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Equivalent phrase to "Bon Appetit"/"Enjoy (your food)"
In European languages there's a phrase you can say when you or a waiter serves food. For example,
- bon appetit (French/English)
- buen provecho (Spanish)
Does Chinese have a similar phrase?
Cristian
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被 (bèi) vs. 叫 (jiào) vs. 让 (ràng): regional difference? formality difference?
I know that with a 被 (bèi) sentence, you are allowed omit the object: S + 被 + (O) + Other elements, e.g. 河里的鱼都被毒死了 (Hé lǐ de yú dōu bèi dú sǐ le) whereas, when using 叫 (jiào) or 让 (ràng,) the object cannot be omitted, it must be included,…
Ming
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13
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Differences between 咱们 and 我们？
我们 [wǒmen] and 咱们 [zánmen] both means: we, but when I should use 咱们， 我们？
What is the difference?
Erick Asto Oblitas
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13
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Is there a Chinese WordNet?
WordNet is a database of English words, which includes semantic relationships of words too. It includes synonym and antonym-relationships, as well as "categories". For example, it will tell me that a tabby is a cat and that a cat is an animal.
Is…
Szabolcs
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What's the difference between 遇到 and 碰到?
Both 遇到 and 碰到 can be translated to "come across/run into" in those sentences:
遇到大学同学了。
碰到大学同学了。
What's the difference between 遇到 and 碰到?
dusan
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13
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What is the origin of '日' as a curse word?
I read a bunch of answers on 百度知道 but they are all very vague, indecisive and unauthoritative.
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为什么人们喜欢用那字，那是因为用的人多，人们大多都没有自己的想法，别人说什么，别人什么说地多，他觉得不用就是落伍了。就这样，时间一长就很多人在说了，而且觉得自己特牛，会用那字。恨不能见谁都说。这不是很幼稚吗。
就像“晕”字，现在人们聊天也老喜欢用，跟那是差不多的。只是骂人跟觉得别人不懂表达的区别。…
Mou某
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13
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When do I use 确定 vs 决定？
The two words mean approximately the same thing but I find that there is a nuance I'm missing in terms of the appropriate context to use one or the other. How should I think about the difference between these two?
Son of the Wai-Pan
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What is the character with the greatest number of strokes?
I have seen an old and very rarely used character that consisted of four traditional dragons (龍). As I remember it meant "talkative."
That makes a total of 64 strokes, are there any other characters with more strokes?
Lars Andren
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13
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8 answers
How should I introduce my wife?
It just seems that 太太、老婆、妻子 are all either overly formal or make my wife sound older than she is (she's not even 30). Maybe one of those terms is actually more acceptable than I think it is; I don't know. Are there any other options that would be…
cyanos
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Expressing the location: 哪里 or 哪儿?
Which one of these expressions is the best one? Or are they both good, but for different situations?
For example:
你住在哪里？ VS 你住在哪儿？ = Where do you live?
Nĭ zhù zài nă lĭ? ——— Nĭ zhù zài năr?
你在哪里工作？ VS 你在哪儿工作？ = Where do you work?
Nĭ zài nă lĭ gōng…
Alenanno
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13
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6 answers
What does 民以食为天 mean?
How to translate the old saying "民以食为天"？ Would that be "Food is the priority of populace"? That doesn't sound right to me, though.
KMC
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In pinyin, why is there an inconsistency between bo, po, suo, duo etc
We have:
bo, po, mo, fo, wo
But then:
duo, suo, luo, zuo, ruo, cuo, guo, huo, nuo, tuo
In each, the vowel is pronounced the same, but the creators of pinyin have chosen two different spellings. It seems that the u could be dropped from the…
Mike Chamberlain
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Why were some letters like Q, X, C, chosen for Pinyin which confuse non-Chinese speakers?
A romanization system is basically a system in which roman (latin) letters are used for languages that use non-roman scripts. This has the obvious benefit that people who can (maybe only) read roman letters (a great part of the world's population)…
Petruza
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Anyone know why cellphones are called 大哥大 in Taiwan?
I was looking at Singapore Mandarin from the question here on Hong Kong Mandarin and came across the word for cellphone. I know it's popular now to refer to cellphones as 手机 but I remember in Taiwan they used to call it 大哥大. (I don't know if they…
amateur
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Origin of 乎 as a bound morpheme in words such as 热乎
Here are a couple compound words that end with 乎:
热乎, 温乎, 確乎, 玄乎, 忙乎, 晕乎, 近乎, 热乎乎, 傻乎乎.
Is there an understanding of how 乎 became used in these words? Does it have any relation to the classical usage of 乎 as an interrogative marker?
user3823
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