help with 之
xiao_liang
March 24, 2010 at 10:59 AM posted in General DiscussionCan anyone help me with 之 (zhī) - I'm finding the use of this character really hard to understand. I understand that it's a kind of joining character, but would appreciate some examples of its use? I have it in a list of more common chinese characters (it's in the top 100!) but can't find a reliable use?
谢谢你们！
小凉
xiao_liang
March 26, 2010 at 08:44 PM
That's interesting, thank you Ellen.
" huíjiā zhī qián (before returning home)"
Would that be different from 回家以前 (huíjiā yǐqián)?
" Tiānqì ∼lěng, lián wūzi lǐ de shuǐ dōu jiēbīng le. (The weather was so cold that even the water in the room froze.)"
Sorry, I'm being blind, where is the 之 in this one?
thanks
Steve
changye
March 25, 2010 at 05:12 AM
“之” means "to go" in classical Chinese. The character originates in the shape of "foot" in oracle bone scripts.
zhenlijiang
March 24, 2010 at 08:16 PM
Here are some starters:
In my limited exposure to Chinese I probably use/see it most commonly as part of ‘~之一’ (one of ~).
‘之’是100个最常用的汉字之一。
"之" is one of the 100 most commonly used hanzi.
中国菜系是世界三大菜系之一。
Chinese is one of the three great cuisines of the world.
三分之一 one-third
百分之三十 thirty percent
Please don't ask me to explain how exactly it's different from 的--another "of".
And I don't know if there are cases in which you may ever interchange with 的 or not.
the Silk Road is 丝绸之路.
I also see ~之间 with pretty high frequency.
夫妻之间 between husband and wife
朋友之间 among friends / between friends
I began writing this with a lot more confidence than I am ending on. So as always, I'm hoping our helpful teachers/experts will see and quickly set me right if I'm leading you astray here, and even if I'm on the right track it would be nice if they could kindly add to this and explain 之 much more completely.
xiao_liang
March 24, 2010 at 08:35 PM
That's a really great start, certainly. Perhaps it's just one of those "you use it when you use it" characters that you just have to learn set pieces with.
Can you use it for every sense of between I wonder? Like:
那个两辆车之间 - Between those two cars
ellen_counselor
March 25, 2010 at 08:09 AM之 zhī
① A zhī B： in a B relationship to A
e.g. sāntiān zhī nèi (within three days)
huíjiā zhī qián (before returning home)
② A zhī lèi/liú (A and the like)
Xītèlè zhī liú (Hitler and his like)
③ so ... that ...
Tiānqì ∼lěng, lián wūzi lǐ de shuǐ dōu jiēbīng le. (The weather was so cold that even the water in the room froze.)