笑里藏刀

— daggers, cloaked in smiles.

[the50-person]

9th June 2019: Hundreds of thousands in Hong Kong protest (peacefully) against China’s extradition plan

“DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?”

Must read: https://the50-person.tumblr.com/post/185446734488/demosisto-%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E7%9C%BE%E5%BF%97-on-twitter

[thats-the-way-it-was]

June 4 - 5 1989: The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People’s Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.

Photo: Tank Man (also known as the Unknown Protester or Unknown Rebel) is the nickname of an unidentified man who stood in front of a column of tanks on June 5, 1989, the morning after the Chinese military had suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 by force. As the lead tank maneuvered to pass by the man, he repeatedly shifted his position in order to obstruct the tank’s attempted path around him. The incident was filmed and seen worldwide and is considered one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. (Jeff Widener / Associated Press)

[xiatranslates]

cutting bc i don’t want to clutter followers’ dashboards, copy-pasting OP here cause i don’t have xkit rip.

@goethesdicksmasher​:

here’s the thing: it’s not just a “within Mainland China” or even “in Asia” thing because overseas language learners are absolutely a part of the CCP’s language programs (and general imperial project), because WE are the people who will increase their soft power abroad and hopefully spread the good word about Han Chinese culture. This is intensified when you’re overseas Chinese in the West and in recent years the state has been more aggressive with them, sponsoring heritage trips and making it very easy to get PRC citizenship via jus sanguinis. The trade war stuff is only going to intensify this push to make learning Mandarin an attractive business option and China an alternative place to find a living.

I’m fully fucking aware of the language policies in the south, my dad’s from the south and my mom is from Taiwan and both of them have at some point had to learn Mandarin and suppress their native dialect (in the case of Taiwanese Hokkien it’s a whole language of its own), which obviously meant I didn’t learn any of it. I’m not claiming that this is representative of what happens in Asia nowadays but it’s not hard to see how languages fail to get passed down, and more importantly, even if I wanted to relearn 四川话 or Hokkien, there are barely any resources for it out here and it’s not fair (or really that effective) to expect everyone to self-study based on videos alone.

Where does langblr (and the language learning community at large) fit into this? China is trying to entertain YOU and they’re taking advantage of your relative ignorance. By unthinkingly accepting that “Chinese = Mandarin” and “China = Han” you are playing right into their hands and helping the CCP build a really hostile environment across the whole globe, not just in Asia proper. I’ve already run into a lot of heritage learners who felt that it was appropriate to tell me that my Taiwanese Mandarin is incomprehensible or “not proper” and foreign students who have been emboldened enough to openly slide discussions about Han supremacy into “language practice” with clueless Americans majoring in Mandarin. We’re not isolated from what happens overseas or vice versa. Is langblr the root cause? Of course not. But are they helping it along far more than necessary even though anyone who looks into Chinese society for more than 2 seconds would realize that there’s no single “Chinese” language? Yes. Language learning includes learning about the people who speak it, even at the basic level, especially when things like chengyu exist (and are taught to small children so it’s not exactly hard hitting material) and you’re learning a language with a logographic writing system.

I hope you read all this in good faith instead of seriously believing that I was trying to put out a manifesto on Sinicization in such a short post.

first re: “seriously believing that I was trying to put out a manifesto on Sinicization in such a short post.” i never said that..? i agree w most of ur points + actually agree in hindsight that it was def short-sighted to focus on asia as opposed to touching more on the west/diaspora comms as well — but really the main part i disagreed on in the first place was the choice to channel it into a shock post landing in langblr tags, where frankly im not even sure there’s enough knowledge of what “han” means (which is ofc in itself a problem), so maybe that’s an agree to disagree kind of thing 

also, that was p aggressively written — i’m not sure if my previous post came across as rude, but it def wasn’t my intention lol, i apologize if that was how it seemed (?) 

