千里马and伯乐

Cassie, then is there an idiom to describe "One have to prove himself to be recognized".

laorui,

Thank you for your detail expression about how to make the accented characters works. I really appreciate what you have done. I prefer to use the number1-4to instead because they are much more convenience.

Yes, you are right, the measure word for horse is 匹pi3.

You can not use 个ge4 to measure a horse. The measure word 个never use to measure animal.

casie,

Thanks for your lesson. I enjoyed it. You talk (horse) sense.

I would guess 个as the measure word for horse but pǐ 匹 is probably better.

If you use WORD on your computer, you can use the following method to quickly type accented characters.

[1] Right click on any tool bar. Select Customize... then click on the Commands tab.

[2] Locate in Categories: ‘All Commands’ then scroll down to ‘Symbol’. Drag ‘Symbol’ on to the tool bar. The symbol dialog will open.

[3] Choose a font (Times New Roman is good) and search for the character you want. They are all there but sometimes hard to find and always near each other. If we find and select ǎ then OK, a button will appear in the menu marked

Times New Roman: 462

Press this button to make sure it is the one you want. Copy this character onto the clip board(Ctrl C).

[4] Now for the good part. Right click on the tool bar and choose Customise... Ignore the pop up window. Right click now on your nearly created button. Where it says

Name: Times New Roman: 462

delete Times New Roman: 462 and Paste in your new character (Ctrl V) hit enter then Close.

You will need to repeat all these steps until you have all the accented characters on your toolbar. (When the Customize.. window is visible, you can select and move the buttons to anywhere on the tool bar.) Mine look like this āáǎàēéěèīíǐìōóǒòūúǔù. Now when you need an accented character just press the button.

Rich,

Thank you for your concerning. I had backed to school and began my busy campus life yet.

Rich, "You betrayed me" can means 你背叛我/你出卖我。 背叛and出卖have the same meaning.

RJ,

I am glad that you like this post. The expression of "dark hose"黑马 is original a term comes from horse racing.

It refers to the horse that unexpected to win in the horse race.

By the way, do you guys know what is the measure word for horse?

Thanks Cassie for the post. We often use the expression in the US "dark horse" which means unlikely or unexpected winner even in political races. I am guessing now that this origianlly came from the Chinese expression. Wisdom is so eloquently expressed in Chinese.

-RJ

Hi Casie,

Finally got on here to check this thread out. Was gone this weekend. I have to agree with all, you always come up with useful stuff.

In relation to your last post there, is 你卖我了 or 他卖我了 always the sames at "You betrayed me" or "He betrayed me"? Always seems quite differen than the English, as literally it is just "You sold me".

-Rich

Auntie68,

I am not good enought to be a teacher, but i will try my best to help you Mandarin as well as you help me English.

再次感谢！

Calkins,

you are right, there is a Chinese version of "you sold me out".

你出卖我。ni3 chu1mai4 wo3.

sell sb out=出卖某人chu1mai4 mou3ren2 某人=sb

Casie...:) Is there a Chinese saying similar to "you sold me out"?

Dear auntie68,

Thank you for sharing the amazing English translation althought i just can understand it a little. But i think i guess the general idea.

I still need to work hard since there is a far way to go!

casie, thank you so much for the VERY BEAUTIFUL AND CLEAR Mandarin translation! Now I'll never forget the meaning... casie 老师的解释多么明确，周到。 Hope these were the right words for me to use! Thanks again.

Wow, Calkins,

You are awesome, thank you so much.

P.S. I just saw you sold me out just now.

^_^

Casie, Here's an online tool that will create pinyin with the tone marks: Pinyin Tone Tool

Thank you Auntie68 and Bazza.

auntie68，这句名言是要告诉人们世界上有才华的人很多，但是能够发掘并懂得用这些有才华的人却很少。

这里强调了伯乐的重要性，因为如果一个有才华的人能够被伯乐发掘的话，也就是意味着他能够得到发挥自己才能的机会，进而取得成功，得到人们的认可，甚至可以闻名天下。相反，如果这个有才华的人没有遇到懂得欣赏他的人的话，他在通往成功的道路上很可能需要走许多弯路，磕磕碰碰的，甚至会因为缺少机会而被埋没，一生都默默无闻。

Dear casie and henning, my knowledge of Chinese poetry is very limited (so frustrating!), but the beautiful poem which henning mentioned seemed to speak directly to my heart when I tried studying it a few months ago.

Hope you don't mind if I supply an English translation of the entire poem (trans. Wan Changsheng) now --

"THE DIVINE TURTLE MAY LIVE LONG

The divine turtle may live long,

But it is still mortal and finally gone.

The mythical snake may ride cloud and mist,

Yet in the end it will turn to dust.

An old steed confined to his stable,

To gallop a thousand miles he aspires to be able.

A man of ambition in twilight years,

Extinguished not are his lofty ideals.

To meet calamity or fortune in the end,

Not only on fate does this depend.

If one knows the art of keeping healthy,

He will surely enjoy a long, long life.

Now I feel the greatest delight,

I pen this poem to glorify my thought."

Isn't it amazing? There's no beating this wonderful translation, although I think the word "glorify" in the last line could be replaced with "articulate" -- or even "consecrate" (loosely) -- based on my understanding of my dictionary's definition of 咏, which (to me) conveys the idea of intoning something meaningful in an appropriately formal and thoughtful metre.

Once again, thanks casie...

Casie, another great one from you. Thank you!

May I please ask you to give us the meaning of this saying again, but using Mandarin instead?

世有伯乐，然后有千里马。千里马常有，而伯乐不常有

Your English translation was great; this Auntie just wants to enjoy reading your explanation in Mandarin too! Thanks!

Like you new avatar casie, you look very pretty. :)

Thanks henning,

I will go and check it.

casie,

I cheated and took it from the dictionary. :(

But there are tools out there for this, which have been discussed in the community (which I persponally haven't installed)...

Hi henning,

I like it too!

老骥伏枥，志在千里；

烈士暮年，壮心不已。

——曹操《龟虽寿》

henning,

I have a question, how can u type out pinyin like this "lǎojìfúlìzhìzàiqiānlǐ" ?

Wei1xiao4

Thank you for your reminding. And i had response the post , i hope what i did on the post can make sense.

Wei1xiao4,

I think the sentence that你关于教中文有千里马 didn't make sense. But i guess i know what you want to say. Thanks

Thanks casie,

learned again. And good wisdom in that "世有伯乐...".

There is a piece of horse-vocab that I learned long before being able to speak even a simple sentence. It was on the backside of my (paper) character-flashcards for "伏":

老骥伏枥志在千里

lǎojìfúlìzhìzàiqiānlǐ

"The old horse still wants to go 1000 miles" For older persons who still have lots of willpower...

谢谢casie 你真很棒。 :-)

Oh, Cassie, can you please check ratatouille's post "Getting Organized". They need you over there.

Casie, 你关于教中文有千里马。谢谢帮助我。（I hope I used that phrase correctly.)

That's very interesting Casie, thanks for sharing.

show you a pic about伯乐相马