User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: Thoughts on Returning Home 回乡偶书
February 3, 2009 at 6:47 PMP/S. My above explanation was not precise. Actually some ancient tones have remained unchanged. Basically, chinese characters that had voiced consonants (or entering tones, 入声) changed their tones, but characters that had unvoiced consonants did not. There are no voiced consonants anymore in modern Mandarin. Conversely, Mandarin lost voiced consonants, and instead, some tones changed.
Posted on: Sign Here, Please
February 3, 2009 at 4:42 PMHi bababardwan and calkins
Thanks for the nice question. I think Calkins is right. I'm not 100% sure, but tomorrow is called "明天" in Chinese because 明天 is "bright", at least, I hope so. In classical Chinese, 明日 is usually used instead of 明天. In modern Japanese, 明日 is still commonly used, but 明天 is not.
"明" was made by combining 日 (sun) and 月 (moon), the two most bright celestial bodies, which naturally denotes "bright". Furthermore, you can see both rising sun in the east and setting full moon in the west at the same time in the early morning, which means the start of a new day.
I guess this is the reason why 明 (sun + moon) has a derivative meaning "next" in Chinese.
P/S. You can get the perfect (?) answer by combining this comment and the zhenlijiang's answer posted below, perhaps ......
Posted on: Thoughts on Returning Home 回乡偶书
February 3, 2009 at 2:49 PMLet me explain a little about an important rule when making a Tang poem. It's called 平仄 (ping2 ze4), where 平 means "flat tone", and 仄 "non-flat tone". In other words, 平 indicates 1st tone, and 仄 includes 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tones in modern Mandarin.
Ancient poets placed great importance on difference between flat tones and non-flat tones, and therefore they set some rules for combination patterns of 平仄 so that poems sound melodious and rhythmic when they are recited.
平仄 rules are rather complicated, and I myself don't know about them in detail. One of the most basic rules is 二四不同，二六同, which means that 平仄 of the second and fourth characters in every line must be different, and the second and sixth must be the same.
To make matters more complicated, modern tones are different from ancient ones. Chinese tones have been drastically changed over the past one thousand years. Entering tones (入声), syllables that end in a stop consonant (p, t, k), have disappeared in northern dialects, putonghua included. Some flat tones changed into non-flat ones.....etc.
Below is the first half of 回乡偶书, where red color indicates 平 (flat tone) and black color 仄 (non-flat tone). (a) lines are color-coded based on middle Chinese sounds (in Tang dynasty), and (b) lines based on modern Mandarin (普通话). They are very different from each other.
(a) 少小离家老大回，
(b) 少小离家老大回，
(a) 乡音无改鬓毛衰。
(b) 乡音无改鬓毛衰。
(a) 儿童相见不相识，
(b) 儿童相见不相识，
(a) 笑问客从何处来。
(b) 笑问客从何处来。
The "二四不同，二六同" rules are well observed in the all (a) lines (based on middle Chinese sounds), but not in (b) lines anymore. You don't have to know these rules, but please just remember that modern Chinese tones are different from ancient ones. Some southern dialects still preserve old tones well.
For the record, in middle Chinese sounds (中古音), Chinese characters that had a flat tone accounted for about a half of all characters listed in major rhyme books. There was balance between the numbers of flat tones (平) and non-flat tones (仄), which might be one of the reasons that ancient poets considered them separately.
Posted on: New Clothes
February 3, 2009 at 1:20 PMYes, I think so. 我买了一些衣服。（ or 一些新衣服）
Posted on: 中国崛起
February 3, 2009 at 1:15 PMThat is because the world of Star Trek is basically a reflection of our world (seen from the standpoint of western countries), especially the one during the cold war, where "good guys" (UFP = democracies) and "bad guys" (Klingon = communists) are confronting each other.
Posted on: New Clothes
February 3, 2009 at 12:54 PMYeah, you are right. That said, I guess this is a little loose rule (?). Basically anything goes in conversation, haha. Some guy might say 我买了新衣服, but probably 我买了一件新衣服 would be more natural, at least in a textbook!
Posted on: 户籍制度
February 3, 2009 at 12:39 PMThe sentence is a bit tricky. Maybe 别人的老婆/总是/好(good)。 would be easier to understand. As for 老婆/总是别人的好, it might be a kind of inversion, the most important word is fronted, which is often seen in Chinese.
Posted on: New Clothes
February 3, 2009 at 12:18 PMHi dunderklumpen
You can place 了 after the verb 穿, just like this, 新年的时候，我穿了一件新衣服。 Just saying 穿了新衣服 would sound a little "incomplete/unfinished/unstable", so a measure word "一件" is added to 新衣服 to solve the problem.
You can also use other words such as "妈妈给我买的" instead of "一件". In short, in a sentence "a verb + 了 + a noun + period (end of the sentence)", the noun need to be something concrete, like 一件衣服 or 昨天买的衣服.
Posted on: Sign Here, Please
February 3, 2009 at 7:08 PMHi light
Good for you, your Chinese name is already very well known among almost all the Chinese people. I recommend you see that famous [正大光明] plaque in Beijing. Here is a photo of it.
http://picasaweb.google.com/maxyng.tw/2007073102#5095586825288305298
Please be noted that it's not 明光大正 (left to right), but the other way around. [明光大正] is written vertically from right to left (just like other traditional Chinese writings), where every vertical line has only one character.
Hi zhenlijiang,
Don't worry, I understand what you mean. Looks like you are a night owl, too. Fortunately, I have no work tomorrow. Good or bad, I'm still enjoying 春节 (chun1 jie2) holidays, owing to the world financial crisis!