Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby Pangu » 2015-05-11, 18:10

Youngfun wrote:OK, I'm sorry, you're right.
Now I wonder if there's any difference between 高级厨师 and 烹调大师。

I would say they are slightly different. 高級廚師 just means a "high-level chef", but a 烹調大師 would refer to an actual master, which IMHO is a bit higher. But now we're just splitting hair really.

Youngfun wrote:I've looked for it on Baidu (mainly websites from the Mainland) and again it seems that 烹饪大师 is usually used here instead of 烹调大师.

I wouldn't be surprised if different terms are used in Taiwan & mainland.

Youngfun wrote:About the Zhuyin Fuhao, I recognize that there could be some utility in it.
It uses fewer symbols to represent the same sound. Here at the college, when I meet a character in my book that I can't read and I write the pinyin above or on the side, sometimes I have not enough space, cause the pinyin for a character often occupies more space than the character itself.
While my Taiwanese classmates have much tidier books with zhuyin fuhao that occupied roughly the same space as the characters, so it's easier to transcribe the pronunciation between the lines of printed text.

Perhaps, but is that minor advantage worth learning Zhuyin? How often will you actually write Zhuyin next to characters?

Youngfun wrote:Another advantage (in the 90s) is that with zhuyin fuhao you can type a character with 2-3 keys (+1 for the tone), while with pinyin you can type as many as 6 keys (e.g. chuang).
But nowadays, the pinyin IMEs are far superior cause they are smarter, they can automatically detect the characters according to the compounds and the sentence.
While AFAIK zhuyin IMEs are still the primitive kind of "type the initial, the final, the tone and then select the character". Correct me if "smart" zhuyin IMEs do exist.

Agreed.

With Pinyin, I can type character by character, phrase by phrase or even a whole sentence. With Zhuyin you can only do character by character.

Youngfun wrote:According to other people, zhuyin fuhao are aestetically nicer when you mix them with the hanzi, because they have the same "imaginary square" format. But I think nowadays people are already accustomed to see Latin script mixed with hanzi.
But they do look better in vertical texts, IMHO.

Perhaps, but you aren't supposed to mix Zhuyin with Hanzi. Sometimes it's done in online chats but it's by no way an "official" usage. It's not like Hiragana and Katakana in Japanese or even Hangul in Korean.

In conclusion, none of the "advantages" of Zhuyin justify learning and using it unless you are doing it for fun.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby ling » 2015-05-12, 7:32

As far as I know, Zhuyin Fuhao are not used outside of Taiwan. In Taiwan, however, they can be useful to know, because they're one of the most common ways people in Taiwan describe the sounds of their language. Very few people in Taiwan know any romanization method.
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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby OldBoring » 2015-05-12, 9:52

Pangu wrote:How often will you actually write Zhuyin next to characters?

As a medical student in China, very often. :mrgreen:
When I looked at my Taiwanese classmate's book I wished I knew zhuyin, first of all, to understand it, cause I was copying his notes; and second because of the space.
But yeah, it's not that noticeably useful, unless you live in Taiwan, as ling said.

With Pinyin, I can type character by character, phrase by phrase or even a whole sentence. With Zhuyin you can only do character by character.

So you use a pinyin IME for traditional characters? Which one, just for curiosity?
I remember that as a teenager, I learned zhuyin in order to type traditional characters. At least, among the default input methods in Windows, there was no pinyin for traditional characters.
Then I figured out how it was hard to type in zhuyin with an ordinary QWERTY keyboard without labels. So eventually I gave up and I forgot the zhuyin symbols.

Perhaps, but you aren't supposed to mix Zhuyin with Hanzi. Sometimes it's done in online chats but it's by no way an "official" usage. It's not like Hiragana and Katakana in Japanese or even Hangul in Korean.

Then you're not supposed to mix Pinyin and Hanzi either. But people do it (both with Zhuyin and Pinyin) to write onomatopoeias, colloquial/dialectal words with no standardized Hanzi, Hanzi that are difficult to write (such as "biang biang 面"), etc. Also in a Taiwanese programme they used Zhuyin to subtitle the Makiyo's English accent. :mrgreen:
But I've seen this argument made mostly by forums about dialects: since many dialectal words are difficult to write, many people propose a Japanese-style mixed system with Hanzi and phonetic representations. Some people prefer kana, other people Hangul, other people Zhuyin, most people prefer latin script.

In conclusion, none of the "advantages" of Zhuyin justify learning and using it unless you are doing it for fun.

