向前跨一步 @xiangqiankua - Tumblr Blog

#for anyone who wants to see all the 廢柴 posts all at once

When you're having a nice read in Mandarin and then there's some Cantonese but you are not immediately aware of it and try very hard to figure out how mosquito ownership is relevant to advancing in life, what sort of figure of speech could this possibly be... (eventually a friend explained 蚊 is actually money in this context)

#mandarin #cantonese #traditional characters #reading

I love when I learn a very specific word I think I'm never gonna see again, only to encounter it shortly later at random in the wild(s of the internet), the crab-eating mongoose itself (食蟹獴 shí xiè měng).

#mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day #i was not looking for mongeese i was looking for ecovillages

Word of the day:

矗立 chùlì / stand tall and upright; tower over sth.

I came across this in the Bilingual Pages of the Taipei Times (which are aimed at ESL learners but can often work the other way round just fine). I thought it was interesting that the translation given was this:

中間矗立著烈士紀念碑。 In the center stands the monument to the martyrs.

Pleco's example is also a monument, but they've gone for "towers aloft" instead of just "stands":

人民英雄紀念碑矗立在天安門廣場上。The Monument to the People’s Heroes towers aloft in Tian’anmen Square.

My assumption regarding the discrepancy is that the focus of the bilingual article was prepositions ("to the martyrs") and the nuance of "towering aloft" was simply not something the author was ready to address. The general takeaway though is that it's a good verb for hefty memorials.

#mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day

Random word of the day:

自作孽 zìzuòniè / to bring disaster on oneself

Pleco also contains the phrase 天作孽，猶可違；自作孽，不可活, "When Heaven sends calamities, there is hope of weathering them; when man brings them upon himself, there is no hope of escape." Personally I happened to see 自作孽 in the context of having a British murder mystery on in the background on Bilibili, and looking up to see this very unsympathetic judgment of the victim float across in the comments.

#i love that english language media on chinese sites usually has english and chinese subs #too often i have turned to ok dot ru and been smote with that classic Russian Man Voiceover Dub #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day

Random word of the day:

啜飲 chuòyǐn / to sip

「想要聰明地享用氣泡水的話，選擇無加糖的品項、慢慢啜飲以避免吞下過多空氣，並在喝完後用清水漱口。」

#mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day

Random word of the day:

鱟 hoù / horseshoe crab

「鱟为鲎科（学名：Limulidae）动物的通称，又名「馬蹄蟹」、“蟹兜”、「夫妻魚」，屬于劍尾目的海生節肢動物，而劍尾目最早出現的時間可回溯至奧陶紀，因此被譽為活化石。現存的鱟種類僅存3屬4種」 (wikipedia)

Well... curiousity killed the cat, now we need to know why they're also called 夫妻魚

「鱟，你會念這個字嗎？它的讀音同「後」，每到七夕情人節我都會想到牠，因為牠們有「夫妻魚」之稱，公鱟會緊緊抓在母鱟身上，一起從海中上沙灘產卵。別看牠灰黑不起眼的模樣，大家可能都被牠救過，因為許多疫苗或藥品的研發，都需要鱟血來做試劑檢測細菌。」

（agriharvest.tw) < worth a full read tbh

原來如此。。。

#i was reading the comments on a post wherein people were trying to figure out the origins of some sea detritus #some people said 海龜 some people said 鱟 #it turned out to be a section of pig skull #but now i know a lot more about horseshoe crabs #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day #article

而對於不用筷子的國家，如果冷不丁的使用筷子，那可真是難死他們了。特別是再碰上一些用筷子特別難夾的菜，那可能努力半天也什麼都沒吃到。

Once I was tackling a portion of truly overstuffed 酥皮蛋餅 and started thinking how you can say something unwieldy is "hard to eat" in English but you cannot say "難吃" for that in Chinese, so what's the solution? 難夾! And what do born-and-raised chopstick users consider the most challenging? It was not 酥皮蛋餅, but you can read this article and find out.

#my other nemesis is when salad is full of loose canned corn #and i either have to herd them all onto an appropriately shaped lettuce leaf or pick them up one by one #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #article #word of the day

吃錢〔钱〕

A helpful note at the laundromat. Sometimes people really cannot be bothered with all those strokes.

#i like the bottom of that 金 too #always trying to make my own handwriting look a little more natural #mandarin #chinese #handwriting

穿透設計當心走光

走光 zǒuguāng / to expose oneself, to flash people

#mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day #signs #lost in translation

天地良心 tiāndì liángxīn / in all fairness, in all honesty

「天地良心！我從來就沒有拿過你的東西。」

#mandarin #chinese #word of the day #graffiti #handwriting #an intriguing handwritten 心

I was on the hunt today for a particular notebook in the stationery section of a bookstore when, temporarily foiled, I bothered to actually look at the signage. What does one actually call a 固頁筆記本 in English? "Fixed page notebook" I don't think I have ever heard. "Bound notebook" seems to imply a hard cover when one searches online. "Composition notebook" to me is only the black and white marbled thing. Perhaps in the English-speaking psyche the 固頁筆記本 is simply the default, essential notebook, from which the spirals and compositions must be distinguished. Hmmm.

#mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day #at first i could only find my desired 固頁筆記本 with the dreaded 橫線 when i wanted 空白 #but then i had a 小確幸 moment and discovered a single remaining one on a random shelf

sign: 匆丟垃圾

caption: 好像哪裡怪怪的

comment: 匆匆忙忙連滾帶爬

匆匆忙忙 cōngcōng mángmáng / in a hurry

連滾帶爬 liángǔndàipá / stumbling and crawling, scrambling, frantically trying to escape

#the other day i saw a guy drop a bag while laden down and absolutely booking it towards the 垃圾車 #so i picked it up and sort of leisurely ambled back towards him and said 這是你的!#and this mfer looked at me and then walked away leaving me with his improperly bagged and unsorted trash #it's a dog eat dog world out by the trash truck #that 台灣人情味 just evaporates #speaking of dogs a man did almost bludgeon me with the weiner dog under his arm in the 垃圾車 queue the other day #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day #signs #puns

瞄準發射

瞄準 miáo zhǔn / take aim

發射 fāshè / launch, fire

#perhaps the cheekiest bathroom signage yet #chinese #traditional characters #signs #bathroom signage #handwriting

這也是一種百合

#mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #signs #humour #this too is yuri #百合

Wikipedia may say that the possible names of a baguette in Mandarin are 法式長棍麵包, 法國長棍麵包、法式硬麵包、法式麵包、長棍麵包，and particularly in China, 法棍. However, the fact of the matter is that in the Taiwanese Carrefour bakery section, you will find none other than the 法國魔杖。

魔杖 mózhàng / magic wand

#they stay silly at least #mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #word of the day

行走不專心

失足受傷風險高

#this is not the first poster in which 廢柴 falls down the stairs with his phone #but the consequences are much more dire here!#mandarin #chinese #traditional characters #廢柴 #shiba says

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

向前跨一步