7
votes
How is this smodin.io AI-generated Chinese passage?
The grammar / wording gives me the feeling that it's an English passage translated into Chinese, and the translator did a poor job. Some parts are not even locally grammatical. Considerable ...
- 813
5
votes
Accepted
How to proceed after forgetting to include time-when/location/adverb phrase before main verb?
It's totally valid and common to add adverbial modifiers after your main clause.
In conversation, rules are breakable. In writing, there is 倒裝句(Inversion), yeah, that means putting adverbial ...
- 6,247
4
votes
Why do so many people pronounce "馄饨" as hún dùn?
Because native speakers don't actually know the tone without being taught it.
Northern Mandarin pronounces it as húntun ~ húndun, with the second syllable having the light tone (轻声). The morpheme 饨 ...
- 378
4
votes
"学大汉，武立国"? Is it not "国立武汉大学"？
It is some kind of wordplay, using '回文句' and '拆句'
回文句 is a text you can read from both ends
拆句 is changing the word groupings in a sentence and read it in different way
From http://blog.sina.com.cn/...
- 77.1k
3
votes
Accepted
What does 幾分 means in 我愛你有幾分?
我 = I
愛你 = love you
有幾分? (in what degree) = how deep? --> how much?
我愛你有幾分? = how deep I love you
分(degree) here is a classifier for depth
Example:
沒半分愛意 (don't have a tiny bit of love) 半分 --&...
- 77.1k
3
votes
闕 meaning in 一闕短歌
闕 que4 refers to the two pillars of the gate of palace or tombs; later extended to mean watchtower. 闕 que1 is to leave empty, to lack, broken, to err. Using 闕 as a classifier of song/詞 is a mistake ...
- 4,485
3
votes
Are there any circumstances in which 弈 (yì) could be mistaken for 野 (yě)?
It may be possible if we say only one word, 奕 or 野, quickly and ambiguously.
When they are combined with other words, we have these words to judge it.
牧野 is the name of a place, and we always use ...
- 1,328
2
votes
Why do so many people pronounce "馄饨" as hún dùn?
馄 (hún) in '馄饨'(hún tún) is pronounced correctly
Since 饨 (tún) looked like 沌 (dùn), people may have just confused the two characters.
Cantonese write 餛飩 as 雲吞 with the same pronunciation
雲吞 /wan4 ...
- 77.1k
2
votes
How important are tones in comparison with vowels or consonants in Mandarin?
Mispronunciation of tones sounds "more wrong", probably not because it is more wrong, but rather more random and so, harder to determine what the speaker means to say. Mispronunciation of sounds tends ...
- 6,066
2
votes
"学大汉，武立国"? Is it not "国立武汉大学"？
Well, you are absolutely right, it is 国立武汉大学，people sometimes say 学大汉，武立国 for the following reasons
学大汉，武立国 happens to make a reasonable sentence
writing from right to left is an old tradition and ...
- 3,089
2
votes
Why do so many people pronounce "馄饨" as hún dùn?
Which one comes first: the pronunciation or the regulation of it?
You can only say one pronunciation obeys a regulation or not, but you cannot say which pronunciation is "wrong". If in one ...
- 2,606
2
votes
闕 meaning in 一闕短歌
From the answer I got at CantoPlus
cyruschiu wrote:
First of all, the classifier for song should be 闋, not 闕 (both are read as kyut3). 現代漢語詞典 has both characters on the same page (p.1081) -- 闋 is ...
- 77.1k
2
votes
What does 幾分 means in 我愛你有幾分?
You misunderstand 分 here.
分 does not mean "division" here. Here 分 means the "points" (test score), in an exam or a contest where the perfect score is ten.
分 can also means "...
- 1,867
1
vote
Accepted
How can one get away with saying a noun before a description?
If you stated the subject before describing it, you can always use another sentence to add the description
For example:
A: 「警察是一个人」 (Police is a man)
A: 「一个維護法紀的人」" (A man who upholds law and order)...
- 77.1k
1
vote
How can one get away with saying a noun before a description?
警察是一个人。。。一个追逐犯人的人 is also used for emphasis. One way to get around your issue is that when you try to start with 警察是一个人, try to insert a description between the measure word and noun/pronoun. In your ...
- 24k
1
vote
How can one get away with saying a noun before a description?
警察是一个人。。。一个追逐犯人的人。 is also ok, but as you know, they are not very Chinese style.
The bad news is you can not put an attribute clause after your noun.
The good news is there are many other ways.
...
- 6,247
1
vote
How to proceed after forgetting to include time-when/location/adverb phrase before main verb?
It is perfectly fine to add additional information to the sentence you have just said with another sentence
Example:
總統被人發現跟妓女上牀 (pause) 就在總統辨公室内 (pause) 而且是未成年的妓女
The president was found to be in ...
- 77.1k
1
vote
Why do so many people pronounce "馄饨" as hún dùn?
Just stick to what you have observed, this is a long story, many pronunctions in the dictionary have this problem.
You can observe these characters in your life:
血
荨
累
载
颈
伯
壳
说
骑
作
- 6,247
1
vote
Are there any circumstances in which 弈 (yì) could be mistaken for 野 (yě)?
To me, these two words are very distinctive and I had never encountered a case for these two words which confused my understanding. I just can't think of any occasion off the top of my head.
- 24k
1
vote
Where can I find a list of commonly mistaken characters?
My list of similar characters.
https://kmccready.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/my-list-of-similar-chinese-characters/
- 11
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