phonetic map : 利 li

goulnik
October 05, 2008, 05:28 AM posted in General Discussion

@ 利

li
dysentery
痢疾 lìji dysentery
.
茉莉 mòli jasmine
n. interest; benefit
利于 lìyú to be beneficial
顺利 shùnlì successful
.
伶俐 línglì clever; bright
pear
凤梨 fènglí pineapple
black; dark
黎明 límíng dawn
n./v. plow
雪犁 xuělí n. snow plow
.
藜科 líkē chenopod
.
蛤蜊 gélí clam
.
猞猁 shēlì lynx
lian
liàn .
凄浰 qīliàn fast; quick
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henning
October 01, 2008, 02:14 PM

I got the feeling that the use of Chinese-English dictionaries helps building up a good base of fancy, sometimes even bizarre, English vocab. Especially the translations given for the individual characters seems to be a selection of low-frequency words.

Utterly unrelated to that: I just learned the word "dysentery".

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goulnik
October 01, 2008, 02:19 PM

not entirely unrelated : chenopod ;-) also known as chenopodium or goosefoot, some kind of shrub (plant) apparently.

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changye
October 02, 2008, 08:02 AM

I'm rather surprised to know that "" is pronunced "lian", not "li". Actually, I'm as surprised as I was when I found was pronounced "jing" and "liang" (beautiful).

In ancient rhyme books, ones published after the 11th century, show two pronunciations for the character . Strangely enough, one is "li" and another is "jian".  

So modern pronunciation "lian" was created by combining the consonat of "li" and the vowel of "jian".........? Just a wild guess. Do you believe this, hehe?

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henning
October 13, 2008, 01:12 PM

CSV-list (for the import to Flashcard apps; "@" is delimeter):

伶俐@línglì@clever; bright
凄浰@qīliàn@fast; quick
凤梨@fènglí@pineapple
利@lì@n. interest; benefit
利于@lìyú@to be beneficial
梨@lí@pear
浰@liàn@.
犁@lí@n./v. plow
猞猁@shēlì@lynx
痢@lì@dysentery
痢疾@lìji@dysentery
茉莉@mòli@jasmine
藜科@líkē@chenopod
蛤蜊@gélí@clam
雪犁@xuělí@n. snow plow
顺利@shùnlì@successful
黎@lí@black; dark
黎明@límíng@dawn