URLLesson Introduction
The humble sneeze. It transcends all cultural, language, immune system barriers. It inspires blessings in some circles, superstitions in others. The worldwide bodily function that requires no translation, only a tissue... In this podcast, learn in Mandarin Chinese about the 'culture' of sneezing in China.
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houban says
July 5, 2008
zhufu ni
baillies says
July 5, 2008
The famous song John refered to in the lesson can be explored on his blog http://www.sinosplice.com/music/yueliang/ (as usual he does not promote his page in the lesson)
I have one question in the dialog the male actor sounds to me like he pronounces 过敏 like cuomin is this an accent?
changye says
July 5, 2008
打喷嚏 (da3 pen1 ti4) sneeze
打嗝儿 (da3 ge2 er) hiccup, burp
打呼噜 (da3 hu1 lu) snore
Actually, it's not so easy to only sneeze once, and maybe that is why I didn't have good younger days!
missworldtraveler says
July 5, 2008
changye
Thanks for the extra vocabulary words. I can hardly wait to start using them.
maoxian says
July 5, 2008
I was hoping this lesson would teach the Chinese equivalent of "gedundheit!" Is it common or corny to say "一百岁" to someone who sneezes?
clay says
July 5, 2008
maoxian,
there really isn't an equivalent to bless-you/gedundheit/salut ect. in China. You may get a playfull response much like in this diaolog, but that of course would only happen with someone you really know. i had a month or so here when my allergies were acting up, and the general response after a couple sneezes was "ni gan mao ma?" Are you sick?
mei9 says
July 5, 2008
hahahaha.真有意思：））））
pinkjeans says
July 6, 2008
我觉得这课很有用。
wǒ jué dė zhè kè hěn yǒu yòng.
henning says
July 6, 2008
In the frequency table I am using, 嚏 appears at No. 3897 which means it is not really rare.
Is it really not worth learning how to write it?
Changye: Do you happen to know the ethymology of 嚏?
kimiik says
July 6, 2008
@Clay, That's "Gesundheit" in german et "à vous souhaits" in French. Salud (not the french salut) is for south american spanish and "Jesus" for spanish from Spain.
Ps: Your spanish sounds really good in last TT. ;o)
changye says
July 6, 2008
Hi henning,
Thanks for good homework. To my surprise, I found the character 嚏 (ti4) in 说文解字 (100 A.D.), and its right part 疐 (zhi4) is originated in 甲骨文 (oracle bone script)! To tell you the truth, at first I thought that 嚏 would be one of indigenous characters used in southern China, such as 广东!
As is often the case with etymologies, there are a few interpretations of 疐, but its basic meaning is the same, i.e. “stop” or “impede”. You can see the radical 止 at the lower part of this character. And therefore 嚏 literally indicates “impede mouth” or “stop mouth”, and then means “sneeze.”
P/S. Please don’t ask me about “噜”!
henning says
July 6, 2008
Thanks, Changye, very educational.
BTW: So why do you fear 噜?
噜 is an important character, also, not only because it already appears at No. 3143, but more importantly because it is part 咕噜牛.
changye says
July 6, 2008
Hi henning,
It’s a nice picture book, although it looks like my chubby dog is scared.
“鲁” is a little strange character. Its original meaning is “delicious” since more than three thousand years ago, the character was a combination of 鱼 (fish) and 口 (mouth), and 口 later changed into 日.
This interpretation seems to be broadly accepted now, however, the modern meaning of 鲁 is “stupid”, and 噜 means “grunt”. Why? Probably something "stupid" happened to this poor character in the past.
michele says
July 6, 2008
hi Henning, which one is the frequency table that you mention above? I'd like to see it, if is it online.
Up to now I have used this which includes the first 2000 characters. BTW, Zhongwen.com is the site where, more than two years ago, I found out the link to ChinesePod!
