User Comments - tingyun

Posted on: What is a Chengyu?

It just occurred to me 'begs the question' presents a similar case(original meaning 'circular reasoning' all but forgotten, used for a 望文生义 new meaning 'raises the question'). Though that comes to us from greek i think, and probably detours through Latin, so it probably fits its your analogy well.

maybe it's that my knowledge of languages is limitied to just English and Chinese, so I tend to overlook analogies involving other languages like Latin and French (somehow I'm missing even the Latin many English speakers learn). Eh, lately have to spend all free time learning japanese (degree requirement), so maybe I'll be a little less of a 井底之蛙 in a few more months.;)

Posted on: What is a Chengyu?

I think its an interesting suggestion, but there are some areas where the analogy seems limitied. For one, There are also quite a few modern chengyu, originating in the twentieth century. Also I think chengyu arent much different from 'Achilles heel' 'Benedict Arnold' 'judas' 'beyond the pale' 'lock stock and barrel' and other expressions in English. Just a little more restrictive in how they are to be phrased, and more numerous. And less restrictive than many people make me out, lots have variants (ie 筋疲力尽。精疲力尽。 画虎不成反类狗，画虎不成反类犬， 评头品足, 品头论足).

In understanding one aspect, i do think your approach has alot of merit - many chengyu have been understood by modern speakers to mean something lacking any real connection to classical meanings, for example most modern speakers would be quite confused by 出尔反尔 used in its classical sense indicating something like 'how you treat others is how they will treat you', or 愚不可及 (originally indicating a feigned incompetence or lack of interest in order to protect oneself when conditions are not right, which is cited as a form of rare and impressive wisdom). The modern meanings on the other hand seem the result of a superficial reading dropping the context (the first read as 'saying something and then reversing oneself or doing something else,' the second read as 'being really stupid')

And it's even clearer in several ones where the dictionary has not quite given up on the original meaning (I haven't either), but most people have misunderstood the expressions as meaning the exact opposite of their original meaning - ie 空穴来风, original meaning rumors have a basis in truth, new meaning rumor is baseless, or 万人空巷, 巷 means street in modern Chinese but means house in this older usage, thus the original meaning is everyone has left their houses and gone to some public event, but try telling that to virtually every newspaper who thinks it means the streets are empty and everyone is in their house watching some tv program....

And then there's sad cases like 明日黄花 being turned into 昨日黄花, apparently the work of some popular tv program. Or 故步自封， which many people write as 固步自封 because chairman Mao made this mistake in one of his articles, and that made it cool back then;).

以讹传讹, and now if you say 不以为然 everyone will understand it as meaning what the largely forgotten 不以为意 means, having forgotten its original meaning. Which is interesting, because a basic understanding of literary Chinese gets one to the right meaning.(然 'this way' or perhaps 'correct', 以为 'to think' or 'take as', without the implication of a mistaken belief present in its modern usage. Thus, any reading points to a meaning of disagreeing, and not to the commonnly used new sense of 'not to consider it important')

So yah, im pretty sure I'd mangle any Latin I tried too use.;). Though somehow got through law school only learning 'habeas corpus'...

Posted on: Romance of the Three Kingdoms

I think that would qualify as a 俗语 - some common ones are 司马昭之心路人皆知。（皆jie1 'all'), 扶不起的阿斗 (阿斗 is 刘禅 liu2shan4 's childhood name)，三个臭皮匠顶个诸葛亮，赔了夫人又折兵，关公面前耍大刀,(关公 is 关羽). That's just off the top of my head, I'd expect there's many, many more.

For 成语, there are certainly countless examples, though the only ones I can remember at the moment as being from these stories is 锦囊妙计，方寸大乱，and 乐不思蜀。

I'm taking your question broadly, to mean all sayings related to the events told in the novel, as I really can't say for certain any of these originated from 三国演义,and id bet only 1 or 2 did. I'd expect most of the chengyu originated from 三国志,the original historical records which formed the the historical basis of the novel, and most of the suyu probably arose in some complicated mix of folk sayings and various stories. For example, I just remembered there's the common 诸葛亮 line 山人自有妙计, I'm pretty sure that originated in the theatrical tradition and not the novel...