( on a diff more logistical note, where this hellsite’s concerned, besides getting langblr blogs to label themselves better — i mean, for future reference, what would be a better umbrella tagging + labeling alternative to “chinese langblr” (aside from tagging all chinese language families on every vocab post i guess hhh)?

i’m unsure that relegating all content to mandarin-only tags when they’re applicable across language families is the solution either here, ie. for vocab / flashcard / grammar posts. ofc encouraging people not to blindly label things as Chinese when they really mean Mandarin is good, but i feel like most posts are already crosslisted btwn “chinese langblr” tags and “mandarin langblr” tags which, well, isn’t necessarily a perfect solution but i don’t know what a more workable solution would look like that’d keep it accurate but also not force other cn lang learners to go through “mandarin langblr” tags to find content? (this is re: written posts that r applicable to multiple langs, ofc, not like stuff w/audio that’s clearly mandarin-targeted) )

[dragontattoo-deactivated2020062]

Listen.. if anyone has 10-15 minutes, could you please take my survey for my linguistics project intended for bilingual peoples who are living in english speaking countries or reblog this? TY❣

[goethesdicksmasher]

who’s gonna tell “Chinese” langblr that it’s called Mandarin and the idea that Mandarin is the one and only Chinese is contributing to genocide and language loss across Asia/the Asian diaspora

[xiatranslates]

speaking as (1) a non-han chinese person (2) having members of my family being Personally Affected by 汉化 / han sinicization + native dialect/language loss/forced cultural assimilation, and (3) Literally Majoring In This Stuff ....it would prob have been more productive to boost posts by/for speakers + learners of overlooked chinese language families or y’know, boost actual information on movements looking to preserve 方言/regional dialects + combat han sinicization rather than making this post and half-heartedly throwing it in the langblr tags

moreover, most langblr posts are targeted towards acquiring characters + teaching very basic grammatical structures, both of which are shared by most chinese languages, whether or not it’s the most common colloquial usage in ur lang/dialect of choice: whether you’re speaking mandarin, cantonese, or hakka, the kinds of posts at the level of chinese langblr (and by that, let’s be real, mandarin + like a handful of HK cantonese posts) are often applicable to more than one lang family... and if you’re gonna split hairs, “mandarin” in itself is only the name for a collection of northern/central cn language groups (北京话 and, say, 陕西话 are both “mandarin”), without even getting into the Yikes™ territory of how all the cn terms to mean “standard mandarin” are also in themselves problematic (国语，普通话，汉语...)

but all of that aside, without vomiting an entire thesis on this post: it just seems a little ridiculous that you’re placing part of the blame of 汉化 and language loss esp in asia on like, langblr ignorance, and not, y’know, (1) the aggressive policies of the PRC over the past decade that have pushed mandarin-only education in predominantly southern provinces of china as well as taxing (and often shutting down entirely) publications, broadcasts, and tv channels in non-standard mandarin languages (2) the complex political/cultural relationships both in china’s own provinces (esp. north-south re: beijing, hell, just look at how mainlanders treat ppl from 新疆) as well as with china and the rest of asia as a whole that has led to standardization of beijing mandarin as the prestige dialect as well as the resurgence of (han!) chinese ethnonationalism w/recent politics...  just look at xi jinping’s “中华民族伟大复兴” lmfao. (3) this is all not even mentioning the Complex race relations re: overseas chinese + sino diaspora in south asia 

tl;dr should langblr tag their posts better? probably. but if you’re going to throw around words like genocide, i wouldn’t do it so lightly. where deliberate cultural and linguistic erasure — not simple “language loss” — is occurring most is in mainland china itself, for historical and political reasons well beyond the reach of a hobbyist tumblr language learner’s control. this isn’t a language problem so much as it is a race problem — not a problem of “mandarin,” but of the idea of “汉语” itself

anyway, for followers who aren’t in the loop: some info on forced han sinicization (1) (2) (3), chinese language families (1), recent han ethnonationalism (1 2 opinion articles). this is also a good book that one of my profs contributed to, while i’m tossing out worthwhile research sources. for reading that’s even less cheery and yet very relevant @ the present moment, look into the current state of 新疆 xinjiang + tibet, not to mention the recent hk extradition laws + hk umbrella movements. bonus: chinese ethnic minorities, plus a list

[xiatranslates]

would it be helpful to generally reblog langblr posts and make corrections? i don’t want to seem rude, rip ): (but it just seems like there’s a decent amount of misinformation / grammatically incorrect sentences being passed around esp. for mandarin/canto)

[hanyuzhongwen-deactivated202205]

Phrase Friday 15

71. 我看不顺眼他的行为。 wǒ kàn bù shùn yǎn tā de xíng wéi I can’t tolerate his behaviour.

