正文翻譯

MY FAVOURITE CHINESE CHARACTERS

1.我最喜歡的漢字

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Most people think learning Chinese is difficult. Every time I’m back in Spain and I tell someone I can speak Chinese, they invariably reply with a: “Wow! Isn’t it super complicated?”. Some (weird) people claim that it is in fact very easy, though normally these people are just trying to sell you their “l(fā)earn Chinese in 3 months” courses. I agree that the grammar is in general not very difficult, although remembering the correct classifier for each noun can be difficult at times, and I remember I had a very hard time grasping how some verbal constructions work. Some people say they learned to speak fluent Chinese in the street and I’m happy for them but I’m not so language-gifted (6 years in Suzhou and the local dialect still sounds like Japanese to me). There’s one thing I know for sure, though: in my opinion, if you can’t write the characters, you can’t really say you know Chinese.

大多數(shù)人認(rèn)為學(xué)習(xí)中文是很困難的。每次我回到西班牙，告訴別人我會(huì)說(shuō)中文，他們總是回答:“哇！它難道不是超級(jí)復(fù)雜嗎？”一些(奇怪的)人聲稱學(xué)習(xí)中文實(shí)際上很簡(jiǎn)單，雖然通常這些人只是想向你推銷他們的“三個(gè)月學(xué)中文”課程。我同意語(yǔ)法通常不是很難，但記住每個(gè)名詞的正確分類有時(shí)會(huì)很困難，而且我記得我很難理解一些動(dòng)詞結(jié)構(gòu)是如何運(yùn)用的。有些人說(shuō)他們?cè)诮稚蠈W(xué)會(huì)了說(shuō)一口流利的中文，我為他們感到高興，但我不是那么有語(yǔ)言天賦(在蘇州呆了6年，當(dāng)?shù)胤窖詫?duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)仍然聽(tīng)起來(lái)像日語(yǔ))。但有一件事我可以肯定:在我看來(lái)，如果你不會(huì)寫漢字，你就不能說(shuō)你懂中文。

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The title of the most difficult character in simplified Chinese is usually given to biang, a type of noodle dish. Luckily it is not commonly used and the only ones who would have to write it would be the waiters or owners of restaurants serving these noodles. However, it is so complicated that they sometimes write the pinyin instead because, really, why would anyone bother to write this?

簡(jiǎn)體中文中最難的漢字通常被稱為biang，是一種面食。幸運(yùn)的是，這個(gè)詞并不常用，只有服務(wù)員或餐館老板才會(huì)寫這個(gè)詞。然而，它是如此的復(fù)雜，以至于他們有時(shí)會(huì)用拼音來(lái)代替，因?yàn)槭堑?，為什么?huì)有人費(fèi)心去寫這個(gè)字呢？

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This is not a joke, it’s a real character! And the traditional version is even worse…

這不是玩笑，這是一個(gè)真實(shí)的漢字！而且傳統(tǒng)的版本更復(fù)雜...

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I prefer simpler characters. My absolute favourite is undoubtedly this one:

我更喜歡簡(jiǎn)單的漢字，毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，我最喜歡的就是這個(gè):

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Can you guess what it means? It is very easy: skewer! Isn’t it great? You don’t need to know Chinese to understand it because it’s super clear! It is pronounced chuan and if you are in the north of China you will need to add many r behind it to be understood: chuanrrrrrr.

你能猜出這是什么意思嗎？很簡(jiǎn)單：串！是不是很棒？你不需要知道中文就能理解它，因?yàn)樗硎龅梅浅Ｇ宄?！如果你在中?guó)的北方，你需要在它后面加上許多r才能理解:串兒~~~。

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Another character that I like is san:

我喜歡的另一個(gè)漢字是傘:

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Do you know what it is? It’s also very obvious: umbrella!

你知道它是什么意思嗎？它也很明顯：雨傘！

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Another one that I like is a combination of two characters:

另一個(gè)我喜歡的字是兩個(gè)部分的組合:

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Mu means tree or wood. It looks a bit like a tree, right? The horizontal line is the ground and the three strokes below are the roots.

木的意思是樹(shù)或者木頭。它看起來(lái)有點(diǎn)像一棵樹(shù)，對(duì)吧？水平線是地面，下面的三個(gè)筆畫是根。

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Lin is a surname and it also means wood, as it’s two trees.

林是一個(gè)姓氏，也意味著木頭，因?yàn)樗莾煽脴?shù)。

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Senlin… five trees. Well… it’s decidedly a forest!

森林......五棵樹(shù)。嗯......這絕對(duì)是一片森林！

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I wish all the characters were this easy! Then I would never forget how to write them by hand…

我希望所有的字都能這么簡(jiǎn)單！這樣我就永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)忘記如何手寫了...

