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1500 questions
6
votes
1 answer
Why are the lists of Kangxi radicals different everywhere?
I'm trying to find an "official" list of Kangxi radicals that I can rely on and currently, I use two different Chinese apps to look for characters. Today I have realized that the lists for Kangxi radicals are different from each other in these apps,…
Planckturing
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Pronunciation of 壹 / 一 in Mandarin
The pronunciation of 壹 / 一 in Mandarin, when I was in school, is:
yī
It's been a while that it is also pronounced as:
yao (or similar, I'm not very good with pinyin)
and seems common among native speakers. Is it a slang or official and is there…
Alex
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When to use 于 and not 於 in traditional Chinese?
On my last question, there is a hint not to treat 於 as the traditional variant of 于。However, my keyboard (Tw) never proposes 于。
I also noted that the commentary on the 學而 on this site uses 于 twice. The text and commentary combined use 於 nine times.…
Ludi
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6
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4 answers
How do I practise grouping characters into words? At which stage of learning should one expect to be good at this?
I just got the following sentence in a newsletter:
请问我可以跟你借支笔吗？
Being a beginner that I am, I read it as "Can I please get one pay-check in advance?" because I saw this in my dictionary:
借支 = "to get an advance on one's pay"; and
笔 = "classifier…
dr Hannibal Lecter
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6
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2 answers
Is there any evidence that 90% of characters are phono-semantic compounds?
I've heard this claim a lot, from Chinese teachers in real life, and on this Wikipedia page, where the claim "At present, more than 90% of Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds" lacks a citation. It seems reasonable, but I can't find any…
Lou
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2 answers
How did "kitsch" (刻奇) come to stand for emotional contagion in a group?
刻奇 is said to be a loanword from English meaning:
kitsch
Kitsch in short is said to be:
Kitsch is garish and sentimental art or other objects.
In long it is defined as:
Kitsch (/kɪtʃ/; loanword from German), also called cheesiness or tackiness,…
Mou某
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6
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4 answers
Why does the squirrel say 我才不是吃货?
They started selling this at the local shop:
(See also TianMao.) I thought this product contained squirrel, so I took a closer look, and it says:
我才不是吃货 只是这个好吃~
Wǒ cái bùshì chīhuò zhǐshì zhège hào chī
I think the squirrel is saying "I'm not…
Becky 李蓓
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3 answers
What does 嘞 mean
I actually suspect that this character may be a typo for ”了“, but I'll ask nevertheless. What is the second character in this snippet?:
I managed to write it into my pocket dictionary, it simply gave me le1 with no definition. MDBG has no entries…
jsj
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3 answers
What's the difference between 蝦 and 鰕?
I found there are two characters for "xia1" (ghra as in Middle Chinese), 蝦 and 鰕.
Could someone explain what the difference is?
Mike Manilone
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1 answer
Is the traditional character for 雪 the same as itself?
Is the traditional character for http://screenshoot.me/XeEw1S?
Or are both and http://screenshoot.me/XeEw1S considered the same character (汉字) with simply different font styles?
Pacerier
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1 answer
馅饼 in Cantonese
In the Dim Sum place I usually go to (in the U.S), they call the pan-fried bun stuffed with Chinese chive and shrimp 韭菜馅饼.
I came from Northern China and the shape and size of that bun are, by any standard, 包子 rather than 馅饼.
I wonder if this is…
NS.X.
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3 answers
Could 恭喜发财 sound inappropriate?
I sent new year greetings to my Chinese teacher last week, writing "新年快乐! 恭喜发财!". When I saw her today she thanked me, but said I should never write 恭喜发财 to a teacher, because it's a greeting only people obsessed with money would use.
Is 恭喜发财…
Clément
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7 answers
In this sentence "请问，哪里可以买到票？" is the character 到 necessary?
And can I just say: "哪里买票？"? This is what I used when I was in China and everyone seemed to easily understand. Is this shorter sentence incorrect or non-native sounding? How do native speakers ask this kind of question?
Angus Macrae
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'Simplification' of 夠
Why did 夠 get 'simplified' into 够?
I'd like to know whether these existed as orthographic variants before simplification (such that the first round simplifications just standardised on one variant) or if there was some other basis, perhaps…
jogloran
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What is the etymology of 放我一马？
I've heard this a couple times now and most recently in a movie "钢的琴". It's an idiom that means "cut me some slack"; "let me off the hook". I couldn't make sense of the Baidu encyclopedia so I'm asking here.
tao
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