72.  别鼓励她做坏事。 bié gǔ lì tā zuò huài shì Don’t encourage her to do bad things.   

73. 我熬夜了，现在准备睡觉。 wǒ áo yè le, xiàn zài zhǔn bèi shuì jiào I was up all night, now I’m getting ready to sleep.

74. 我是夜猫子，经常开夜车。 wǒ shì yè māo zi, jīng cháng kāi yè chē  I’m a night owl, I often work late into the night.

75. 如果你想的话，可以带上一个朋友一起去。 rú guǒ nǐ xiǎng de huà, kě yǐ dài shàng yī gè péng yǒu yī qǐ qù You can bring a friend if you want.

[xiatranslates]

small correction: pretty sure the grammar’s off for the first one! the order should normally be 我看他（的行为）不顺眼 — normally actions/behavior’s also implied so you’d just leave it as like, 我看他不顺眼 but it’s less abt tolerating and more like ... he rubs me the wrong way?

this is somewhat of an exception to the usual 看不X constructions like 看不上, where the object goes at the end.

[bhyunq]

do you have any learning materials for learning chinese?

Are you learning Mandarin or Cantonese or another Chinese dialect/language cuz I’m not sure which resources you want? I can give you some resources for both Canto and Mandarin but I don’t have any resources for other Chinese dialects / Chinese languages

Mandarin Resources 

PDF’s (it contains PDF files to learn Mandarine.) 

Mandarin Resources / Rec Post

Free Resources For Learning Mandarin Chinese

Chinese Grammar Wiki

yoyochinese

chinesehulu

memrise

Tips on learning Mandarin Tones (Check this post for tips on learning Mandarin Tones. I learnt Chinese tone naturally so I don’t have anything to recommend so I just link you this blog post.)

Chinese Pronouns

Youtube

Learn Chinese Now 

Lenguin.com Language Lessons

Vocabulary Videos

How to Speak With Numbers in (Mandarin) Chinese (In the West, we use acronyms for online chatting and texting such as BRB and LOL. For the Chinese, we use numbers! This video will help you learn how to speak with numbers in Chinese.)

Chinese Family Tree

11 Crucial Chinese Phrases

How to Curse in Mandarin Chinese

Textbooks

Integrated Chinese 中文听说读写

Links to watch Chinese (Mandarin) Dramas

DramaFever

Viki

Cantonese Resources

My first language is Cantonese so I’m not learning it from any materials but I’ve found a few site that looks quite interesting and looked quite helpful that you could try.

PDF’s (it contains PDF files to learn Cantonese.) 

Apps Rec

Teach Yourself Cantonese

Cantonese Dictionaries

Cantonese Grammar

Cantonese Pronouns

Youtube

Cantonese Tone 

iCANTONESE

Cantonese Bad Swear Words

Vocabulary Videos

How to Speak with Numbers in Chinese - Cantonese Version 

Chinese Family Tree - Cantonese Version

CarlosDouh (This is helpful to learn some slang and how and when they are used in Hong Kong.)Cantonese Slang (Another clip with a list of some commonly used Cantonese slang) 

Sites to watch Hong Kong / TVB Dramas

newasiantv (with subs)

icdrama (without subs)

Watching dramas/films/shows will definitely help you learn and improve your Cantonese. 

Chinese Reading & Writing / Character Resources

Chineasy (They also have books you can buy on amazon or on here)

3000hanzi (A site dedicated to help people learn to read Chinese)

Chinese Poems

To improve or learn Chinese characters, try to watch some Chinese dramas and/or shows with Chinese subtitles, it will help you learn and improve your Chinese reading. 

Some Info about Chinese Languages / Culture

Cantonese Vs Mandarin (This video tells you the difference between the two.) There is another link you can try here)

Chinese Culture Topic Videos (You should check out their channel, they talk about many other things about Chinese Culture / China.)

The Chen Dynasty

Taiwan vs. Mainland Mandarin Chinese

Blogs / Blog Posts

language-obsession

Chinese resources

[wonderful-language-sounds]

Vocabulary Learning Tool

Website: ru.morpheem.com ; jp.morpheem.com ; morpheem.com Languages: English, Russian, Japanese Cost:Free  Targeted at : Beginning to Advanced/Native Students Features:

You can learn Russian, Japanese or (English for Russian speakers).

