4·
11 days agoIt’s the Chinese there/their/they’re, but even worse. There’s also 地
bendan [none/use name]
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Cake day: November 12th, 2023
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Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #37
因果
Literally: “cause + effect”
Figuratively: “karma; cause and effect”
We’re back! Again! Finally our fans get a follow up to a previous cliffanger post from the stone age.
In my experience Buddhist phrases are usually just transliterated into Chinese, but this word got its own calque, which doesn’t even seem like it’s based literally on the Sanskrit kárman “act”, instead loosely based on the religious meanings hetú, “impulse, cause” and phala “fruit, result” (but also “kernel” 🤯).
So if 果 meant “fruit”, surely 因 means “seed” or something like that? No, why would it? Originally it meant “underwear”, then drifting to “rely on” and “cause” and “inherit”. A far-fetched one, for sure.
10·3 months ago维基百科? more like 危机百科 amirite?
17·7 months agoPosting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #36
马上
Literally: “on horseback”
Figuratively: “right away; soon”
you could also just use the player hotkeys to cycle through subtitles and secondary subs
felt lazy, might post details later
Yeah I should have explained it a little more in depth, haha. It’s hard to reduce these words to simple translations. All parts are weird enough on their own.
如 means “follow” more in the sense of “follow orders”, go along, comply, accord, be like, as if, etc. 果 means fruit in a very broad sense as the “effect” of a tree or seed, think like “bear fruit”, “fruitless”, “the fruits of one’s labor”, etc. So in combination they mean, what happens if the results of a situation are according to some description.
The other variant I think is a bit simpler. 要 means “ask for”, “demand”, “request”, “want”, “need”, “must”, sort of the inverse of the above 如 here. So a hypothetical demands that a situation 是 be a certain way. It places a restriction on the possible outcomes.
Sorry if this is nonsense, I might post other compounds with 果 and delve deeper … whenever I feel like™ 😎
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #35
如果 / 要是
Literally: “follow fruit / need be”
Figuratively: “if”
5·8 months ago🎉 Exclusive Megathread Theme Bonus:
上海
From the name of the now filled river 上海浦 which meant something like “[high / upper / rise / go to] sea delta”
Different names for the historical event:
四一二事件
April 12 Incident
四一二反革命政变
April 12 counterrevolutionary coup
东南清党
Southeast party purge
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #34
粉笔
Literally: “powder pen”
Figuratively: “chalk”
Don’t thank me, thank our gigachad devs
I have a confession to make. I am actually
basedcringe.
12·8 months agoWE HAVE RUBY?
这极端基于
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #33
忐忑
Remember 上 and 下 (up and down)? If your 心 (heart) was going up and down, how would you feel? Perhaps perturbed, fidgety, upset, on edge, uneasy, nervous?
This is a 2-syllable word where neither 忐 nor 忑 make sense on their own, they are strictly parts of this word. I’m also 99% sure that the characters were invented specifically for this word.
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #32
脑袋
(nǎo dài)
Literally: “brain bag”
Figuratively: “head” (informal)
12·8 months agoPosting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #31
庸人自扰
(yōng rén zì rǎo)
Literally: “mediocre person self disturb”
Figuratively: “worry about nothing / create trouble for oneself”
Chuck in shock, choked on chunky junk
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #30
上 + 下
(shàng + xià)
Iconic characters: one “arrow” up and one down! And if you feel some sense of déjà vu from last time, that’s because we’re doing more time analogies. If you had to choose between “up” and “down” to mean past or present, which would you pick? In any case, Chinese settled on …
spoiler
up = past, and down = future. The way I’ve had it explained to me is that in writing, earlier events are on the top of the page and later events at the bottom, but I don’t trust this since it assumes widespread literacy historically. If you know a better explanation please advise!
bonus! tongue twister
下个星期见
(xià gè xīng qī jiàn)
[ɕja⁵¹ kɰɤ⁵¹ ɕɪŋ⁵⁵ tɕʰi⁵⁵ tɕjɛn⁵¹]
“see you next week” (down [one] star period see)
你有爱好吗？喜欢做什么？