What are some interesting things you understand about China while learning Chinese?

在你學(xué)習(xí)中文時(shí)，你了解到了哪些有關(guān)中國的有趣事實(shí)？（下）

評論翻譯

原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.ltaaa.com ?轉(zhuǎn)載請注明出處


Ben Wu, American-born Chinese
So I’ve been able to speak Chinese almost-fluently (meaning I can form and understand sentences, but sometimes have trouble with phrasing) since I was very young. My family generally speaks a mix of Chinese and English at home, you see. So I can’t really talk about learning interesting things from learning to speak Chinese.
However, two years ago, partially out of curiosity and partially because I had the time, I took a year of Chinese. It seems that there are some curious things you really miss out on if you don’t learn to read and write, which I’d like to share below:
Saying sorry. Every beginner Chinese student knows this; it’s “duibuqi”. Actually it’s “dui”, “bu”, and “qi”, three characters put together in a single phrase. If you look at each character, they seem to have nothing to do with one another. “Dui” means “correct or right”; “bu” is a negative often used in contexts of disapproval, or desire to the contrary; “qi” is the first character in “qilai”, which means “to get up, or rise”. At least that’s what I thought originally. But when you start learning to form sentences, you might realize that this phrase is actually quite deep. The character for “dui” can be used, in casual form, as a legitimate and understandable response to any yes/no question. And “qi” can also be used in some contexts to indicate a sense of beginning (e.g. “I started my car up” or “I am too tired to start my work”). Putting these three characters together, then, literally means “I am unable to even begin an explanation that shows that I am right”. Extravagant way to say sorry right? Edit: refer to https://www.quora.com/What-are-s... for a correction to my answer.

在我很小的時(shí)候，我的中文已經(jīng)算是流利的了，我可以拼湊和理解句子，但是有時(shí)候措辭上有點(diǎn)困難。我的家人在家里說中文和英文。所以我很難說明在學(xué)習(xí)中文的過程中會(huì)遇到什么有趣的事情。
然而，兩年前，由于好奇加上空閑，我上了一年的中文課。貌似在學(xué)習(xí)中文的閱讀和寫作過程中你才可能了解到一些古怪的事情，而這正是我要和大家分享的：
比如說抱歉。中文初學(xué)者都知道；那就是“對不起”。實(shí)際上是三個(gè)不同的字組合在一起，分別是對，不，起。你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)這三個(gè)字之間沒有任何的關(guān)聯(lián)。對指的是正確；不指的是否定，通常用在否定句中，或者相反的愿望；起是起來的起。至少剛開始的時(shí)候我是這么認(rèn)為的。當(dāng)時(shí)當(dāng)你開始學(xué)習(xí)如何構(gòu)建句子時(shí)，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)這個(gè)句子實(shí)際上相當(dāng)深刻。比如“對”這個(gè)字，可以用來回應(yīng)是或不是的問題（比如你是不是中國人；對，我是）。“起”在某些語境下可以表示開始的意思。所以將這三個(gè)字放在一起，字面意思就是“我甚至沒辦法開始作出解釋來證明自己是對的”。

Gender. Another thing that confuses a lot of foreigners, myself included for a long time, is how anyone can understand each other when the pronouns he/she are exactly the same. After all, they’re both “ta”. In speech, one has to use context, but in literature or poetry, it’s not always possible. So what’s the difference? Both “he” and “she” have the same base character, but the “ta” for females has the “nu” radical for women.
Honor from the heart. Either I never noticed, or no one in America has ever needed to do this with me, but something new I learned was the distinction between “ni” and “nin”. “Ni” means “you”, as does “nin”. However, the latter is reserved for cases in which the speaker needs to pay respect to the addressee. It’s commonly used when greeting customers to a restaurant, for example. Again, the character for “nin” is almost identical to “ni”, except the radical for “xin” or “heart” is present at the bottom of the character. The implication, of course, is that one should honor the addressee from the heart or with sincerity.
I’ll add more if I can think of any more.

性別。另外一個(gè)讓很多外國人包括我自己感到長期不解的是她和他都發(fā)音TA，這要怎么分辨。在說話時(shí)，一個(gè)人必須得利用背景知識才能知道。所以二者的差別在哪里？女的她是女字旁的。
來自心底的尊敬。我不是我未曾注意，就是美國人從不這么稱呼我，我指的是你和您之間的區(qū)別。你和您意思是一樣的。然而，后者是尊稱。比如餐館歡迎顧客時(shí)會(huì)說您。二者的區(qū)別就是多了一個(gè)心。
等我想到更多了，再補(bǔ)充。

Yuan Tian
Actually you misunderstand “duibuqi”. “dui” here has nothing to do with being right or correct. It means to treat (people). Also “qi” here has nothing to do with beginning, the examples you gave to show this meaning of “qi” are also wrong since it should be a different “qi”(啟). “qi” here means qualified to some standard. So “duibuqi” literally means “what i did to you was not qualified to the normal standard to which a person should be treated”.