You learn vocabulary through real sentences and texts.

You take a placement test so that it knows what you should be learning.

Works by spaced-repetition to make it easier to learn vocab.

Has a progress bar so you can see how much you have learned.

Saves the words you don’t know so that you can review them later.

Let’s you choose the words you don’t know and translates the sentence for you.

Shows you multiple meanings for a word.

Click on a word to see it used in sentences, wiktionary, and images.

Has a large selection of vocabulary so you don’t have to worry about not having words to study.

So this is a website I recently found and haven’t seen mentioned anywhere. When I took the placement test, it estimated I knew 21,000 words, which I know is a lie. I then did the study session and it readjusted the words I knew down to 9,000, which is more accurate since it is able to identify the gaps in my vocabulary. I think that anyone can benefit from this site and it is my preferred way of learning vocabulary since I can quickly see the different contexts a word can be used and its different meanings. You can also set goals for yourself to learn more vocabulary and it will let you know if it is possible or not. My main complaint with this is that if you accidently click a word you can’t remove it. I hope that you like it and that it is useful for you!

[sinetheta]

北海若曰：「井蛙不可以語於海者，拘於虛也；夏蟲不可以語於冰者，篤於時也；曲士不可以語於道者，束於教也。今爾出於崖涘，觀於大海，乃知爾醜，爾將可與語大理矣。」 Ruo, the spirit of the Northern Sea, said, “A frog in a well cannot be spoken with about the ocean, as it is limited by its location. A summer bug cannot be spoken with about ice, as it is confined by its season. A crooked warrior cannot be spoken with about the Way, as he is bound by his teaching. Now, you have come out beyond your cliffs and banks and have observed the great sea. Only now do you recognize your inferiority and it will be possible to speak with you about the Great Principle.”

Zhuangzi: Outer Chapters- Autumn Floods (庄子·外篇·秋水). Zhuangzi (庄子). Warring States period. Translated by Emily Hou. 

Zhuangzi, born Zhuang Zhou, is an influential philosopher from the Warring States period, whose work, the Zhuangzi became an important Daoist text. 

In this passage, the River Earl, seeing how hundreds of streams were flowing into the river, was delighted and pleased with himself and the grandness of the river. However, upon seeing the oceans and drawing a comparison, he realizes that there is a lot more out there. In this passage, Ruo, the spirit of the Northern Sea, is teaching this principle to the River Earl through a series of analogies. 

The first analogy used, the frog in a well (井底之蛙), has become a common Chinese idiom, used to comment on sheltered and often narrow mindsets, usually from people with limited experiences. 

Follow sinθ magazine for more daily posts about Sino arts and culture.

(via sinethetamagazine)

[fineillsignup]

tips for choosing a Chinese name for your OC when you don’t know Chinese

This is a meta for gifset trade with @purple-fury! Maybe you would like to trade something with me? You can PM me if so!

Choosing a Chinese name, if you don’t know a Chinese language, is difficult, but here’s a secret for you: choosing a Chinese name, when you do know a Chinese language, is also difficult. So, my tip #1 is: Relax. Did you know that Actual Chinese People choose shitty names all the dang time? It’s true!!! Just as you, doubtless, have come across people in your daily life in your native language that you think “God, your parents must have been on SOME SHIT when they named you”, the same is true about Chinese people, now and throughout history. If you choose a shitty name, it’s not the end of the world! Your character’s parents now canonically suck at choosing a name. There, we fixed it!

However. Just because you should not drive yourself to the brink of the grave fretting over choosing a Chinese name for a character, neither does that mean you shouldn’t care at all. Especially, tip #2, Never just pick some syllables that vaguely sound Chinese and call it a day. That shit is awful and tbh it’s as inaccurate and racist as saying “ching chong” to mimic the Chinese language. Examples: Cho Chang from Harry Potter, Tenten from Naruto, and most notorious of all, Fu Manchu and his daughter Fah lo Suee (how the F/UCK did he come up with that one).

So where do you begin then? Well, first you need to pick your character’s surname. This is actually not too difficult, because Chinese actually doesn’t have that many surnames in common use. One hundred surnames cover over eighty percent of China’s population, and in local areas especially, certain surnames within that one hundred are absurdly common, like one out of every ten people you meet is surnamed Wang, for example. Also, if you’re making an OC for an established media franchise, you may already have the surname based on who you want your character related to. Finally, if you’re writing an ethnically Chinese character who was born and raised outside of China, you might only want their surname to be Chinese, and give them a given name from the language/culture of their native country; that’s very very common.

