16
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between 王 and 皇?
The generic way to refer to the highest ruler of any country/region is「君主」, corresponding to monarch.
If we talk about an English translation, specifically avoiding how these terms are used in China, ...
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16
votes
Accepted
What's the difference between classifiers and measure words?
Yes, there is a slight difference (although it appears there's no complete consensus on this).
A classifier, in linguistics (not just in Mandarin), is a word or morpheme used to express that a ...
- 5,452
15
votes
What is the difference between asking a question using 是不是 and 吗?
There is an important difference when you actually say these two sentences.
"你是中国人吗？" means "Are you a Chinese?"
Why do I ask that? Because "you" behaves or looks like a Chinese, but I am not quite ...
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14
votes
Accepted
Difference between 肯定 and 确定
肯定 certain; sure; affirm; (the outcome is virtually a fact)
确定 determine; confirm; finalize (the outcome is already a fact)
You can say, "Team China certainly (肯定) will lose to team Germany in the ...
- 77.1k
12
votes
自习 vs 自学: what's the difference?
自习 is more frequently related to the "self-study sessions" of high-school and colleges.
自学 generally implies teaching oneself about sth., i.e. no connotation to schools.
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11
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between 对不起, 请问, 不好意思, and 抱歉 to express "excuse me" or "sorry"?
对不起 is the phrase for apologizing for anything, for generally saying sorry. This is what you would normally say in situation 2.
请问 means "may I ask...?"; it is used to introduce a question and not to ...
- 226
11
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between 鸡蛋 and 鸟蛋?
鸡蛋 is a specific term.
鸟蛋 is a general term.
When we know what kind of bird it is, we use a specific term.
Otherwise, we use a general term.
For example, we call the eggs of 鸭 (duck), 鸽子 (dove), or ...
- 1,511
11
votes
Why in Chinese Bible (和合本), "you" was translated as "你" instead of "您"?
"I thought 您 is more polite and honorific and thus should be used when address Jehovah. Why was "you" translated as "你" instead of "您"?"
你 is, in fact, the ...
- 6,066
10
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between 夜(yè) and 晚 (wǎn)?
Originally, 晚 could be written as 莫 (in ancient form): 艹（草, grass）+ 日 (sun), referring to when the sun is below the grass -- sunset.
In modern Chinese, we can understand or memorize it in this way: ...
- 602
10
votes
Accepted
认识 vs 知道 based on glyph origins
I stated in my comment that I don't think study the etymology help you understand a character as much as cross reference the roles of a character in different compound words.
For 認
[1] recognise; ...
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10
votes
Accepted
Difference between 兵法 vs 武術
兵法 Art of War
用兵作戰的策略和方法。
strategies and methods of warfare.
兵書。
military books, which discuss the strategies and methods of warfare.
武術 Martial Arts
軍事技術。
military technology.
中國民族體育之一 (one of the ...
- 1,599
10
votes
What is the difference between 怎么 and 怎么样 ？
There are good explanations on the Web. I do not think I should copy them here. Please check
怎麼
and
怎麼樣.
In addition, there is a good article (pdf format) published by an associate professor, 蔡維天. ...
- 1,511
10
votes
Accepted
What's the difference between 停车 (tíngchē) and 泊车 (bóchē), which both seem to mean "park car"?
请勿泊车 = No Parking
No Parking mean you can stop the vehicle there, and you can load or
unload people and goods, but you can't leave the vehicle unattended
and go off.
禁止停车 = No Stopping
No ...
- 216
10
votes
Accepted
Why are there multiple ways to express "Wait a second" such as 等、等下、等一下？
Why not?
English has the similar phenomenon. For example, the following phrases have the same meaning:
wait a bit
wait a mo
wait a moment
wait a second
wait a minute
wait a jiffy
wait a jiff
The ...
- 1,463
10
votes
Accepted
What's difference between 国籍 and 民族?