其實(shí)你誤解了“對不起”。這里的對不是對錯(cuò)的對。是對待他人的對?！捌稹币埠烷_始沒關(guān)系，而且你舉的例子也錯(cuò)了，應(yīng)該是“啟”。這里的起指的是符合某種標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的意思。所以“對不起”的字面意思是“我的行為不符合一般的待人標(biāo)準(zhǔn)”。

Katie Kim, studied Chinese at Beijing Language and Culture University
Well, I would like to share with you one of my funnies story of me in practicing Chinese. I was on a Chinese restaurant enjoying a typical Chinese noodle called as ”拉面” (La mian)，after finishing the delicious noodle, I was wanted to ask the waiter whether there is any fruit market available around there or not. So, I called her and simply ask her “可以問你嗎?” which means that “can I ask you” in English that I instantly translated from a translator app that I frequently use. However, before finishing all my questions, some of the customers were not able to hold themselves to laugh quietly on what I was saying.

我想分享一下我學(xué)習(xí)中文時(shí)遇到的一件趣事。我當(dāng)時(shí)在一家中國餐館里吃拉面。吃完這碗美味的拉面后，我想問服務(wù)員附近有沒有水果市場。所以我問那個(gè)女服務(wù)員“我可以問你嗎？”，我先是用英文說的，然后通過一款翻譯軟件翻譯成中文，然后我再問他。然而，在我問完所有問題前，一些顧客已經(jīng)忍不住大笑起來。

Long after that, I realized that the tone that I was used to pronounce it was totally wrong. In case I was just saying “可以吻你嗎？” which means that “can I kiss you” in English. Even though she finally understood what did I mean, the mistakes that I have made would be so meaningful for me in learning better Chinese.
In Chinese, it has four tones and also a neutral tone. All tones have specific meanings. So before you speak Chinese, make sure your tone is correct!

后來，我意識到我那個(gè)聲調(diào)是完全錯(cuò)誤的。我可能發(fā)音成了“我可以吻你嗎？”。雖然最終她理解了我的意思，但是我所犯下的這個(gè)錯(cuò)誤讓我意識到如何更好的學(xué)習(xí)中文。
在中文里，有四個(gè)聲調(diào)，還有一個(gè)輕聲。所有的聲調(diào)都有特定意義。在你將中文說出口之前，要確保你的聲調(diào)是正確的。

Barron Lee, Studied Chinese characters for years
To me the most interesting part when learning Chinese characters is to trace back how the ancient Chinese thought about the world, kind of etymology. Chinese characters roughly maintain its major structure starting from the “oracle bone script” in about 3500 years ago, although the font styles/forms keep changing. The study helps to understand China’s history, culture, and its current status. Chinese have been using a unified character system for thousands years while they were and have been speaking various different languages or dialects.

我覺得學(xué)習(xí)漢字最有意思的一點(diǎn)是可以知道中國古人是如何看待這個(gè)世界的，有點(diǎn)詞源學(xué)的味道。漢字大致保持了3500年前甲骨文的主要結(jié)構(gòu)，盡管字形在不斷變化著。學(xué)習(xí)漢字有助于我了解中國歷史，文化及其現(xiàn)狀。中國人使用統(tǒng)一的文字系統(tǒng)已經(jīng)幾千年，同時(shí)說著不同的語言或方言。

Here are some examples. The following one is the oracle bone script for modern character “目 (eye)”:
For “人 (people)”, it was:
And, when a person is seeing, it means “見(see)”, which is a combination of “目” and “人” above. When one stands up opening her eyes, she can see.
The following one is a little more distant from its modern form “豕 (pig)”, but one still can tell the similarity.
This is really fascinating to me. These are the simplest examples though. There are about 4500 oracle bone script characters, while only 1500 have been recognized/deciphered.

以下是幾個(gè)例子。這個(gè)是甲骨文的“目”：
“人”是這樣的：
當(dāng)一個(gè)人在看時(shí)，就是“見”，就是目和人的結(jié)合。當(dāng)一個(gè)人站起來張開雙眼時(shí)就可以看見了：
下面這個(gè)和現(xiàn)代的“豕 （豬）”更加遙遠(yuǎn)一點(diǎn)，但是依然可以看出相似性：
這對我來說真的很迷人。這些都是一些簡單的例子。甲骨文文字有4500個(gè)左右，只有1500個(gè)得到辨認(rèn)。