If you don’t have a surname in mind, check out the Wikipedia page for the list of common Chinese surnames, roughly the top one hundred. If you’re not going to pick one of the top one hundred surnames, you should have a good reason why. Now you need to choose a romanization system. You’ll note that the Wikipedia list contains variant spellings. If your character is a Chinese-American (or other non-Chinese country) whose ancestors emigrated before the 1950s (or whose ancestors did not come from mainland China), their name will not be spelled according to pinyin. It might be spelled according to Wade-Giles romanization, or according to the name’s pronunciation in other Chinese languages, or according to what the name sounds like in the language of the country they immigrated to. (The latter is where you get spellings like Lee, Young, Woo, and Law.)  A huge proportion of emigration especially came from southern China, where people spoke Cantonese, Min, Hakka, and other non-Mandarin languages.

So, for example, if you want to make a Chinese-Canadian character whose paternal source of their surname immigrated to Canada in the 20s, don’t give them the surname Xie, spelled that way, because #1 that spelling didn’t exist when their first generation ancestor left China and #2 their first generation ancestor was unlikely to have come from a part of China where Mandarin was spoken anyway (although still could have! that’s up to you). Instead, name them Tse, Tze, Sia, Chia, or Hsieh.

If you’re working with a character who lives in, or who left or is descended from people who left mainland China in the 1960s or later; or if you’re working with a historical or mythological setting, then you are going to want to use the pinyin romanization. The reason I say that you should use pinyin for historical or mythological settings is because pinyin is now the official or de facto romanization system for international standards in academia, the United Nations, etc. So if you’re writing a story with characters from ancient China, or medieval China, use pinyin, even though not only pinyin, but the Mandarin pronunciations themselves didn’t exist back then. Just… just accept this. This is one of those quirks of having a non-alphabetic language.

(Here’s an “exceptions” paragraph: there are various well known Chinese names that are typically, even now, transliterated in a non-standard way: Confucius, Mencius, the Yangtze River, Sun Yat-sen, etc. Go ahead and use these if you want. And if you really consciously want to make a Cantonese or Hakka or whatever setting, more power to you, but in that case you better be far beyond needing this tutorial and I don’t know why you’re here. Get. Scoot!)

One last point about names that use the ü with the umlaut over it. The umlaut ü is actually pretty critical for the meaning because wherever the ü appears, the consonant preceding it also can be used with u: lu/lü, nu/nü, etc. However, de facto, lots of individual people, media franchises, etc, simply drop the umlaut and write u instead when writing a name in English, such as “Lu Bu” in the Dynasty Warriors franchise in English (it should be written Lü Bu). And to be fair, since tones are also typically dropped in Latin script and are just as critical to the meaning and pronunciation of the original, dropping the umlaut probably doesn’t make much difference. This is kind of a choice you have to make for yourself. Maybe you even want to play with it! Maybe everybody thinks your character’s surname is pronounced “loo as in loo roll” but SURPRISE MOFO it’s actually lü! You could Do Something with that. Also, in contexts where people want to distinguish between u and ü when typing but don’t have easy access to a keyboard method of making the ü, the typical shorthand is the letter v. 

Alright! So you have your surname and you know how you want it spelled using the Latin alphabet. Great! What next?

Alright, so, now we get to the hard part: choosing the given name. No, don’t cry, I know baby I know. We can do this. I believe in you.

Here are some premises we’re going to be operating on, and I’m not entirely sure why I made this a numbered list:

Chinese people, generally, love their kids. (Obviously, like in every culture, there are some awful exceptions, and I’ll give one specific example of this later on.)

As part of loving their kids, they want to give them a Good name.

So what makes a name a Good name??? Well, in Chinese culture, the cultural values (which have changed over time) have tended to prioritize things like: education; clan and family; health and beauty; religious devotions of various religions (Buddhism, Taoism, folk religions, Christianity, other); philosophical beliefs (Buddhism, Confucianism, etc) (see also education); refinement and culture (see also education); moral rectitude; and of course many other things as the individual personally finds important. You’ll notice that education is a big one. If you can’t decide on where to start, something related to education, intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, etc, is a bet that can’t go wrong.

