Xi1'an 西安

[schnaz]

In case you are struggling with basic vocabulary as I am this may interest you: Xi1'an means western peace 西安 and Xi1'an at one time [206 BCE - 580 CE] was called perpetual peace 长安 Chang'an . In 581 CE it became 大興 Da4 xing4 [since this is the same xing4 as in hen3 gao1 xing4 can we call the city " big excitement" ? Maybe all that excitement was hard to sustain because it went back to being Chang'an perpetual peace 长安 again in 618 during the Tang Dynasty. By the way Xi1'an is home to facilities for China's space exploration program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi%27an




Best regards Schnaz

[linguoboy]

Why do you write "Xi1'an" rather than "Xi1an1" (if you're using tone numbers, there's no reason for an apostrophe, since it only serves to indicate the syllable break, and that's obvious once you insert tone) or proper Pinyin "Xī'ān"?

[azhong]

In 581 CE it became 大興 Da4 xing4 [since this is the same xing4 as in hen3 gao1 xing4 can we call the city " big excitement" ?

Good job, schnaz. It seems you are learning Chinese and Chinese history in a very creative way. Thumb you up!

However, may I have a small comment?
"興": (1) xing1 (2) xing4:
you have a good guess but unfortunately your guess in pronunciation happen to be the wrong one, and thus an incorrect meaning too. Interested to study it again with your dictionary? (I left this exercise for you just to help your remember it better. And we can disccuss it later if you'd like to.)

And btw, thanks for your information, some of which I don't know neither.

[schnaz]

Linguoboy,
Thanks for responding to my post. I love my 3 x 5 index cards where I note down sentences which I carry with me to practice during the day.Unfortunately it is not uncommon for me to err while transcribing from source to card. I have the card at hand which says Qu4 nian2 wo3 dao4 Xi1'an qu4 guo4. The source however eludes me. It could have been from CHINESE - ENGLISH FREQUENCY DICTIONARY by Yong Ho which I damaged when I fell asleep in the bathtub while reading it. Now my copy has 40 fewer pages than when published. It's shame too because though I 've had the book for 3 years , only now was I starting to be able to use it to advantage. Notwithstanding here is what I found at the MDBG dictionary.



http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... &wdqb=xian


Chang'an (ancient name of Xi'an 西安) capital of China during Tang Dynasty 唐朝 / now 長安區｜长安区 district of Xi'an

It seems to me that the card represents a hybrid transcription combining features of English
['] and Chinese [Xi1]
Sorry for my confusion.

I appreciate your interest,
Schnaz

[schnaz]

Thanks for your encouragement Azhong. Here is what I came up with for xing1 and xing4

excited; to prosper, to rise, to prevail, to start, to begin, to encourage, to promote

兴
xing1

mood or desire to do something

兴
xing4

So my next guess as to the city's name is "Big Prosperity" which seems not so far from what we call the city of New Orleans, "The Big Easy".
http://www.helium.com/items/1242521-why ... e-big-easy

Best Regards,
Schnaz

[azhong]

Thanks for your information, Schnaz. (And now I am wondering why New York city is named "the Big Apple"...)

One more small note to decorate youe study: you might have interest to know 兵馬俑(Terracotta Army) when talking about 西安.

Would you plan to develop this thread "perprtually" (do I use "perpetually" correct?) to study names of cities? That might be a very special travel, I'd say. And I'd be very interested to have my regular read.

[schnaz]

Thanks Azhong,
I learned quite a bit from the article you recomended.



Thanks for helping 助力 zhu4 li4
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... lping+hand

us travel with our imaginations through space to China. I would also like to add travel 行 xing2

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... dqb=travel

through time and so I'm going to try to establish what dynasy Qin Shi Huang belonged to.Sure enough it's the Qin 秦

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... ynastyQin2

Dynasty

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Qin_Shi_Huang

It seems that the Qin Dynasty has only 2 members and is located in time between 221BC and 206 BC
http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Han/qin.html

I was hoping to be able to give a conversion of 221 BC and 206 BC in the Chinese calender and while I turned up lots of information I could not quickly find out how to do it

.http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/cal ... inese.html

Perpetuity and perpetual mean "forever" to me and though that is an exciting prospect, I can't expect to do that. I am however happy to travel with you in our imaginations and maybe we will get more companions as we go along. You mention New York . It is a city close to me because I was born there. My parents chose to leave when I was one year old and go to Vermont. These two places are culturally very different. New York extremely 建成区 jian4 cheng2 qu1 urban and Vermont extremely rural 乡下 xiang1xia. This web site will answer some questions but probably raise more questions than it answers.

http://salwen.com/apple.html

Happy Trails ya'll

Schnaz

[azhong]

Hi schnaz:

just some personal responses, perhaps not the ones you are expecting.

Thanks for helping 助力 zhu4 li4 us...

two more common expressions for "help" is 幫助 or 幫忙

I would also like to add travel 行 xing2 through time...

