Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
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. … Read more
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 … Read more
Literally, ‘吃鸡’ means ‘eat chicken’ in Chinese. But recently, it has extended meaning as an online buzzword — referring the popular game 绝地求生：大逃杀 or PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds (PUBG). I got confused at first and failed to see the connection. Then I asked my Chinese teacher and she happened to play this game. She told me ‘吃鸡’ … Read more
You can separate this name to two parts:徐 is regarded as surname, which is succeeded from the family, and 若滢 as first name, which contains most of the meanings. In my understanding, ‘若’ stands for ‘like’ or ‘as’ in ancient chinese letter, whereas ‘滢’ can be translated to ‘crystal clear’or ‘pure’. On the whole, the … Read more
Funny story, that. There actually was a time where those two characters were simplified. Following the huge success of the first round simplification in 1956, the officials began planning for a second round simplification. Latinizing, and therefore completely modernizing the language, was just beyond the horizon. On the 20th of December, 1977, the newspaper announced … Read more
Ah, so you are trying to translate Wei Zheng’s analects. The full quote is: “吾十有五而志于学，三十而立，四十而不惑，五十而知天命，六十而耳顺，七十而从心所欲，不逾矩。” An approximative translation would be: “At fifteen, I was focused on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of heaven. At sixty, my ear was tuned to truth. At … Read more
Despite both being spelt Lee, the way it is pronounced in England and the USA is quite different when sounded in Mandarin and again in Cantonese. As for the spelling this is because: The Latin alphabet was being used and it only has 26 letters; The translation system used at that time was Wades-Giles which … Read more
How do you translate 好汉不吃眼前亏 into English? Literal meaning of each component: 好汉 (hero, “a real man”) 不 (does not) 眼前 (“in front of the eyes” = “eyes can clearly see” = immediate / evident) 吃亏 (suffer a disadvantage) Together: “A real man does not walk himself into an unmistakable disadvantage.” The implication when this … Read more
Chinese netizens love using abbreviations. “nmsl” is just an abbreviation used as an internet slang. NM$L/nmsl : Never Mind the Scandal and Liber. In Chinese, you could say 永远不要理会谣言和中伤 （Yǒngyuǎn bùyào lǐhuì yáoyán hé zhòngshāng）。 It means “never pay attention to rumors and slander” or “don’t give a f**k to the rumors.” You can also … Read more
我不累。 I’m not tired. 因为汉字是二维的，而字母文字是一维的。 Because Chinese characters are two-dimensional and alphabetic letters are one-dimensional. 所以实际上，写汉字可以在更少的空间内放下更多的内容。 So in fact, writing Chinese characters allows you to put more content in less space. 通常情况下，写一个汉字或英文字母都只需要移动手指，而为了保留足够区分字符的间隙，写下一个之前需要移动手腕。 In general, writing a single Chinese character or English letter requires only the movement of fingers, whereas you need to move the wrist … Read more