Unlike in English speaking cultures (and I’m going to limit myself to English because we’re writing English and good God look at how long this post is already), there is no canon of “names” in Chinese like there has traditionally been in English. No John, Mary, Susan, Jacob, Maxine, William, and other words that are names and only names and which, historically at least, almost everyone was named. Instead, in Chinese culture, you can basically choose any character you want. You can choose one character, or two characters. (More than two characters? No one can live at that speed. Seriously, do not give your character a given name with more than two characters. If you need this tutorial, you don’t know enough to try it.) Congratulations, it is now a name!!

But what this means is that Chinese names aggressively Mean Something in a way that most English names don’t. You know nature names like Rose and Pearl, and Puritan names like Wrestling, Makepeace, Prudence, Silence, Zeal, and Unity? I mean, yeah, you can technically look up that the name Mary comes from a etymological root meaning bitter, but Mary doesn’t mean bitter in the way that Silence means, well, silence. Chinese names are much much more like the latter, because even though there are some characters that are more common as names than as words, the meaning of the name is still far more upfront than English names.

So the meaning of the name is generally a much more direct expression of those Good Values mentioned before. But it gets more complicated!

Being too direct has, across many eras of Chinese history, been considered crude; the very opposite of the education you’re valuing in the first place. Therefore, rather than the Puritan slap you in the face approach where you just name your kid VIRTUE!, Chinese have typically favoured instead more indirect, related words about these virtues and values, or poetic allusions to same. What might seem like a very blunt, concrete name, such as Guan Yu’s “yu” (which means feather), is actually a poetic, referential name to all the things that feathers evoke: flight, freedom, intellectual broadmindness, protection…

So when you’re choosing a name, you start from the value you want to express, then see where looking up related words in a dictionary gets you until you find something that sounds “like a name”; you can also try researching Chinese art symbolism to get more concrete names. Then, here’s my favourite trick, try combining your fake name with several of the most common surnames: 王，李，陈. And Google that shit. If you find Actual Human Beings with that name: congratulations, at least if you did f/uck up, somebody else out there f/ucked up first and stuck a Human Being with it, so you’re still doing better than they are. High five!

You’re going to stick with the same romanization system (or lack thereof) as you’ve used for the surname. In the interests of time, I’m going to focus on pinyin only.

First let’s take a look at some real and actual Chinese names and talk about what they mean, why they might have been chosen, and also some fictional OC names that I’ve come up with that riff off of these actual Chinese names. And then we’ll go over some resources and also some pitfalls. Hopefully you can learn by example! Fun!!!

Let’s start with two great historical strategists: Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, and the names I picked for some (fictional) sons of theirs. Then I will be talking about Sun Shangxiang and Guan Yinping, two historical-legendary women of the same era, and what I named their fictional daughters. And finally I’ll be talking about historical Chinese pirate Gan Ning and what I named his fictional wife and fictional daughter. Uh, this could be considered spoilers for my novel Clouds and Rain and associated one-shots in that universe, so you probably want to go and read that work… and its prequels… and leave lots of comments and kudos first and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

(I’m just kidding you don’t need to know a thing about my work to find this useful.)

Keep reading

[fineillsignup]

I had to remove the links from the main post in order for it to show up in tag search, so here are the links to dictionaries and resources as a reblog!

MDBG an open source dictionary - start here

Wiktionary don’t knock it til you try it

iCIBA (they recently changed their user interface and it’s much less English-speaker friendly now but it’s still a great dictionary)

Pleco (an iOS app, maybe also Android???) contains same open source dictionary as MDBG and also its own proprietary dictionary

Chinese Etymology

[greenjudy]

Chinese-speaking fam, your thoughts on this…? 