Posted on: Words with 可(ke)

John's amazing, but some questions are best answered with an image search on baidu or google. I'd recommend the search term 可爱女 to capture a wide range of variations (女孩儿女生 女人 女的 等等）

http://www.google.com.hk/search?q=可爱女&oe=UTF-8&client=safari&hl=zh-CN&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=O8XYT9GML5GE8QT8rJnjAw&biw=1024&bih=672&sei=PsXYT9W7IYGk8AS72aHnAw

http://m.baidu.com/ssid=0/from=0/bd_page_type=1/uid=wk_1334442051_614/pu=sz%401320_2001/img?tn=bdlistiphone&pn=0&ftn=bdlistiphone&sv=45&form_po=0&word=可爱女#tn=bdlistiphone&index=0

The google search gives more of what you are looking for, though the baidu one is fine if you don't mind sifting through clothing and repeated results of the same girl.

Obviously, these descriptions are written by somebody, so you can't trust any given one perfectly, but in average after glancing at a few pages you get a very nice sample of what people call cute.

Also interesting to notice which stars tend to pop up 林依晨。陈意涵。杨幂. Yep seems about right.

I think image searches are ideal for alot of language questions like this - what words are used to describe visually - far more effective than any verbal description, and more representative too. Of course, lasts, animals, architecture, those sort of things, usually are suited for this too.

Posted on: The Double 了 (le) phenomenon

You're missing an 'a' in there towards the end of the sentence, but otherwise fine. What was making you uncertain about this?

Posted on: 神话故事之女娲造人

女娲的传说也是许多文学作品的出发点。

比如说，红楼梦的第一页写着，女娲补天用了三万六千五百块石头，最后剩下了一块没用，女娲扔了，而这块石头后来就变成了人，它就是红楼梦的男主人公贾宝玉。

还有仙剑奇侠传这一系列的游戏的中心人物一般都有＂女娲后人＂在里面。仙剑一和仙剑三都被拍成很好看的电视剧，建议大家去看这两部，在里面分别有＂赵灵儿＂和＂紫萱＂两位女娲后人。

就是这部垃圾电视剧＂女娲传说之灵珠＂不建议大家看，编剧傻到了极点。。。

对不起，借用一下hiewhongliang的帖子来发帖，本人早已不是这里的会员（还是对这里抱着很多美好的记忆，只是达到了用cpod的自然结束点），所以没有发独立帖子的操纵权利。

Posted on: The Preposition 于(yu)

In that case, nothing to the meaning, but it shifts the tone into a more formal register, and can also achieve a better rhythm in the sentence in some cases, sometimes the rhythm thing is just about achieving an even number of characters, but usually more complicated.

Take for example if you were to say 'something不在于__,而在于__' , there its mainly to enhance the rhythm and play with the tone, perhaps adding gravity to the assertion.

Posted on: The Different Differences of Different and Difference

Glad to help. They were developed by the department here, and although I don't think they have been adopted anywhere outside of Harvard, I think they are overall really good textbooks.

Good luck with your studies!

Posted on: The Different Differences of Different and Difference

I'd say the later years seem to operate on a formal vs spoken two category distinction, though the material obviously has a much wider range (for example, a short story where the dialogue is very colloquial and the rest of the writing fairly neutral, vs some really formal pieces). But I don't remember them generally working to highlight such distinctions or make them express for the student.

So I think you are right - that does seem to be a nice feature of the third year books.

Posted on: The Different Differences of Different and Difference

By third level they mean the third year texts (Comprehensive Chinese: Advanced Chinese I (Understanding the People and the World) - each year/level has 2 texts, 1 for each semester. I didn't take the third year course, though I worked through the book on the side while taking the 4th year course for extra practice (and to make sure I'd covered the same material my classmates had). The 3rd year texts don't really focus on formal writing, rather they introduce the concept of different styles (they divide it into 3, colloquial, neutral, and formal). They do a good job of it, and have a few authentic readings (couple of short stories and the like), but are mostly made-up textbook style dialogues. If you prefer to skip them, simply studying cpod and eventually doing the 4th level wouldn't miss anything. The 4th year texts are really brilliantly written and provide something hard to get elsewhere, whereas I feel the 3rd year texts are more replaceble and standard, even if done quite well. That's pretty much what I meant about picking the right time - hurry it along a bit now, or wait until a bit later and get the 4th year texts, you'll end up in the same place.

The Intermediate book you mention is the 2nd year text I think - I never saw that text, so I have no idea what it is like. It might be brilliantly written, but I think it more likely to be pretty standard type textbook lessons, and at any rate likely pretty basic compared to the 3rd year ones. Given what you said about your current standing completing the 3rd year at your university, I'd imagine those 2nd year texts would be too basic for you (though the 3rd year ones might give you some good use, like I mentioned I found them an interesting side project during the 4th year class)

On the study in china question, I'd probably find a visiting scholar type program, and use the opportunity to conduct research. Though I think it would be really fun to sit in on classes, so I expect I'll do alot of that. :)

Tim