[Chinese] Want to learn Chinese? :)

[lee ying]

谢谢， jessica是我的好朋友！smile=）

[Jessica]

xie xie! ^_^

[ROBINDESBOIS]

but what about the pronunciation? Why don´t you start again taking into account semantic fields, plus topics.

[chanman]

I haven't been on tomísimo in forever!
Okay, so some more Chinese.

加拿大 (jiā ná dà) - Canada
温哥华 (wēn gē huá) - Vancouver
奥运会 (ào yùn huì) - Olympics
溜冰 (liū bīng) - ice skating
滑雪 (huá xuě) - Skiiing/Snowboarding

[Jessica]

thank you chan

very helpful :P

[chanman]

Any requests? Words of a certain theme? Of a certain radical? etc, etc?

[Jessica]

tell me the difference between hai and ye (both mean also)

I think I know it, I just want to make sure

[chanman]

还: hái
也: yě

还 can mean both "also" and "still". 还 means "also" in the sense of "In addition to..." and you'll often use 还 for something that occurs later in time. For example:
When 还 means "Still":
你还要吃？ [nǐ hái yào chī?] (You still want to eat?)
我到现在还没有去过纽约。[wǒ dào xiàn zài hái mei yǒu qù guò niǔ yuē.] (Up to this point I still have never been to New York).

"Also":
我还要一杯咖啡 [wǒ hái yào yī beī kā feī] (I would also like a cup of coffee).
In this usage, the waitress has probably asked "Would you like anything else?" Since you asked for coffee after you asked for the first part of the order, you would use 还。 The use of 也 is probably acceptable here, but 还 is probably more natural.

也 generally means "also"; I can't think of any exceptions right now. It means "also" in the sense of "with", or "and".
If you say:
我也要一杯咖啡 [wǒ yě yào yī beī kā feī] (I would also like a cup of coffee).
Somebody else has probably just ordered coffee, and you would also like a cup. If that is what you mean, you would never use "还".
他也去西班牙了。 [tā yě qù xī bān yá le] (He also went to Spain).
The meaning of this sentence is ambiguous and would needed to be placed into the context of the conversation to find the proper idea.
It can mean:
He[, in addition to somebody else,] went to Spain.
He went to Spain[, in addition to some other countries].
However, if you went to mean the latter, you can remove the ambiguity by saying:
他西班牙也去了 [tā xī bān yá yě qù le] (He went to Spain, also).
While the English translation is ambiguous, in Chinese this sentence would only mean "He also went to Spain [in addition to other places]."

If you said 他还去了西班牙 [tā hài qù le xī bān yá] (He also went to Spain), that would exclusively mean "He went to Spain[, in addition to other places]."

This is because, like I mentioned before, 还 carries a connotation of something happening later in time, while 也 is usually something simultaneous, or to what I will refer to as "simple addition". Since he is just saying, "He went to Spain + other places", it is acceptable and not improper to use 也 and not 还。

I hope this cleared up the difference between 也 and 还， and showed how they can sometimes overlap.
I know I may have only confused you or introduced more questions. Please ask me to clarify! I will!

[Jessica]

thanks!

do you know what this means...some of the characters are traditional not simplified

我們說中文吧~ < Let's speak Chinese?

在這種地方能碰上中國人， 很難得的感覺阿。

[chanman]

Yes, that is in Traditional.

You are correct about the first sentence.
The second is:
在这种地方能碰上中国人，很难得的感觉。
Literally:
In this kind of place, meeting a Chinese person, very rare feeling.
Idiomatically:
It seems like a rare occurrence that I could find a Chinese person in this kind of place.

难得(nán de) - Rare, hard to come by.
种 (zhǒng) - type
碰 - bump [into], crash, touch, meet (coincidentally, not by prearrangement)
碰上 (pèng shàng) -meet (coincidentally, not by prearrangement)

[hermit]

Hi/Hola chanman - How would you say "Go with the Tao."?

[chanman]

i'm sorry, but I don't quite understand what you're trying to say. Is Tao a reference to Taoism? I'm not familiar with the phrase.

[hermit]

Sí, como "Vaya bien" o "Vaya con Diós" traducida a la lengua china...al mismo tiempo pensando en Tao.

[chanman]

I'm not sure that people in China would actually say that. Dao/Tao isn't an actual god, so I don't believe that one would say "Go with the Tao". It would make sense, because Dao literally means "Path", but it's not used.
If anything, people would say, "菩萨保佑” [pú sǎ bǎo yoù] or "上帝保佑" [shàng dì bǎo yòu] Which basically means "May Buddha/God protect you". Very few people in China are very religious at all, but references are Buddha are common even among the non-Buddhist.

[hermit]

Thanks, Chanman - I didn't know if there would be a "Go with..." sort of
parting comment in Chinese, referring to "Way" rather than a god of any sort.

Appreciate the reply...

[ajak568]

I use 'zhongwen' for the Chinese language and 'yingwen' for the English language, 'Meiguo' for America, etc. Why are there these differences? Does it depend on the region that the speaker comes from?

[Jessica]

yingwen was supposed to be for the British English because England in Chinese is yingguo

meiguo yingwen is American English

[ajak568]

I do understand that, I was just asking about the difference between "Ying yu" and "Ying wen/Meiguo Yingwen," for example. Are they interchangeable? Would a person from one region be more likely to use 'yu' than 'wen'?

[Jessica]

yu and wen can both be used, but I believe yu is used the most.

Spanish = xibanyayu

German = deyu

[ajak568]

Used most where? Where are you/your family's Chinese-speaking origins from? (I don't know how to phrase that question so it sounds right, sorry!) I'm just interested to know. . .