[xiatranslates]

am chinese can confirm chinese naming is a pain in the ass and even for my oc’s i 100% get lazy, pick a somewhat common name, and then pick more Unique characters for it in an attempt to differentiate

this is ofc the equivalent of people trying to name their kids like, a common name but spelling it in a horrifically quirky manner but what can you do really

this is pretty good! uh my family at least is obnoxiously pedantic abt stroke count / elemental affinities of each character / numberology things but it’s not exactly spr accessible to an english-speaking audience and i have never rly cared abt it so. well. speaking as someone who’s literally shuffled thru 3+ chinese names now before settling on one that everyone is Okay with

i think the hardest part honestly is to write a chinese name that doesn’t sound Plain Bad to a chinese-speaking ear but — tbqh there are so many dialects that the whole idea of aesthetically pleasing names will vary dramatically depending on who you’re asking, as will pronunciations (hence why, again, i personally tend to fall back on popular name lists if naming modern charas bc my mandarin ear for these things is pretty bad)

there’s also the challenge of telling whether a character is masculine or feminine which is not always as obvious as it seems — and then you end up seeing charas w some vaguely mismatched names but like, in the ~modern era~ people are a lot more lenient w naming re: traditionally gendered characters/concepts (tho def easier to name a girl a unisex/masculine name than a boy a feminine name) but it’s difficult

history is also a pain — eg. there r cultural revolution era names that rly slap u across the face with PATRIOTISM and RESPECT TROOPS and LOVE THE PARTY (i’m honestly so sorry for anyone who gets stuck with 爱国 as a name) // and similarly there will b very different naming trends depending on era and setting — in modern days for example it’s a lot more common to have all siblings share a first character regardless of gender for example

but.. going back to OP, this is a pretty good guide & the resources suggested r A+, i use them myself

[orientalismx]

The Negative Structure “一…… 也/都 + 不/没 ……”

“一 + Measure Word + Noun + 也/都 + 不/没 + V (not… at all)” indicates complete negation. For example:

我一个苹果也不想吃。

昨天他一件衣服都没买。

小丽一杯茶也没喝。

手机、电脑、地图、一个也不能少 (带)。

Sometimes the “一 + Measure Word” used in the structure above is “一点儿”. For example:

我一点儿东西也不想吃。

这个星期我很忙，一点儿时间也没有。

今天早上我一点儿咖啡都没喝。

我一点儿找都没带，所以不能买衣服。

When the predicate is an adjective, the structure “一点儿也/都 + 不 + Adj” is used to indicate complete negation. For example:

他一点儿也不累。

南方一点儿都不冷。

那个地方一点儿也不远。

你怎么一点儿也不着急？

[xiatranslates]

worth noting that the 一...也没/也不 structure is most easily translated as “not even one;” eg. #1. “i don’t want to eat even one apple,” #3. “xiao li didn’t drink even one cup,” etc, whereas with 一点 it becomes “lit. not even a bit (fig. not at all)” 

it’s mostly emphatic, eg. compare 我完全不想吃 (lit. “i completely don’t want to eat”) / 我一点都不想吃 (lit. “i don’t want to eat even a bit”)

also rly minor diff. between the 都/也 construction — 一点都不想吃 = i don’t want to eat, not even a little / 一点也不想吃 even if it’s just a little bit, i don’t want to eat it ... my gut instinct is that 都 has more of a 拒绝/rejecting tone but i’m not sure how much that holds true haha, but i’d definitely use it over 也 if i was being forceful (thoughts, anyone?)

also general regional tip: 一点 = 一点儿, you’ll hear the 儿 variant much more frequently in central china and up but southern china tends not to use 儿化

[hanbridgemandarinchineselearning]

It’s time for this Friday’s HSK 5 video!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Do you know the difference between the words: 充足 and 充分 ？ Keep watching to find out! Head to our website to test your Chinese ability for free https://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/chinese-online-teaching

[mandarinfunclub]

请问，有人可以帮我吗？ 这个汉字是什么？我不能弄懂这个意思。

[wuuliao-blog]

i try to find the two character before & after it. it matched with 夏令营 which means the same like the english word there “summer camp”

[xiatranslates]

yep, it’s a variant of 令 that you normally see either in japanese kanji / korean hanja / some fonts

[xiatranslates]

studying for my japanese exam... in chinese

[xiatranslates]

sometimes i just want to reblog langblr posts and correct all of them

[studynotepad]

Still reading 小王子 (The Little Price)! 

I decided to highlight every single character/word I didn’t know the pinyin for in chapter 6. It took a while (even though it was only 2 pages) but I completed the whole chapter. The picture was taken before I completed it. Now, the whole page is filled with highlights and pinyin haha :) 

Also, my blog turned 2 years old a few days ago :D