User Comments - BillJefferys

Posted on: Internet is Down

@raychenon:

Chinese doesn't have tense in the same sense as English does. The marker '了' often can be read as past tense, but there is a reason for it. '了' is, from the point of view of linguistics, an aspect marker, and as I learned it, its primary meaning is that an action has been or will be completed (as contrasted with an ongoing action that's been done in the past and will continue in the future). Usually, the completion is in the past, therefore it's often read as past "tense." But you can use '了' to mark an event that will be completed in the future.

So, for example, I believe that you can say "他明天来了" to mean "he will arrive tomorrow." Note here that the fact that the event will be completed in the future is noted by "明天", "tomorrow." There's no actual tense marker.

Chinese has quite a number of aspect markers. Another common one is '过'. For example, "你去过中国吗？" would mean "Have you ever been to China?"

If Jenny or one of the other native Chinese speakers wishes to expand or correct these remarks, I hope they will do so. I am not a native speaker

Posted on: What will it be?

Hi Changye,

Thanks for your thoughts on 余,餘,裕 and 鱼. What you wrote is a pretty convincing refutation of my theory. Unfortunately, I don't have any ancient dictionaries available to me, so you are fortunate to have access to them.

And I loved your pun using 娱!

Posted on: What will it be?

@changye, @pinkjeans, @jennyzhu

Here's an interesting problem, and possibly an explanation.

In written Chinese, it frequently happens that people wrongly substitute a rhyming character for the actual ("grammatically correct") character that was intended. So, for example, one might by mistake write '百' when you intended to write '白' (both sounding the same, tones different).

This is known as "白字" (literally, "white character"), but meaning the wrong character that is almost right).

I am wondering if the character '余' that we have been discussing shouldn't actually be '裕', so that '余' is really a "白字" for '裕'. That would make a whole lot of sense, as the clear meaning of '裕' is "abundance", which, rhyming with '鱼' (fish) would make clear the association with eating fish and good luck.

Friends who are Newbies: Please learn to use the online dictionaries. You can copy a character out of any place, and paste it here:

Then you can do anything you want. They will speak it for you, give you characters, give you the pinyin transliteration, whatever. There are lots of options. Look at the menu bar on the left, and use it!

Bill

Posted on: What will it be?

@changye,

Yes, I think that pinkjeans' '年年有余' (nián nián yǒu yú) "to have abundance every year" hits much closer to the English meaning of the single character '余' (abundance, plenty, more than you need, as I understand it)l, and makes sense in the context of people rhyming it with '鱼' to mean good luck or good fortune. Pinkjeans' context makes it clear why one would like to eat fish during Chinese New Year (or at any other time, for that matter). It could be read "eat fish every year," but of course everyone would know the context.

It may well be that the character you found,

    裕 (yu4, abundant)

Is actually the source of the rhyme. That would make sense.

Best, Bill

Posted on: What will it be?

@wufeifei

My point is that "leeway" doesn't mean "remainder, surplus, lingering or extra" in English. It really means "room to maneuver," such as when you have enough room to get around an obstacle (physical or otherwise). Or it can mean freedom or flexibility to do something. My take on the naked meaning of '余' is that it is more closely related to an abundance of physical assets (like money or other material goods), but now I'm not working in my native language, so feel free to correct me.

Here's what Wictionary says:

Posted on: What will it be?

changye wrote:

Actually, 鱼 (yu2, fish) is regarded auspicious in China because its pronunciation “yu2” is the same as that of 余 (yu2, leeway).

I am puzzled by this: The dictionary gives meanings for  '余' "extra, surplus" and similar meanings, which makes sense (as in a person having plenty), but "leeway" (room for maneuver)? I don't understand.

The dictionary gives '余地' for "leeway"

Note that '' also rhymes with '玉', yu4, "jade" (although with a different tone). I don't know if there is any connection.

Posted on: What will it be?

To amplify a little on what wrcooper84 wrote:

It is my understanding that '肉' rou4 by itself generally refers to pork (in contrast to the U.S., for example, where the most common meat is beef). If you want to talk about beef, it's '牛肉' niu2rou4, for example, and lamb would be '羊肉' yang2rou4, but if you just say '肉' it would usually be understood to mean pork unless context specified otherwise. Chicken would be '鸡肉' ji1rou4, duck '鸭肉' ya1rou4.

As wrcooper84 noted, '红肉' hong2rou4 would mean red meat, but I don't know if this includes poultry meat.

When I was first learning Chinese almost 30 years ago...remember, this was just after the Cultural Revolution, so economic conditions were very different from today, I was told that duck was more common than chicken, and chicken generally more expensive than duck. 

Corrections welcome.

Posted on: Two words for '2'

For what it is worth, WikiPedia says that 两 is 1/16 of a 斤, not 1/10 as owengibbins says. I do not know who is correct. But I really like his contribution...the exception that proves (tests) the rule. 

Posted on: Sightseeing at Tiananmen

Here's another suggestion for an online dictionary; I have found it to be the best and most flexible one available. I use it with FireFox on a Mac, so it isn't subject to some of the problems that others have noted with platforms and software

It is the MDBG dictionary, apparently a volunteer effort hosted in Europe. To access it, click here

My usual way of using it is to click on the "annotate" tab and paste characters into the box. This will produce a customizable annotation: Characters, pinyin and (if you wish) an attempt at a translation (I normally leave that out as you can get the meaning of a word by mousing over it). Pinyin can use numbers or diacritical marks for tones. Tone sandhi ( the change in a tone dependent on other characters in a sentence) is not implemented.

It has many features. There are ten tabs on the left that give various modes. You can look up by radical and stroke number, and I believe also by four-corner method (I don't know that method but some swear by it). You can type pinyin and get characters (but I prefer the Mac Chinese input method). Just click on the tabs and experiment.

It's also possible for the user to add information to the dictionary, Wikipedia-style (although it may be moderated).

朱勇谋

Posted on: Chinatomy: Chinese Gods and 'Shanghai Diaries'

Here's a link to the story of Zhong Kui on Wikipedia, mentioned in connection with the Xuanzong Emperor.