Agreed.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby Pangu » 2015-05-12, 15:51

Youngfun wrote:So you use a pinyin IME for traditional characters? Which one, just for curiosity?

It depends on the platform as I use OS X, iOS & Android on a daily basis. I use the built-in Pinyin IME for Traditional Chinese for all three OS'es.

Youngfun wrote:I remember that as a teenager, I learned zhuyin in order to type traditional characters. At least, among the default input methods in Windows, there was no pinyin for traditional characters.

Then I figured out how it was hard to type in zhuyin with an ordinary QWERTY keyboard without labels. So eventually I gave up and I forgot the zhuyin symbols.

Haha, that's funny because I learned Pinyin for a similar reason. When we moved to the US our keyboard doesn't have Zhuyin symbols so I learned Pinyin so I can type Chinese. I have always used Macs so I guess Macs have always had (or at least much earlier) Pinyin IME for Traditional Chinese.

Youngfun wrote:Then you're not supposed to mix Pinyin and Hanzi either. But people do it (both with Zhuyin and Pinyin) to write onomatopoeias, colloquial/dialectal words with no standardized Hanzi, Hanzi that are difficult to write (such as "biang biang 面"), etc. Also in a Taiwanese programme they used Zhuyin to subtitle the Makiyo's English accent. :mrgreen:
But I've seen this argument made mostly by forums about dialects: since many dialectal words are difficult to write, many people propose a Japanese-style mixed system with Hanzi and phonetic representations. Some people prefer kana, other people Hangul, other people Zhuyin, most people prefer latin script.

At the end of the day though, those uses are still not "official" and happens rarely for most people.

---

Update: I happen to play around with Android's Zhuyin IME for Traditional Chinese last night while setting up my dad's new phone (he still prefers Zhuyin over Pinyin) and noticed that you can now type phrase by phrase and even sentence by sentence without having to input tones. So I guess if you are familiar with a Zhuyin keyboard and know where all the symbols are like you do with a QWERTY keyboard, you can type Zhuyin just as fast, if not faster, than Pinyin now.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby linguoboy » 2015-06-18, 20:16

Question about the usage of 糕點. What types of dishes do you think it covers? (I'm trying to determine if usage varies and, if so, what the parameters are.)
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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby OldBoring » 2015-06-23, 6:19

It's a vague word and you will probably get different opinions from different speakers.
For me it mainly includes desserts and pastries made of flour or rice flour, generally sweet, sometimes with bean paste or fruit added. Both Chinese and Western ones.
But I wouldn't include candies, chocolate etc. And I wouldn't include Chinese desserts that consist in sweet soups. And wouldn't include desserts like crema catalana.
So for me, it has to be sweet, and "solid" in shape and consistency, and usually something eaten as a snack. But I can't describe or "make rules" accurately.

I think you already searched it on Wikipedia, so I'll link you to Baidu Baike. The article seems pretty exhaustive.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby הענט » 2015-12-01, 20:07

Hi. What's the difference between : 有兴趣 and 感兴趣 as in 我音乐有兴趣? Also, is there a difference between 你几岁? and 你多大了? Thx

edited on my pc

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby Pangu » 2015-12-05, 5:22

Dr. House wrote:Hi. What's the difference between : 有兴趣 and 感兴趣 as in 我音乐有兴趣? Also, is there a difference between 你几岁? and 你多大了? Thx

edited on my pc

IMHO 有兴趣 is a little stronger and more definite than 感兴趣. I would probably translate them into English as "I am interested" and "I find X interesting".

你几岁 and 你多大了 both are asking the same thing, how old someone is. However, the former is more formal and respectful while the latter is more casual. Of course there are even more respectful ways to ask this but we won't get into that now. To be safe, just use the former.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby OldBoring » 2015-12-05, 5:59

I would say 我音乐有兴趣 or 感兴趣.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby הענט » 2015-12-05, 13:18

OldBoring wrote:I would say 我音乐有兴趣 or 感兴趣.

Yeah, me too. Typo. :) and thx Pangu

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby הענט » 2015-12-07, 20:56

I want to say my cellphone crashed. Can I say 我的手机当掉了.
And how is it different from 我的手机当机了.

I'm sorry If I ask too many questions, learning Chinese is apparently like learning every single sentence by itself.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby Yasna » 2015-12-07, 21:25

Dr. House wrote:I'm sorry If I ask too many questions, learning Chinese is apparently like learning every single sentence by itself.

