10
votes
Accepted
Difference Between 学校 and 学堂
The connotation of 学堂 is more than "an old expression of school", but "an old-style school in ancient China". A typical 学堂 only has one room and one teacher and few students (compared with a modern ...
- 6,043
9
votes
Accepted
Why do cat (猫) and dog (狗) share the same 犭 radical?
The radical in 猫 actually comes from 豸 zhi4 (beast), which you can still see in the traditional character 貓.
Whereas the radical in 狗 is in fact 犭 quan3.
The simplified version of 猫 got the 犭 ...
- 5,432
7
votes
Accepted
Thought Experiment: Twitter Character Limits
Actually, if Twitter were to play fair, I think they would restrict Chinese users to 46 characters, since there are 3 bytes / UTF-8 encoded Chinese character, and only 1 byte / English letter. ...
- 1,949
6
votes
Accepted
What are the advantages / disadvantages for learning tones with Pinyin vs with Gwoyeu Romatzyh?
In general, I think too much importance is ascribed to which transcription system is used. Students' ability to distinguish, pronounce and remember tones depends on many factors and the way the tones ...
- 3,000
6
votes
The difference between "忍受不住" and "忍受不了"
忍受 = to endure/ to stand (put up with)
Your question is about the difference between two particles '住' and '了'; It also involve the usage of a potential particles '得' (see How to determine the part ...
- 74k
5
votes
Accepted
How to write "Oh" in Chinese （哦，噢，喔）
i'm Chinese. these words are the same word, means exactly the same thing. It's just when we use QQ, some people use 噢 instead of 哦。kind of a personal preference. For example, I always use 哦, never 噢。...
5
votes
The difference between 比～更 and 比～多了
Simply,
比～更: even (more)；
比～多了：much (more)；
他打篮球比我更好。： he plays basket ball even better than me.
他打篮球比我厉害多了。: he plays basket ball much better than me.
坐高铁比坐飞机更方便。: Taking high-speed ...
- 24k
5
votes
Accepted
When to use 相比 and 比?
It's quite easy to distinguish.
First is the conclusion:
"相比" in Chinese equals to "compare with" in English.It's usually a common verb.
"比" in Chinese equals to "more than" or "xxxer than" in ...
- 154
4
votes
How to write "Oh" in Chinese （哦，噢，喔）
I don't know the nomenclature of mainland China but here in Taiwan:
All these are used when replying someone. Like when you say "Yeah?", "Is that right?", "Okay.", "Alright.", "Got it.", etc. in ...
- 246
4
votes
Accepted
What is the difference btween 看样子 and 看起来
From the comment by @user6065
Similarities and differences of '看来', '看起来' and '看样子'
Similarities:
They are all conjunctions, used to make judgements or predictions based on a specific situation.
...
- 155
4
votes
Accepted
Comparing intensifiers
很 - very
真 - really
挺 - pretty
非常 - >= very, < extremely
相当 - quite
极为 - extremely
太 - too
These words are describing a 'level'.
挺 = 蛮 = 比较 < 很 <= 非常 = 特别 < 极为
太 is somehow special, ...
- 315
4
votes
Difference between 游学 and 留学
留学 http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/20426/
to study abroad
'留' = 'stay'; '學' = 'study'
'留学' means 'stay (abroad) to study'
If you say: "我要去留學" (I am going to study abroad), ...
- 74k
4
votes
Saying 'doubled' in Chinese 一倍 vs 两倍
Technically, when you say "增加了n倍", "n倍" is describing the difference the two number. So the original x becomes x*(n+1), while the difference is n*x.
If you want to say that the latter number is just ...
- 8,695
4
votes
The difference between "忍受不住" and "忍受不了"
bkrs：不住 1) unable to v. (also repeatedly
continuously
constantly)，unable to (resist, conceal etc)
疼极了！我忍不住了！ It's awfully painful! I can't stand it anymore 忍不住
special cases having their own ...
- 2,456
3
votes
Accepted
比 comparison structures: positive adjectives?
Personally, I've never heard about this as a strict grammar rule. You can say both versions of the same sentence as:
他比我高 vs
他比我矮
or
他比我富有 vs
他比我穷
and they would be equally correct, even though I ...
- 5,432
3
votes
Difference Between 学校 and 学堂
I think in my native dialect (Wu dialect) we still call school 学堂. On the other hand, as a native Mandarin speaker I would say, albeit not all would agree with me, that whenever one would like to ...
- 119
3
votes
Thought Experiment: Twitter Character Limits
Let's revisit why Twitter imposed the 140 character limit:
We like to keep it short and sweet! It also just so happens that 140 characters is the perfect length for sending status updates via text ...
- 540
3
votes
The difference between "忍受不住" and "忍受不了"
To me, both have the very similar meaning. If there were any difference, it would be too trivial.
- 81
3
votes
Are there Escher sentences in Chinese? [kinda technical]
"More people have been to Russia than I have" doesn't make sense in English, therefore, it wouldn't make sense in Chinese neither.
(2)-(4) would not be considered grammatical by native ...
- 74k
3
votes
Accepted
Meaning of 一样 in 你要像喜欢甜一样喜欢苦
你要像喜欢甜一样喜欢苦
(1) What does 一样 means in this sentence?
"像 (X)一样" means "the same as (X) " or "like (X)" in this sentence
你要喜欢苦 = You have to love bitter
你要[像喜欢甜一样]喜欢苦 = You have to love bitter [...
- 74k
2
votes
Thought Experiment: Twitter Character Limits
Short Answer
Undefined.
Long Answer
To fully support my opinion, There are a few points I would like to clarify:
I would say 請勿靠近車門 is one of the outliers of the norm of microblogs (Twitter and ...
- 3,277
2
votes
What are the advantages / disadvantages for learning tones with Pinyin vs with Gwoyeu Romatzyh?
Chao was a genius and a very funny guy. But pinyin draws on his experience with GR and a lot of other efforts. Pinyin is a better system. And of course it is far more widely used.
Tone marks seem ...
- 3,261
2
votes
Accepted
While learning Korean, is it a good idea to start learning Chinese in parallel?
I speak Chinese, Korean and Japanese and it's not the grammar but the vocabulary which is similar. I learnt Chinese first so expected Korean to be very alike due to reading that 60% of all Korean ...
- 136
2
votes
The difference between 比～更 and 比～多了
Thay both are forms of comparison statements. Similar to English, the "多" just equal to "much".
Let me translate into English word by word that you would know the difference at once.
EP1
他打篮球比我更好。...
- 810
2
votes
Accepted
How to make analogies?
You can translate them as:
力大如牛/像牛一样强壮
像狐狸一样聪明
像石头一样木讷
像小丑一样好玩
胖得像个气球
像军人一样勇敢
像母亲一样善良
像僧人一样冷静
像路灯一样高
像蚂蚁一样
11.像蝙蝠一样丑陋
In most cases, you can use "像". "如" is more literal and formal than "像".
But be ...
- 36
2
votes
Saying 'doubled' in Chinese 一倍 vs 两倍
They both express doubled.
It’s a bit like how:
a 100% increase (一倍)
is the same as
a two-fold increase (两倍)
A phenomenon that is equally confusing in English.
Compare: 一倍 example sentences ...
Mou某♦
- 35.4k
2
votes
The difference between "忍受不住" and "忍受不了"
忍受不住: you can't hold it up.
忍受不了: you can't stand it or I've had had it.
忍受不住 takes the abstract things(such as feelings) as its object. E.g. 忍受不住诱惑; 忍受不住疼痛. For the normal object like 噪音, you ...
- 24k
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