Thanks to you, and to Changye for his interesting philological material. (actually, a sneeze is a stop, an interruption of breathing)
wande says
July 6, 2008
大家好 da4jia1 hao3
Hi Henning, hi Changye
even the french Ricci doesn’t give good clues regarding the etymology of 噜
it says: bredouiller/ une transscription phonétique du mongolien „hélas“/ onomat.imitant le bruit d’un projectile.
Hennig,could you please give me a hint as for your frequency table!?
Walter in Berlinilovechina777 says
July 6, 2008
大家好
我一开始在中国打喷嚏的时候，我不能习惯没有人说“祝福你”。 那时候我还不知道中国的喷嚏文化和西方的喷嚏文化不一样，所以很多中国人看我很奇怪！ 现在我习惯了！ 但是现在如果有人打喷嚏的话我会说“你怎么了？” 这句话适宜吗？
谢谢你
shalmaneser says
July 6, 2008
Nice -- breaking out the shuowenjiezi. I had to use that book for an assignment back in the day -- good stuff. Here's a link to an electronic edition: http://chinese.dsturgeon.net/text.pl?node=26160&if=gb
xiaoanolga says
July 6, 2008
鲁: according to Karlgen (I know, I know...not up to date) means "fish unable to speak , therefore stupid, unable, simple, vulgar "...I see the "fish", and the "speak", but where on earth did he find the "not able to"? seems fishy to me!
Xiaoan
klgardensong says
July 6, 2008
Great conversation - and lesson. Looks like we all want to know what frequency chart Henning uses.
I'm also really enjoying the expansion exercises and had a question about this sentence and the English translation:
别亲我，小心我把感冒传染给你。
Bié qīn wǒ, xiǎoxín wǒ bǎ gǎnmào chuánrǎn gěi nǐ.
Don't kiss me--I don't want to give you my flu.
I wonder if it would be equally correct to replace the the 小心 with a more active 我不要 or 不想 or even 怕. Or would these sound funny?
别亲我，我不要把感冒传染给你。
Bié qīn wǒ, wǒ búyào bǎ gǎnmào chuánrǎn gěi nǐ.
henning says
July 6, 2008
Here you go. Info on the computation and the applied text corpus here.
There are actually more interesting lists provided by the same author under
http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/.
laozitu says
July 6, 2008
非常感谢，Henning! 这个网站真有用！
changye says
July 6, 2008
Hi xiaoanolga,
I feel the interpretation by Karlgren is more plausible. I’ve just found the same etymology in one of my Chinese character dictionaries published in Japan. I heard before that the author of the dictionary, a very famous scholar in Japan, is a “fan” of Karlgren!
But the important thing is that 鲁 in 甲骨文 seems to be actually used in the sense “delicious” in fortune-telling sentences at that times, which is probably the reason why most modern Chinese scholars think the original meaning of 鲁 was “delicious”.
More interestingly, 鲁 (1055 – 249 B.C.) was the name of a kingdom in ancient China, and 鲁国 was famous for its traditional rites and ceremonies. Confucius (孔子) was also born in this kingdom. So I can’t easily believe its original meaning was “stupid”.
Let’s look at the transition of the meaning of 鲁 in ancient dictionaries and the Analects. Judging from this, 鲁 obtained the new meaning “stupid” about two thousand years ago, perhaps because its sound was similar to that of other word which meant “stupid”.
尔雅 (～ 200 B.C. ?) …… delicious
论语 (200 B.C.? ～ 200A.D.?) …..stupid
说文解字 (100 A.C.) ……stupid
释名 (around 200 A.D.) …….stupid
As for 噜 (lu1), its etymology is “mouth (口) + stupid (鲁)” or “dull (鲁) + voice (口)”, which I think is very plausible. I’ve never heard my own snoring sound, but I know the snoring of my chubby dog sounds very “dull” and “stupid”. Good night, guys. See you tomorrow.
rich says
July 6, 2008
josh says
July 6, 2008
Hey guys, Great lesson!