That's why massive input is the only effective away of learning it. There is no hope of memorizing the thousands upon thousands of nuances of Chinese usage one by one.
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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby OldBoring » 2015-12-09, 17:25

I've never heard 当机 so I had to search it. Apparently it comes from "down 机" and it's the term used in Taiwan, while in Mainland China we say 死机.
In Mainland you can say both "死掉了" and "死机了", although the first is much more casual, while the word with 机 is the proper term.
Since 当机 has the same structure as 死机, I think they work the same way. But let's wait for Pangu for Taiwanese usage.

By the way, why did you choose to learn Taiwanese pronunciation and vocabulary, but use simplified character?

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby הענט » 2015-12-09, 21:45

Wow. I don't even know. I've been using these resources and they have both Taipei and Beijing pronunciation.Beijinghua seems less clear in terms of pronunciation, so I went for the Taiwanese Mandarin. On the other hand I hardly learn new hanzi , because I concentrate more on my speech for now. I know mainland has many accents and dialects, but the western courses offer nothing but beijinghua or msc with beijing speakers. How on earth did Dashan manage to learn it :)

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby Tobias » 2015-12-17, 13:56

父亲就告诉他说: ... (it's out from a bilingual book)
It was translated with: Da sagte der Vater zu ihm: ... (appr.: His father said to him thereupon: ...)
Why is there used twice "say" or words of the semantic field "say"? Isn't it possible to say: 父亲就告诉他: ... or 父亲就说他: ...?
Please correct my mistakes - auch in Deutsch.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby OldBoring » 2015-12-22, 15:29

告诉 means "tell" in the sense of inform, let other people acknowledge.
说 means "say" or "speak" in general.

I think 说 works as an intensifier, it's like a verb to introduce direct speech. You can also say 问他说:“……”,回答说:“……”, etc.

You can simply say 告诉他:“……”.
But you cannot say 说他:“……”, because 说 is not a transitive verb. You have to say 对他说:“……”, or colloquially 跟他说:“……”.

说他 on the other hand means something different like criticize someone, let someone note that he shouldn't behave in some way.

Dr. House wrote:How on earth did Dashan manage to learn it :)

By living in China?
While I like accents from Southern Mainland China, I don't like Taiwanese accent. Sorry, Taiwanese people. :P

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby Marah » 2016-03-28, 13:10

Pleco says that the word 冷静 in the context of "这个地方很冷静" is dialectal. Is it really the case? What "dialect" is it referring to?
Par exemple, l'enfant croit au Père Noël. L'adulte non. L'adulte ne croit pas au Père Noël. Il vote.

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Re: Questions about Chinese

Postby Gong Sun Hao Ran » 2016-03-28, 21:57

Tobias wrote:父亲就告诉他说: ... (it's out from a bilingual book)
It was translated with: Da sagte der Vater zu ihm: ... (appr.: His father said to him thereupon: ...)
Why is there used twice "say" or words of the semantic field "say"? Isn't it possible to say: 父亲就告诉他: ... or 父亲就说他: ...?


You can think of it this way:

And so his father told him [a certain thing], saying: '...'

As OldBoring has pointed out, the 说 in this case acts as a marker for the introduction of direct speech.

Marah wrote:Pleco says that the word 冷静 in the context of "这个地方很冷静" is dialectal. Is it really the case? What "dialect" is it referring to?


I've not seen such a use as a largely native speaker (I say largely, because my native experience of the language is limited to Hong Kong and Singapore). I gave it a Google, however, and it does appear in some (very) occasional instances (see 1, 2, and 3) as an adjective directly describing a place, though from what I can see it's not common and seems to have an implied 让人 suggested in most of the cases.
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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby Marah » 2016-03-28, 22:22

Thank you Gong Sun Hao Ran!
Par exemple, l'enfant croit au Père Noël. L'adulte non. L'adulte ne croit pas au Père Noël. Il vote.

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby OldBoring » 2016-04-04, 5:03

That meaning of 冷静 is less common in everyday language, but it used to be the original meaning etymologically. In fact, 冷静 is the literal antonym of 热闹.
See zdic: http://www.zdic.net/c/7/13f/309306.htm
When analyzing the use of 冷静 in ancient literature, it used to only mean a calm place. The other meaning, as a calm person or as in stay calm, is a more recent development, which became the prominent one nowadays.

Pleco seems the only dictionary that marks it as "dialectal". I'd say, more like archaic / literary.


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