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PROTECTION AGAINST EVIL SPIRITS

2.保護(hù)我們免受惡靈的侵?jǐn)_

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And for the second time this month I’m saying that Chinese people are very superstitious. The other day C. came home with a branch of some plant that someone gave him. I had already seen that branch hanging beside the door of several neighbours and it reminded me of when Spanish people hang palm branches from their balconies in Easter. But it seems this branch has a totally different meaning…

這個(gè)月我第二次說(shuō)中國(guó)人非常迷信了。有一天，C帶著某人送給他的某種植物的一根枝條回家。我已經(jīng)見(jiàn)過(guò)幾個(gè)鄰居家門口掛著的那根樹(shù)枝，它讓我想起了西班牙人在復(fù)活節(jié)時(shí)在自家陽(yáng)臺(tái)上掛棕櫚枝的情景。但是這根樹(shù)枝似乎有著完全不同的含義..

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I don’t know where this tradition comes from as I don’t remember seeing this branch on previous years, and for sure we never had it before. Maybe it’s some old custom that has been revived? I also have no idea what the plant is…

我不知道這個(gè)傳統(tǒng)從何而來(lái)，因?yàn)槲也挥浀们皫啄昕吹竭^(guò)這根樹(shù)枝，而且可以肯定的是，我們以前從未掛過(guò)這根樹(shù)枝。也許是某種舊習(xí)俗又復(fù)活了？我也不知道這植物是什么...

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評(píng)論翻譯

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Charmaine
I swear, Chinese is so hard to learn. My mother tongue is Cantonese but my Chinese level is that of a foreigner’s. That biang character is the reason why I’ll probably never be able to even master the basics, haha!?

我發(fā)誓，中文太難學(xué)了。我的母語(yǔ)是粵語(yǔ)，但我的中文水平是外國(guó)人的水平。這個(gè)biang字就是為什么我可能永遠(yuǎn)都不能掌握的原因，哈哈！

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Marta
Oh, I thought you were native in Cantonese! The biang character is an exaggeration, usually the characters are not THAT bad xD

哦，我還以為你是廣東人呢！Biang是一個(gè)很夸張的字，常見(jiàn)的字沒(méi)那么夸張的，哈哈

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Sean JS
I’ve always loved how the fact that Chinese characters are logographic lends itself to so many fun creations.

For example in Toronto we have a ramen place that has as part of its logo a seal containing a character made up of 麥,骨, and 豕, meaning “wheat”, “bones”, and “pork” respectively. Basically it’s a perfect descxtion of ramen, which the character itself embodies. Very creative
我一直都很喜歡漢字是圖形文字的這一事實(shí)，因?yàn)樗芙o很多創(chuàng)作帶來(lái)很多樂(lè)趣。
例如，在多倫多，我們有一家拉面店，其商標(biāo)的一部分是一個(gè)印章，其中包含一個(gè)由麥、骨和豕組成的字符，分別表示“小麥”、“骨頭”和“豬肉”?；旧线@是一個(gè)對(duì)拉面的完美描述，這個(gè)商標(biāo)非常形象，非常有創(chuàng)意。

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Marta
Yes! They allow for a lot of creativity, haha. That’s a very good example.

是的！他們?cè)试S你發(fā)揮很多的創(chuàng)造力，哈哈。這是一個(gè)很好的例子。

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autumnashbough
Are you kidding me with that biang character?! Seems torturous.

你在逗我，那個(gè)biang字看起來(lái)很折磨人。

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Marta
Maybe they use it to punish badly behaved children in school. “Now, write the character biang 500 times!”.

也許他們可以用它來(lái)懲罰在學(xué)校表現(xiàn)不好的孩子。“現(xiàn)在，把這個(gè)字寫500遍！”。

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autumnashbough
they would never misbehave again.

所以他們?cè)僖膊桓易鰤氖铝恕?/p>

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SueT
Hi Marta, I do (did) love learning Characters and writing them – its the history of the character I love. I have forgotten most of them now as dont use them…such a shame. But Oh My Goodness I have never seen that first character let alone tried to write it…incredibly difficult.

瑪塔，你好，我確實(shí)很喜歡學(xué)習(xí)和書(shū)寫漢字——因?yàn)槲蚁矚g漢字的歷史。我現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)忘記了大部分漢字，因?yàn)槲也辉偈褂盟鼈兞?.....真遺憾。但是，哦，我的上帝，我從來(lái)沒(méi)有看到過(guò)第一個(gè)字，更不用說(shuō)嘗試寫它了...太困難了，難以置信。

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SueT
I was very fortunate Marta my teacher in Australia taught me the background of each character I learnt. I wish I could study full time and probably wish I was younger to do it.

我很幸運(yùn)，我在澳大利亞的老師教了我所學(xué)的每一個(gè)漢字的背景知識(shí)。我希望我可以全職學(xué)習(xí)漢字，也許我希望我能更年輕一些。

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Marta
Well, I wouldn’t call proper instruction exactly fun, but it greatly depends on the teacher. In China, the method is based on repeating everything a thousand times so not really fun at all, haha. But when you start thinking about the parts that compose the characters, why they are like that, etc, it’s very interesting.