"travel", 旅行

It seems that the Qin Dynasty has only 2 members ...

Members? Do you mean two generations, two leaders, or the like?

I was hoping to be able to give a conversion of 221 BC and 206 BC in the Chinese calender and while I turned up lots of information I could not quickly find out how to do it
.http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/cal ... inese.html
...

I've just roughly read over this webpage for now; it seems you are learning how to calculate the Chinese Lunar Calendar? That's cool if you can master it; I couldn't do it neither. Usually we just see the calendar to check when some coming festival of Chinese lunar calendars will be. (But I still don't figure out why you need to learn this for learning Qin Dynasty?)

And finally, thanks for your introducing US cities.

[schnaz]

Hi Azhong and our other travelers,
Thank you for your help with 帮助 here is a sentence [ I try and add new words to my vocabulary with a complete sentence]

Chinese Sentence: 上帝帮助那些自己帮自己的人。
English Translation: God helps those who he1p themselves

Simplified Traditional Pinyin Tones English
上帝 上帝 Shang4 di4 Shàng dì God
帮助 幫助 bang1 zhu4 bāng zhù assistance / aid / to help / to assist
那些 那些 na4 xie1 nà xiē those
自己 自己 zi4 ji3 zì jǐ self / (reflexive pronoun) / own
帮 幫 bang1 bāng to help / to assist / to support / for sb (i.e. as a help) / hired (as worker) / side (of pail, boat etc) / outer layer / group / gang / clique / party / secret society
自己 自己 zi4 ji3 zì jǐ self / (reflexive pronoun) / own
的人 的人 de5 ren2 de rén People

http://www.echineselanguagelearning.com ... elves.html

Another sentence using 旅 行

I like traveling a lot.

我 很 喜 欢 旅 行 。
Wo3 hen3 xi3huan lu~3xing2.

http://hua.umf.maine.edu/php/search.php

Regarding my use of "members of a Dynasty" while I not uncomfortable with the term I think your use of the number of generations in a dynasty has more precision.

On Tuesdays during months that permit farm work I work for a Chinese couple on their farm. She has told me about her home town and I would like to virtually visit it. She told me the name but I didn't write it down but she told me that it is about 600 km east of 西安 in Henan province http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/43582.htm so I'd like to direct our virtual journey in that direction. Soon I hope we can visit Shangluo 60 km or so southeast of 西安

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g101 ... tions.html

See ya, Schnaz

[azhong]

Both your two sentences are to me correct, schnaz. Good jobs.

[schnaz]

Hi all,

After our last conversation I decided I would like to go ahead and take up cyber residency in 陕西省 Shan3xi1 Sheng3 Shaanxi Province. I Googled “cyber residency China “ and could not find any permits to fill out so it would seem that I am in. the first thing I wanted to know after I got there [ in my imagination] was how did 陕西省 Shan3xi1 Sheng3 get to be called 陕西省 Shan3xi1 Sheng3 . At first I thought it meant “west of the mountain pass” but the mountains in 陕西省 run East to West. It turns out that 陕西 means west of Shan County (simplified Chinese: 陕县; traditional Chinese: 陝縣; pinyin: Shǎn Xiàn) is a county of western Henan province, People's Republic of China. It is located on the southern (right) bank of the Yellow River, just southwest of Sanmenxia, which administers the county. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shan_County,_Henan Now that we have that clear please let me tell you something of my cyber adopted home province. It is about the size of Nebraska. Population wise if it were a state it be the second most populous, between California and Texas. http://www.omaha.com/article/20120801/NEWS/708019910/0
Well that’s all we have time for today but I hope you’ll come back and remember even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Vocabulary 词汇 ci2 hui4 ci2 = word , hui4 = concourse, flow together, gather
陕 http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... =%E9%99%95
西 http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... =%E8%A5%BF
省
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... %E7%9C%81+
县
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... =%E5%8E%BF

[schnaz]

