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1500 questions
7
votes
3 answers
What does 了 mean in ...这份工作让我认识到了团队合作的重要?
Is it a verb? A past tense maker? Which is its function of 了 in this sentence?
曾在新西兰Burger King做过汉堡，当过收银员。这份工作让我认识到了团队合作的重要
mariana
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7
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8 answers
Is 其他人 any different from 别的人?
I guess the question could also be, is 其他 any different from 别的?
Is one any more formal, any more slang, any more rude, anything of the sort, than the other?
Or are they essentially the same?
Ming
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7
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6 answers
Why is 当然 the correct choice in 我学了10年汉语了，汉语水平 [一定 / 当然] 很高?
I recently had to select the correct answer for a homework assignment:
我学了10年汉语了，汉语水平 。。。 很高
I chose 一定，but the correct answer turned out to be 当然
Was my answer incorrect, why?
How do these two answers differ in meaning. I'm thinking perhaps that…
Samuel Parsonage
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7
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3 answers
How are the terms for "male/female" and "man/woman" divided exactly?
I know that daughter in Chinese is 女儿, and son is 儿子. A little side-question: Why isn't "son" 男儿?
My main question is this one though: apart from son and daughter stated above, what are the corresponding words (specifically or in common, please make…
Alenanno
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7
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2 answers
In 那个是我工作上的东西, what is the difference between 工作上 and 工作?
那个是我工作上的东西
Why is there a 上 in this sentence? How does it change the meaning? Ie, what's the difference between 工作的东西 and 工作上的东西? When should 工作上 be used as opposed to 工作?
thedoctar
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7
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4 answers
When would one use 临时 versus 及时?
Recently I read the following dialogue:
A: 今天有转校生要来吗？
B: 听说是这样，好象是临时决定的，所以才没有及时通知我们。
As I was trying to make out what they were saying, I noticed that 临时 and 及时 have similar meanings. The former seems to mean "at the instant something happens" or…
Bryan Tsang
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7
votes
5 answers
Two "question words" in one sentence
One of my teachers asked us the example question:
你有什么安排吗？
I asked her why there would be two "question words", 什么 and 吗, when I believed you should only have one question word (in this case, 吗 should not be there in my opinion.)
Is this some kind…
Ming
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7
votes
3 answers
Why did so many Ks change into Js and Qs?
When looking at the history of name changes, one of the most common changes to city names seems to be the replacement of K with J and Q. For example, the spelling "Peking" has been changed into "Beijing", Nanking into Nanjing, Chungking into…
Akshat Goswami
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7
votes
4 answers
How to say "red book"?
I'd like to know how to say "red book" in Mandarin.
Can it be 红色 的 书 or 红书?
I read a book to learn about color, it used 红色 的 before a noun but I heard in a song it used only 红 before noun.
I feel confused.
nkm
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1 answer
"A pair of mandarin oranges" as a homophone of "the gold"
image courtesy of
Today, when Chinese people celebrate the New Year, there's a tradition to offer each other Mandarin oranges. As many sources say, the Mandarin oranges should be offered in pairs, since the phrase "a pair of Mandarin oranges" is a…
Be Brave Be Like Ukraine
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7
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3 answers
When to use "下一个" and when just "下一" to translate English "next"?
When I looked up how to say "next" some time in the last couple of months I found "下一个".
So I was using that and seemed to be mostly understood. But then I started noticing that just "下一" was used by others.
I know that "个" is the generic…
hippietrail
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7
votes
3 answers
Site for reading the same news article in English and Chinese (简体中文）
Previously I used to regularly go to a news site that had articles in English that allowed you to immediately switch to Chinese for the same article.
It also had good information on the Chinese side for English readers to introduce when difficult…
going
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7
votes
1 answer
Are there some free fonts for the small seal, large seal, and even oracle bone script styles?
I'm very interested in the old forms of Chinese characters that you still see in many contexts including historical, artistic, and design contexts.
So I'm wondering if there are free fonts for these old script styles:
Large Seal script or Great…
hippietrail
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7
votes
7 answers
Correct/Polite way of asking "Can we speak in chinese?"
I would like to preface this by saying I'm Australian and speak with an Australian accent when I'm speaking English which can be hard to digest for a lot of people new to Australia.
A lot of 1st gen Chinese-Australians struggle with my accent so I…
50-3
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7
votes
2 answers
Tone sandhi before a toneless final syllable
In the name Kongzi, 孔子, it seems to me that people often pronounce Kong with third tone (low-falling form) and zi with no tone, like a lot of final syllables. Officially both syllables are third tone. So is the rule for sandhi with successive…
Colin McLarty
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