question on how Chinese people learn Hanzi. I study Japanese, so I study Kanji, which is the use of Chinese ...
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What is wrong with how I wrote 你也不会呢 in 20年来，没有人相信我。你也不会呢？
I've been using LangCorrect recently to get feedback on my writing. Recently, I wrote this:
我的话让老妈失望地叹了口气，说：“20年来，没有人相信我。你也不会呢？我不是在撒谎！我不是在骗你！”那时，老妈站了起来，开始收拾东西准备走。
I received three corrections, one ...
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How are Chinese words sorted?
How do you sort Chinese words since they are not alphabetical? What sorts of sorting systems exist, and what is typical in dictionaries for example?
I am thinking how to do some programming stuff ...
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Why are titles sometimes placed in the middle of a newspaper article?
In a newspaper I'm reading (环球时报), there are multiple articles in which the title appears somewhere in the middle of the text. One example is:
(click for unannotated version; other examples: ...
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Are Characters customized in different provinces due to dialectal differences?
In other character-based writing systems such as Chu Nomh, Kanji, and Hanja, there are customized characters due to regional dialects. Has this occurred with Simplified at all? Or has the government ...
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Can 地 be used in place of 的 as a stylistic choice?
Is the use of 地 in the following document correct (some specific samples included below)? I feel like there are many cases where 的 should have been used, but 地 is used instead. The number of such ...
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Why would this insect pest poster in Taiwan have phonetic characters (Zhuyin) on every Chinese character?
In my Biology SE question Identify this large, beige or pine cone-colored squareish beetle and/or the pine cone it's on? I included a snapshot of a poster I saw when hiking. I was told that it advises ...
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How to pronounce English words in Chinese
Say you have a word in English like "stone" or "parabola". How do you write that in Chinese literally so that it is pronounced in Chinese like it is in English? That is, you can write the pinyin ...
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How would you write the years 1951 and 1964 in Chinese characters?
I know how to write the normal way to write numbers in Chinese but I wanted to know how to write years can anyone help me out? I really like the idea of getting this tattoed on me and I would like to ...
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How do you improve Chinese writing beyond HSK4 or HSK5?
I am learning Chinese (not student, just private interest) and my Chinese is somewhere between HSK4 and HSK5 (half part of HSK5 finished). I am not focussing to improve my vocabulary as when I speak, ...
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How did three characters for _de_ emerge?
I understand that there are three characters for de depending on the usage:
跑得快
快地跑
快的车
Would anyone know how it evolved into different characters when the purpose and pronunciation are similar?
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How to read this talisman (符)?
I came across this talisman (符) the other day:
I can recognize some characters in there, but mostly I'm just stumped by the entire thing. How are talisman supposed to be read? How can I read this ...
Mou某♦
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How are Chinese words created (both spelling and sound)?
I am trying to translate new words in English into Chinese.
Say we have some new words in English that have never been translated.
Ga (gah) = To walk upside down
Ba (bah) = Half unicorn half ...
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Closing a letter from two people
When writing a letter to family members, such as on a holiday card, how do you close the letter when it's being written from two people (such as from a husband and wife)? If one of our names is a one-...
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Are there text-based online roleplaying games which can be used for practicing Chinese writing?
Many years ago I played Cantr II. It's a text-based role playing game, but it's different to most: the aim of the game is not to "level up" or kill monsters. In fact there's no specified "goal". ...
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What did the original Tao Te Ching use for punctuation?
When you look at the Chinese versions of the Tao Te Ching online (here, here, and elsewhere), there are periods (。), commas, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation marks!
道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。無名天地之始；...
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Implied erhua in writing?
I often see, what I refer to as, implied erhua written in shop names, advertisements, on menus, etc. Take the following for instance:
嗝屁
You'd rarely ever hear gé pì read without erhuaization. So ...
Mou某♦
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How can I type 小篆characters that are not in the FANG ZHENG XIAO ZHUAN TI FONT?
By intalling the FANG ZHENG XIAO ZHUAN TI FONT I've been able to type 小篆 characters. However there are many chacters which don't change when the font is applied to them. For the more modern characters ...
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Are Chinese characters always in a perfect square shape, or are there fonts with rectangular characters?
Are all Chinese characters in all fonts placed in a perfect square grid, or are there fonts which make characters slightly rectangular such as 5:6 aspect ratio or 8:9 aspect ratio, etc. E.g. you find ...
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Can anyone tell me what this jacket says (Characters identified: 盖世英雄)
Help i have a jacket here that I want to buy but I need to know what it says and the site does not provide that information
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Cannot recognise a chinese chracter handwriting
Can anyone else tell me what the last character is please?
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Why does 努力 which means "to make a great effort" sound so similar to 奴隸 which means "slave"?
I find it interesting that these two are phonetically similar. Is there a historical background to this?
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What is the line “大势一去水东流” from?
I came across this line from 第一章 6 载昆 夫人 古老夫子:
“你们，莫冒火，听我来唱戏，”古老夫子真的唱起来。“事其所以观其所由，大势一去水东流。夫人呀，莫生气，请饮酒！”
I'm curious where the line:
事其所以观其所由，大势一去水东流
originates from.
事其所以观其所由 should probably ...
Mou某♦
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