Goodmorning all,
One of my favorite sources for information about China is my employer [on Tuesdays] Let's call her Show Chin for the time being.[ She wrote her name out for me but since she would rarely have need to use pin1 yin1 I suspect that what she wrote won't give us the information we need to pronounce her name properly] So about 20 years ago years ago Show Chin's husband was recruited by the du Pont company to come from China to Delaware, USA and work in their research laboratory and
Show Chin worked there too. But it seems her true calling was to be in agriculture because the family bought a chunk of Chester County Pennsylvania very close to the Brandywine Creek and started growing vegetables. I think they chose well because this is some of the best farmland on the face of the earth though, I feel unfortunately, now used mostly to provide a space for suburban housing. [ incidently, the land along the Brandywine was especially esteemed by the Leni Lenape Indians who rendered this area to the European immigrants / invaders only when there was nothing else left to render.] But back to October 2012, imagine if you will, we've been clearing the weeds from a long tunnel and Show Chin comes over and asks if we want some snacks [ well of course we do so let's head for the kitchen and sit down to some very good apples and maybe a few slices of pomelo. We start out with a conversation about who in the family does and does not like pomelo but soon Show Chin asks me how things are going on my imaginary journey to China. I am proud of my research on why Shaanxi is called Shaanxi but Show Chin seems skeptical. Moreover she tells me that she is not sure if I am talking about Shaanxi
or Shanxi . I do my best to correct my tones and Show Chin says something like:” Well now the people in Shanxi are rich because though the land is poor they have coal” and she spells it out c –o-a-l. I don’t know why she spelled it out, she pronounced it perfectly well . But it did add emphasis as if I had told her : “Texas has oil o-i-l.” Yes”, she says, You don’t even have to dig for it , it sticks right out of the ground.” Right then I knew I wanted to see a picture of that so lets see if we can find one. If my Mandarin were good enough to use a Chinese search engine I prob
ably could find one but since it is not the best I could come up with within a reasonable amount of time was information about Datong “coal city “ and a picture of coal miners. http://english.dtcoalmine.com/101992/36844.html

Then later I found:

This may be as close as I can get to what Show Chin described http://wikitravel.org/en/File:HangingMonastery.jpg

I hope you enjoyed our quick trip to coal country next week I hope to visit a spot closer to Azhong which is Fujian.


生词语 vocabulary words shēngcíyǔ

云冈石窟 Yungang caves Yúngāngshíkū

云 cloud yún http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... b=%28cloud

冈 ridge/mound gang1
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... wdqb=gang1

石 rock/stone shi2
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... 3*&wdrst=0

窟 cave/hole ku1
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... F*&wdrst=0

[schnaz]

福建省 Fújiàn Shěng
福fú good fortune / happiness / luck
建jiàn to establish / to found / to set up / to build / to construct



Greetings to all fellow cybertourists, My imaginary trip to Fu2jian4Sheng3 has taken a little longer than I thought it would due to some non-imaginary life requirements but now I’m ready and I can tell you that this trip was occasioned by my first visit to a Chinese take out restaurant in my home town. After placing my order I ask the young woman who takes my order where she was from in China and “Fu2jian4” she replied or maybe she replied “Fu2zhou1”. I’m not sure but I did get the Fu2 part and when I spoke to Show Chin about it she said she was probably from the capital of Fu2jian4, Fu2zhou1 and she added that emigration is a tradition with people from that area because many ethnic Chinese around the world, especially Southeast Asia, trace their ancestry to Fujian. Descendants of Fujian emigrants make up the predominant majority ethnic Chinese populations of Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Fujian, especially Fuzhou, is also the major source of Chinese immigrants in the United States.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/inter ... .html?_r=0

By the way: The Yuanhe Maps and Records of Prefectures and Counties, a Chinese geographical treatise published in the 9th century, says that Fuzhou's name came from "Mt. Fu", a mountain located northwest of the city. The mountain's name was then combined with -zhou, meaning "settlement" or "prefecture", in a manner similar to many other Chinese cities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzhou



It seems that English speakers know a few words of Min Nan even if we don’t know that we do, consider the following borrowed from: http://montanajoe16.tripod.com/fujian.html

1. Satin. From the ancient port of Zaytun, now called Chuanchew in Fujian.
2. Tea. YES! This is actually a Hokkien word which is teh.
3. Junk. The Chinese ship. The Hokkien word for it is "jun", which was kinda brutally mangled as "junk" by non-Min speakers grasping for a word to describe the odd looking sailing vessel.

Montana Joe uses the word “Hokkien” here is a link for that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkien”
I’m fascinated by migration and all the stuff that happens to people as they try to sink roots into their new motherland but I feel it’s time to study a little 生词语
shēngcíyǔ vocabulary






生词语 shēngcíyǔ vocabulary


生shēng to be born / to give birth / life / to grow / raw, uncooked
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... %E7%94%9F*

词cí word / statement / speech / lyrics / CL: 組｜组, 個｜个 / classical Chinese poem / CL: 首

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... D*&wdrst=0


生词shēngcí new word (in textbook) / word that is unfamiliar or not yet studied / CL: 組｜组, 個｜个

语yǔ dialect / language / speech

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... D*&wdrst=0

缎duàn satin 緞

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... E*&wdrst=0

茶chá tea / tea plant / CL: 杯, 壺｜壶

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... 0&wdqb=tea

楼船lóuchuán ship with several decks / turreted junk 樓船

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.p ... &wdqb=junk


Sighyonara,
Schnaz

[Pangu]

Wow! Very good post schnaz!

[schnaz]

Thanks Pangu , I'll do my best to continue. Maybe we can learn something about the cusine of Fujian -it seems a shame to move on without getting something to eat.
Schnaz