I just lost books 2 and 3 of my Elementary Chinese Readers so i'm looking to update to a new course. What is the best one out there for learning characters? Thanks
josh says
July 6, 2008
p.s. It needs to be in book format...
jill348 says
July 6, 2008
Josh, (I hope it's ok that I'm repeating a message I posted somewhere else a little while ago...)
I found a really GREAT book for learning to read and write Chinese characters. It's published by Tuttle Publishing, and the title is Learning Chinese Characters, Volume 1 by Alison Matthews and Laurence Matthews. Ken, you'd really love this book, because it is all about mnemonics; in fact, they provide a mnemonic for every single character in HSK level A (the first section of the vocabulary list for the Chinese Government’s Language Proficiency Test), in the form of little stories about each character. They help you learn the pronunciation by including an archetype (for example, a surly dwarf represents the 4th tone) in the story so you’ll know which tone to use, and “soundwords” that give you a close approximation of the pronunciation (only the first syllable of the soundword they provide, the idea is to trigger your memory about how the word is pronounced.)
For example, my favorite little story so far, is the one for the character 太 (tai4), meaning “too much” which is composed of the character 大 (da4), which means big (and looks like a person "throwing his arms wide" saying "it's THIS BIG"), plus the drop stroke. Here’s their story. The first part before the / tells the construction and meaning, and the part after the / tells how to pronounce it:
The fisherman throws his arms wide to show how big the fish was, but a drop of sweat falls from his brow and his friends know he is lying – they’ve seen too much of this in the past. / The dwarf says disdainfully, “Are you sure it wasn’t a tiger?”
I think anyone who wants to learn to read and write Chinese characters would enjoy these little stories, as a supplement to the great lessons here at CPod. ;-D
baillies says
July 6, 2008
HI Josh
I was only reading about this on Johns blog last night http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/06/30/ode-to-heisig-and-rtk
Simons reply gives a link to amazon but you may also be interested in reading the blog.
auntie68 says
July 6, 2008
One very useful thing that I was happy to take away from this lesson was the word 缘 (yuan2; as in 我人缘超好！).
I hope that CPOD will revisit this character and help us to explore the meaning of 缘／缘分, a concept which I "get", but have never been able to explain properly to non-Chinese friends!
For anybody who's interested, here are the example sentences I found in my humble print dictionary, with no pinyin (sorry!), only my loose amateur translation:
我们两个有缘，一见面就像老朋友似(shi4)的。
＝ The two of us have 缘，the moment we met we were like old friends.
我跟那个地方无缘，总说要去，可就是去不成。
= That place and I don't have 缘, I'm always talking of going, but somehow this is a trip that never happens.
他认为缘是一种说不清楚的东西。
= He considers that 缘 is something which can't be explained or defined.
My personal understanding of 人缘 goes beyond merely having good people skills, it conveys a sense of having a knack for dealing with all people as if brought to them by destiny. I don't know if such a word exists in Italian, but the best word I can come up with to describe it is: "simpaticisma". It's a bit like having a "lucky face" or "green thumbs", in relation to other people.
Thanks CPOD for this lesson!
UPDATE: Oh. Lots of references to 缘 in lessons when I did a glossary search.
clarsen says
July 6, 2008
Hey everyone. Check out my cartoons. Tell me what you think.
Cartoon 1
Cartoon 2
man2toe says
July 6, 2008
Auntie,
Please confirm the pronunciation of 似.
好(hao3)像(xiang4) 是 (shi4) 似 si4 的 (de)發(fa)音(yin)shensw says
July 6, 2008
Hi, changye,
In Chinese, a single word should combine with other word(s) that can express a complete meaning. 鲁 for one, means stupid in 鲁钝, hot-headed / reckless in 鲁莽 and 粗鲁 .
