User Comments - changye

Posted on: War Zone

Hi inland,

P/S. It seems that things about 冲 is a little more complicated than I thought, because I’ve found that 冲 is listed in 康熙字典 (kang1 xi1 zi4 dian3，1716年), which means that the character already existed long before the introduction of 简体字 in 1950s. In short, 冲 is not a character newly invented in 1950s, but a variant form (异体字) of the traditional character 沖.

Interestingly enough, one of the meanings of 冲 (in 康熙字典) is “the sound generated when chiseling ice (冰)”, and of course 冰 (ice) has relation to 冲 (沖, flush, pour) because ice is made from water. Furthermore, the traditional character 沖 also had a meaning “shoot up”, like 飛将沖天 (fly up to the sky), which is very close the modern meaning “dash, charge” of 冲 (衝).  

I’m sorry that it’s rather complicated, but at least you can say that 冲 is not completely irrelevant to 沖 and 衝 semantically. 冲 might not be a ideal character to replace 沖 and 衝, but it could be said that the simplified character 冲 bears traces of the Chinese scholars’ labor pains. To simplify, or not to simplify, and how to simplify? That WAS the question in 1950s.

For the record, the original meaning of the left part of 冲, two dots, is “freeze”, and its best example word should be 冷冻 (leng3 dong4, chill). The three dots (left part) of 沖, of course, means “water”. Although they are not irrelevant semantically, they are still different from each other, which is the limitation of 简体字. Thank you for inspiring me to look into these characters. 

Posted on: War Zone

Hi inland,

The character 冲 is a little tricky, because it’s a simplified character originated in two different traditional characters, 沖 (chong1, pour, flush) and 衝 (chong1, dash, charge up, clash). And therefore, etymologically speaking, the shape of 冲 doesn’t have much significance, which is why you need to learn traditional characters if you are interested in etymology of Chinese characters.

Confusingly, there are some other Chinese characters of this kind, such as  发 (發,髮), 干 (幹, 乾, 干), 复 (腹, 複), 谷 (谷, 穀), 征 (征, 徴), 里 (里, 裡, 裏) and so on. The characters in parentheses are all traditional characters of which meanings are different from each other. I always think this is a major shorcoming in simplified Chinese characters, even though it was necessary for reducing the total number of 简体字.

Posted on: Colors, By Degrees

她能吸引我的只有外表。

Posted on: War Zone

Hi hitokiri,

In modern Japanese military forces, the heads of Army, Navy, and Air force are called respectively as follows, 陸将、海将、空将. As you know, the term 将軍 had been used until the end of the Edo era (江戸時代, 1603 ～ 1867). I'm sure that you are relatively familiar with the Japanese history in the late 19th century.....owing to your favorite Japanese anime るろうに剣心....hehe. By the way, the pinyin of 将军 is not "jiang1 jun1", but "jiang4 jun1", at least in a dictionary.

Posted on: War Zone

I assure you that today's lesson is very useful, because you often see a sign that says "冲！" at a rest room here in China, and in this case, 冲 means "flush", but not "dash!".

You also sometimes see the slogan (?), 来也匆匆，去也冲冲 (lai2 ye3 cong1 cong1, qu4 ye3 chong1 chong1) at a bathroom. Chinese people really have a good sense of humor.

Posted on: War Zone

Hi liansuo,

Here is a self-produced slogan for my chubby dog. It seems to me that she doesn't like it very much, though.

锻炼减肥，卫生健康！
duan4 lian4 jian3 fei2, wei4 sheng1 jian4 kang1

Posted on: War Zone

锻炼身体，保卫祖国！
duan4 lian4 shen1 ti3, bao3 wei4 zu3 guo2
Harden you body, and defend your country!

This is one of the most well known political slogans here in China. It's really worth seeing a lot of Chinese elementary school students marching and shouting this slogan.

Posted on: Microsoft

Hi clandestinjo,

In a sense, your comment is very suggestive.

Ken and Jenny said in the lesson that everybody in China knows Bill Gates, but it is absolutely not true. On the contrary, most of Chinese people don't know Bill Gates if you count 800 million peasants in. Conversely, those lower class people are usually not considered when talking about Chinese urban life or rising China, although in fact they ARE still the majority in China.

And however, there is no point in criticizing these attitudes because it’s actually very difficult to talk about things in China considering both rich and poor. In other words, it is no use in discussing things based on average numbers, such as the average income and the average family, especially here in China, which is the fact of 有中国特色的 double-tiered socialist society.

Sorry, this is not directly relevant to your point.

Posted on: Tool Delivery

The title of today's lesson is also hilarious. Good job. By the way, I have a hammer (锤子, chui2 zi), a saw (锯子, ju4 zi), pliers (钳子, qian2 zi), drivers (螺丝刀, luo2 si1 dao1), a wrench (板子, ban1 zi), and even an ax (斧子, fu3 zi) at home. They are indispensible if you live here in a local city in China. My neighbors often come to borrow them. In particular, my wrench is very "popular" among them in winter since the steam pipes in our apartments often leak.

Posted on: 汉语大赛

哎呀！不好意思，我好像把”二人转”和”双人床”弄混了。多谢指出！