Tag Archives: intermediate
How to Describe Medical Symptoms in Chinese
Have been inspired recently to do more research into how a whole variety of medical symptoms can be expressed naturally in Chinese. Here is what I have found between reading a number of books and consulting with friends, both laypeople and medical experts alike. Enjoy! How to Describe Medical Symptoms in Chinese 描述一般症状－Describing […]
Another 45 Mandarin Sentences with Chinese Characteristics
(This post is a continuation from my previous article “45 Mandarin Sentences with Chinese Characteristics“.) The following is a collection of sentences in Mandarin which I believe are special in some way. What do I mean by “special”? Well, let’s just say grammatically and structurally they’re not exactly typical, and in most cases they stand-alone […]
45 Mandarin Sentences with Chinese Characteristics
The following is a collection of sentences in Mandarin which I believe are special in some way. What do I mean by “special”? Well, let’s just say grammatically and structurally they’re not exactly typical, and in most cases they stand-alone as independent expressions. Plus, many of them contain elements of Chinese culture that set them […]
Top 20 One-Character Adjectives in Mandarin
Here’s my favourite one-character adjectives in Mandarin. Big thanks to Bo and Jee for their help with explanations and translations. 1. 牛 niú. Original meaning: cow. New meaning: awesome. Derives from the common online slang expression 牛逼 niúbī (“cow’s vagina”). 2. 土 tǔ. Original meaning: dirt. New meaning: unsophisticated, especially of rednecks, hicks, bogans, etc. […]
Translation Challenge: “as…as…”
How does one tackle the challenge of translating the highly versatile and meaningful English construction “as…as…”? Find out as I break the structure down into its most common variants and give you translations with pinyin along the way.
25 Ghost Words (“鬼词”)
I’m particularly fond of affix characters in Chinese, and what more vibrant an example than 鬼 guǐ (“ghost; devil”)? 魔鬼 móguǐ (“evil devil”) – demon 懒鬼 lǎnguǐ (“lazy devil”) – lazybones 酒鬼 jiǔguǐ (“alcohol ghost”) – alcoholic; drunkard 醉鬼 zuìguǐ (“drunk devil”) – drunkard
16+ Intermediate and Advanced Sentence Structures
I have been curious lately about more intermediate or advanced structures that might exist in Mandarin Chinese. Textbooks do list them from time to time, but it’s hard to know which ones are common and which ones are out of date. So with the help of 汉英虚词词典 – a dated but useful dictionary of Chinese-English […]
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