中文里，很多字要与其它字组合成一个词时，才能表达一个完整的意思。这有点类似于英文里的习惯用语。一个习惯用语是一个整体，少了其中任一部分，都不能表达它的含义。
auntie68 says
July 6, 2008
Hi man2toe, I'm sprinting out of my Tiny Flat to beat the rain now, but the humble print dictionary treats 似 as a 多音字. One reading is shi4, the other is si4. Will try to expand on this later if I can find the time. I'll be spending the next 6 hours or so trying to amuse the Stunt Toddler! His grandmother bought him a big toy that requires... eek... a lot of assembly. Wish me luck!
auntie68 says
July 6, 2008
Eg. it's 似乎 (si4hu1) but 似的 (shi4de). If it is any comfort to you, I haven't found the logical rule behind this!
changye says
July 7, 2008
Hi auntie68,
Let me butt in, if you please. The traditional authentic reading of “似” is “si4”, and “shi4” seems to have appeared very recently, perhaps within the past few hundred years. According to dictionaries, the expression “像～似的 (shi4 de)” also could be written as “像～是的(shi4 de)”.
I don’t know which one began to be used first, 似的 or 是的, in China. If the former were older, it would perhaps mean that the sound “si4” of 似 changed into “shi4” first for some reason, and later 是 began to be used (mistakingly) because it had the same reading “shi4”. Just a wild guess.
Is the big toy a transformable super robot, or something like that?
huasen says
July 7, 2008
Don't understand why the ti character is so tough to write. It looks like a number of fairly familiar elements.
huasen
PS so that sinosplice page about 月亮代表我的心 is John's! I remember finding that page when I first got interested in Chinese pop music.
auntie68 says
July 7, 2008
Hello uncle changye. Stunt Toddler has just left the house with his grandmother (and nanny), so I can post. Thanks for the interesting etymological history. My humble personal bet is on 似 as si4 predating shi4. How I love my humble print dictionary for taking the pains to pinyinize the 似 as shi4!
P/s: I only wish the big toy were a transformable super robot, or something like that. In fact, I can only describe it as a "airport-cum-multi-storey-carpark" toy which has ramps, a simple (but functional) vehicle lift, and all kinds of fiddley accessories (including a helicopter pad). In short, it's the kind of generic toy which EVERY Asian little boy has in his toy collection, whether he lives in Singapore, Japan, or Korea, and whether he was born in 1972, 1982, or -- like Stunt Toddler -- in 2005. The small metal cars that my brother and I played with in 1975 still fit my Stunt Toddler nephew's big toy today!
user45384 says
July 7, 2008
In this lesson, very useful characters are: 远 想 骂
hezhicheng says
July 7, 2008
kimiik,
I think you meant to say "À vos souhaites!" (not vous). Or, "À tes souhaites!" to your friends.
I remember studying these words (sneeze, yawn, snore, etc.) in Chinese a while back and I could have sworn that one of them has two ways to say the same thing. I can't remember which one it was. I remember trying to figure out which one was the more common way so that I could just learn that one for the time being (limited memory capacity LOL). Does anyone know which word it is?
simongrant says
July 7, 2008
Hezhicheng
I think you mean "A vos souhaits"....
But don't know the answer to your question about sneezing etc.
kimiik says
July 7, 2008
Simongrant & Hezhicheng, Thanks for the corrections. Without the typing mistake it's "A vos souhaits" (souhait beeing a masculine word)
damon says
July 7, 2008
Hi can anyone explain what Jenny replied at the end of the dialogue when John said something along the lines of, 'of course, Jenny, you know how to write it (hanzi for penti/sneeze)
Thanks
christymel says
July 8, 2008
She says woshinabangeba"我是那半个吧" or something along of the lines of I can um..about half the time. Anyway, Damon hope that helped.
aihaiti says
July 8, 2008
Hi there!
Im gonna tell you that when is a chinese sneezing what should be a proper respond
sneezed once :有人想你了yǒu rén xiǎng ni la !
