Chinese Language Stack Exchange
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How to say "being" as in "Being jewish"

I've always had some difficulty trying to translate the english "being" as in "being Christian" or "being American". I'd like to say "in the U.S. being Jewish isn't difficult." Should I say 我在美国成为犹太人并不难 ? I feel like 成为 in this instance implies…
Stephen
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The Shi Shi Shi Shi Shi poem?

A while ago I came across this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Shi_shi_shi_shi Very interesting. I wonder if there's any more homophonic poems like this? Or even is there a genre?
nicobili
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Can you use "非常非常‘ to emphasize how much you think of something?

I'm trying to figure out if a common English usage such as the one below is used in Chinese. I really really something Could I say something like this? 我非常非常喜欢这首歌 Could I use this in spoken Chinese? Could it be written this way if it is a…
Stephen
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Does there exists an English word for 汉化 ？

汉化 means becoming more assimilated to Han culture. (like Anglicise means being more assimilated to English culture) Historically, this has happened many times, e.g. during Khitan Empire, Jurchen Empire Does there exists an English word for this? I…
Lost1
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Accidentally Saying Chinese Swear Words

So I saw a video on youtube about a guys experience in china. He said that people can often accidentally say swear words if they say the tones wrong. Like the word "ma" It can heard as mother but 'ma' can also be heard as horse in a foul way. Is…
user5889
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Loanwords with Chinese Equivalents

How many loanwords in Chinese have Chinese equivalents? Example: 三文鱼 is a loanword, borrowed from English, meaning salmon, but Chinese also has the word 鲑鱼 meaning salmon. Are there a lot of these kinds of word-sets?
Mou某
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What is the meaning of 多米 in the music service?

My friend often sends me links from the Duomi music service. Where does the name come from? 多米 seems to mean "a lot of rice" if I translate it directly.
pg-robban
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Looking for very common dialect words that have no Standard Mandarin Chinese hanzi characters

I'm basing this question on several assumptions, so if they are wrong please say so as an answer: Written Chinese is mainly used for Standard (Mandarin) Chinese. Mostly other Chinese languages and/or dialects are mainly spoken and not…
hippietrail
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What are the connotations of the word 拳拳?

I chose 拳拳 as my own Chinese name, having the meaning of my name in mind. I got it from an online dictionary, so I would like to know what native speakers "get" from it, as in what are the connotations that a native speaker gets by such a name,…
Petruza
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Why can't 了 be used to complement 到?

I have been taught that the sentence 我刚到了 (wǒ gāng dào le) is not correct because 了 cannot be used as a complement of 到. Is this right? If so, why?
noe
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Pattern in the Chinese numbers 1 to 9

I know a lot of Chinese characters are either a symbol of something or a combination of symbols in the space of one character, so what's the origin of the symbol for numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9? since knowing what the symbol is suppose to represent…
srcspider
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How can I improve the speed of my spoken Chinese?

I'm currently trying to learn '听妈妈的话' on SingChineseSongs, and I'm having trouble keeping up with the fast parts. I also have trouble trying to speak terribly fast in Mandarin anyway. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on how I can improve the…
Ciaocibai
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ㄍ一ㄥ? What dialect? What character?

I know ㄍ一ㄥ[gīng] is used extensively in Taiwan and in Taiwanese media, but my question is what dialect/topolect does this come from and what exactly is the character for this word? I know a lot of people are going to tell me - it's just used orally…
Mou某
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Stroke direction of the 舌 radical in 舒

In the 舌 radical the first stroke is right to left but inside 舒 it is left to right. Why? I know some characters where the stroke order changes when it is a radical (e.g. the 牛 in 物) but I haven't encountered a case so far where the stroke direction…
Roman Reiner
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Quality of BBC Chinese?

I have been practising Chinese by trying to read some articles in the Chinese section of the BBC News site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/. (I am making quite heavy use of Pleco Reader for this, I can only recognise about half the characters…
Neil Strickland
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