国籍 = nationality (as based on what nation you are from)
民族 = ethnic group
For the majority of Chinese people their:
国籍 = 中国 (Chinese)
民族 = 汉 (Han)
Mou某♦
- 35.7k
10
votes
Accepted
What is 吗 doing in 你有什么事吗？
In Chinese grammar, words as 什么 are commonly known as interrogative substitutes, they substitute the word that should be found in the answer.
Therefore, they have inherent interrogative semantics, and ...
- 5,452
10
votes
警察 vs 武警 difference
警察: Police. In China the term 民警 (abbreviation for 人民警察 people's police) is used more often.
武警: Abbreviation for 武装警察 armed police. Although it is "police", actually it is a military unit. ...
- 681
10
votes
Accepted
Difference of 青 and 黑
青 does not mean black in modern Chinese (likely due to semantic transition). It can mean black in classical Chinese, but that does not mean its meaning is ambiguous either, given the context is ...
- 5,595
9
votes
Accepted
Difference between 元宵节 and 灯节？
元宵節
亦稱為上元節、小正月、元夕、小年或春燈節。
時間是每年的農曆正月十五。
佛教有在正月十五點燈供佛的習俗。
而道教中，上元節乃天官華誕，故燃燈以慶。
元：上元 (農曆正月十五，the 15th of the 1st lunar month)
宵：夜晚 (night, evening)
元宵：the evening of the 15th of the 1st lunar ...
- 5,886
9
votes
When do you use 所有， 全部， 整个, 完整?
That's an interesting question. The answer basically boils down to differences in grammatical role of these words:
所有 “all (of the)”, refers to all entities pertaining to a certain context. Given ...
- 5,452
9
votes
Accepted
What's the difference between 拍照 (pāizhào) and 照相 (zhàoxiàng) which both mean "to take a photo"?
The two terms have the same meaning of "take photograph" in modern Chinese, they just describe the same action differently.
'照' in '照相' refers to 'reflect with mirror' and 相 is short for 相片 (portrait/...
- 77.1k
9
votes
Difference using 的 here 1) 这道菜味道很好 and 2) 这道菜的味道很好
1.这道菜味道很好 and
2.这道菜的味道很好
If we analyze these sentences syntactically, we can conclude the following:
In sentence 1, 这道菜 is the topic of the sentence, and the comment is 味道很好. You should have a ...
- 864
8
votes
Difference: 些 and 有的
The main grammatical difference, which hints to the usage difference, is that 些 is indeed a classifier.
This implies 些 gets involved when you're counting stuff. Now you say: but 些 is supposed to mean ...
- 5,452
8
votes
Accepted
Difference between 孩子 and 儿童 (and 孩童，少儿，...)
In most cases, they are not interchangeable. In my experience, "儿童" emphasizes on age, but "孩子" emphasizes on relationship.
When you are talking about a part of the population, "儿童" is more formal ...
- 837
8
votes
Accepted
Is there a distinction between 禁止 (jìnzhǐ) and 严禁 (yánjìn), which both mean "forbid"?
严禁 is short for 严格禁止，which means strictly forbid.
禁止 is kinda suggestive，严禁 indicates something is obliged not to do by the rules or law.
Actually in everyday use, there is no obvious distinction ...
- 104
8
votes
Accepted
Do 朋 and 友 differ in meaning?
As a noun, both 朋 and 友 mean friends. While 朋 is mostly a noun, 友 is often be used as an adjective for 'friendly, ' as in '友軍'(friendly force); '友方'(friendly side)
友 can also be a verb for 'befriend' ...
- 77.1k
8
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between 呀 and 啊?
ABC's entry for 呀 says:
呀
ya5
(replacing a (啊) when preceding word ends in a, e, i, o, or (y)u)
快来呀!
Kuài lái ya!
Come quickly!
呀 is a replacement for 啊 when it comes after a vowel.
This is also ...
Mou某♦
- 35.7k
8
votes
Is it okay to ask 你的电话号码是什么?
I'd say all of your sentences are used in practice within the mainland.
These are all correct expressions:
你的电话号码是什么？
你的电话号码是多少？
你的电话是多少？
Colloquially, we even brief it like 你电话多少？ or 电话多少？
...
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