Sneezed twice or more :你是不是感冒了 nǐ shì bú shì gǎn mào la!
damon says
July 8, 2008
[quote]She says woshinabangeba"我是那半个吧" or something along of the lines of I can um..about half the time. Anyway, Damon hope that helped.[/quote]
Thanks christymel, that makes sense.
wufeifei says
July 8, 2008
How would one say "he has a congested nose"?
Very timely lesson, since I have a cold right now. 阿嚏...
baillies says
July 9, 2008
Josh it looks like a native CPOD user my be bridging part of the gap for you. Chekc these out!!
http://zhenshanmei.wordpress.com
I can't find the thread I read yesterday here
liumeien says
July 9, 2008
Random question, but the "什么意思" in the lesson reminded me. If you ask a Chinese "what do you mean?" can they take that with offense? I had a Chinese friend that would get mad at me when I would ask him that. lol
Also, what about "你在做什么？" I've hear2d it's better to say "你在干什么？" as the former is used mostly like if you've caught someone doing something wrong or something.
user8177 says
July 12, 2008
[quote]She says woshinabangeba"我是那半个吧" or something along of the lines of I can um..about half the time. Anyway, Damon hope that helped.[/quote]
I thought it was that she first said 9.5 out of 10 Chinese couldn't write the character, and she's the 0.5 who can...
tucsonmichael says
July 19, 2008
Changye, my dictionary has 打鼾 (da han) for snoring, so perhaps that is the second choice hezhicheng is thinking of. Chinesepod staff, I learned 对 什么 过敏。。 dui xxx guo min, for being allergic to something....any explanation on why the 对 is not used in the dialogue? Also, being an english speaker, i would tent to use 是人 rather than 有人 to indicate that there is a person. Is 是人 incorrect, or OK but 有人 preferred? Thanks for another very useful lesson.
changye says
July 19, 2008
Hi tucsonmichael,
Thanks for your advice. I guess that 打呼噜 is probably more commonly used than 打鼾. Ironically, I didn't know the word '打鼾', even though there is a very frequently used word '鼾' (ibiki, snoring) in Japanese!
P/S. Are you already in China for your wedding?
tucsonmichael says
July 19, 2008
Changye,
Yes, still in Shanghai, having just returned from honeymoon to several sittings in western China. Very rich culture out west with so many 小数民族 xiao shu min zu / minority groups.
changye says
July 19, 2008
Hi tucsonmichael,
Good for you, a lucky guy! I hope that your wife is not bothered by her snoring spouse. Now, let me pick on a happy bridegroom, hehe. Ethnic minorities are called 少数民族 (shao3 shu4 min2 zu2), not 小数民族, in Chinese. And be careful, 少年 (youngsters) is pronounced 'shao4 nian2', but not 'shao3 nian2'. 少 is a multi-reading character. 小数 (xiao3 shu4) means 'decimal number'. Enjoy your stay in China!
n2cu says
August 22, 2008
太可笑了!对话里已经有打喷嚏，那我想问一下打哈欠是什么意思？
amber says
August 24, 2008
hi n2cu,
打哈欠
dǎ hāqian
means 'to yawn'.
lanqing says
August 24, 2008
Hi Amber,
One of my dictionaries agrees that 打 哈欠 means "to yawn", but another has "打呵欠”。 Are both right?
henning says
August 24, 2008
lanqing,
there are no blanks in Chinese texts so both variants are the same.
lanqing says
August 24, 2008
Sorry, Henning, I don't understand what you mean by "blanks". ????? Do you mean spaces between characters?
The characters and pronunciation are different for 哈欠 (ha1qian) and 呵欠(he1qian)。
sophie20461 says
August 25, 2008
in my hometown we alway say" 一想，二骂，三感冒" lol! that means sneeze once someone miss u, seeze twice someone scold u. the third times u should go to hospital!.
by the way! how do u say "流鼻涕”？呵呵
henning says
August 25, 2008
lanqing,
please apologize! I should definately not write any posts before coffee #3. Both variants are synonymous.