I was adopted from China. The Chinese name the orphanage gave me is Yuan Xiaosheng, 院小圣。 I understand that naming in China is special, so what exactly does my name mean? 院 Yuan is a rare surname; it’s estimated that only around 5,000 people share this surname in China. The surname only appeared during the …
Why does Taiwan often use the Simplified Character 台 for ‘tái’ instead of the Traditional Character 臺, despite the official policy of using Traditional Characters? Originally Answered: Why does Taiwan often use the simplified character ‘tai’ 台 instead of the traditional character?!!! I asked my Taiwanese friend this once when I kept seeing both 台灣 …
此地无银三百两 literally means: “There is no 300 taels silvers buried here.” The origin of this phrase is a very silly short story. One day, a person named Zhang San found a bag containing 300 taels of silver. He was overjoyed, but he worried about consequences if he immediately spent it. So he buried the silver …
What is the difference between “狗” and “犬”? Most of the answers have already addressed the question. But specifically to the Chinese language, if you want a simpler analogy, then the one I like to use is this: 狗 = dog 犬 = canine A matter of semantics.
What does the Chinese word “我明白” mean in English? It means “I understand”. However, do not confuse this word with 理解， which also means to understand. The thing about Chinese words is that where in English, they use the same word for similar concepts, Chinese has completely different words for them, since these words carry …
Nah, that award would go to the Tangut Script (西夏文), used by the Western Xia dynasty in the 11th century: Tangut script – Wikipedia Here’s an image page from the Wikipedia page. Note that Chinese writing is on the right side, while the Tangut script is one the left side. I mean, look at the …
It generally means to laugh out loud. In fact, all the combinations like 233, 2333, 2333, carry the similar meanings. Basically, you start with a 2, and add as many as 3s you want; they’d all essentially imply the same.
Russia is located in the north of China. Chinese knew the name of Russia from nomadic peoples in the north, who speak Altaic (including Mongolian, Tungusic, etc.). Altaic does not have the habit of placing “r “at the beginning of a word. To speak an “r” sound, a vowel must be added in the front. …
What does 左 mean in Chinese? The obvious answer is, of course, “left.” But, come on, that’s boring. Let’s have some fun with this. And, as it turns out, “左” can be a pretty weighted word. The most obvious secondary meaning is something along the lines of “left [wing]; revolutionary” in a usage pretty similar …