我不認(rèn)為正確的教學(xué)是有趣的，但這在很大程度上取決于老師。在中國(guó)，這種教學(xué)方法是基于一件事情重復(fù)一千遍，所以一點(diǎn)都不好玩，哈哈。但是當(dāng)你開(kāi)始思考組成漢字的各個(gè)部分，以為為什么他們是那樣組合的，等等，這將是非常有趣的。

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Jean
You know more Chinese. I struggle to remember first, middle and last name. I know 1-7 in Chinese.. Man, woman, horse.
What did the lst ideogram mean? Yea that looks like a landscape painting in calligraphy. :)

你知道更多的中國(guó)漢字。我仍在努力記住名字、中間名和姓。我會(huì)說(shuō)中文從1-7..男人，女人，還有馬。
第一個(gè)漢字是什么意思？是的，它看起來(lái)像一幅山水畫:)

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Marta
A forest! Hehe. It’s literally a group of trees!

一片森林！呵呵，實(shí)際上是一堆樹(shù)！

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Behind the Story
I knew mu looked sort of tree-like, but I never stopped to think about the fact that the bottom part was roots. Maybe that’s an American attitude, to think only of what’s above ground. Ha ha. When I studied Chinese (rather informally and not for nearly long enough), I did enjoy writing the characters. It was fun until they got too hard. My husband loved all the thought and history that went into the formation of the characters. He hated the simplified characters because he said too much of the meaning and history was lost. Of course, he grew up learning the traditional version.

我知道看起來(lái)有點(diǎn)像樹(shù)，但是我從來(lái)沒(méi)有停下來(lái)想過(guò)底部是樹(shù)根這件事，也許這就是美國(guó)人的態(tài)度，只考慮地上面的東西，哈哈。當(dāng)我學(xué)習(xí)漢語(yǔ)的時(shí)候(相當(dāng)隨意，而且時(shí)間也不夠長(zhǎng))，我確實(shí)很喜歡寫漢字。這很有趣，直到他們變得太難。我的丈夫喜歡這些漢字形成的所有歷史。他討厭簡(jiǎn)體字，因?yàn)樗f(shuō)太多的意義和歷史丟失了。當(dāng)然，他在成長(zhǎng)過(guò)程中學(xué)習(xí)了繁體字。

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Marta
I remember that when mu was explained to us the teacher said that, in a tree, the most important part is the roots. Yes, it’s a completely different way of looking at things!
Your husband was right, a big part of the meaning and history was lost. I hope it at least helped to improve the literacy rate in the past century.

我記得當(dāng)老師解釋給我們聽(tīng)的時(shí)候，老師說(shuō)，在一棵樹(shù)上，最重要的部分是根。是的，這是一種完全不同的看待事物的方式！
你丈夫是對(duì)的，很大一部分漢字的意義和歷史已經(jīng)丟失了。不過(guò)我希望這至少有助于提高識(shí)字率。

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Niial Hawking
nice post! very helpful for those who wanted to learn chinese language. thanks for the post.

很棒的帖子！對(duì)那些想學(xué)中文的人來(lái)說(shuō)很有幫助。謝謝你的帖子。

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Ni On The Fly
I commend you for learning chinese. Both my parents are chinese but I can only understand Cantonese as we only spoke English at home.
Now I’m trying to teach myself Cantonese and it’s a struggle

我對(duì)你學(xué)習(xí)中文表示稱贊。我的父母都是中國(guó)人，但我只懂粵語(yǔ)，因?yàn)槲覀冊(cè)诩依镏徽f(shuō)英語(yǔ)。
現(xiàn)在我正在努力學(xué)習(xí)廣東話，這是一件很困難的事情。

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nagstrong12
Very good post. I wish one day i learn chinese

非常好的帖子。我希望有一天我能學(xué)中文。

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Charmaine Ng
Gotta love Chinese superstitions! I’ve grown out of them now but growing up Chinese, I used to be so scared of the stories my grandmothers told me, haha!?

我愛(ài)中國(guó)的迷信！我現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)不再聽(tīng)這些故事了，但是在中國(guó)長(zhǎng)大的過(guò)程中，我曾經(jīng)非常害怕祖母給我講這些故事，哈哈！

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Marta
Superstitions are kind of funny everywhere. In Spain, opening an umbrella indoors or passing under a ladder brings bad luck. I wonder, is there an evil force field in the umbrella or under the ladder? xD

迷信在任何地方都是有趣的。在西班牙，在室內(nèi)撐傘或從梯子下經(jīng)過(guò)會(huì)帶來(lái)厄運(yùn)。我想知道，傘下或者梯子下是否有邪惡的力場(chǎng)？哈哈

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autumnashbough
I’ve actually been trying to find a house flag that incorporates the requisite Chinese characters for good luck, etc. I thought that would be a nice melding of east and west

實(shí)際上，我一直在試圖找到一個(gè)適合掛在房子上的旗幟，包括必要的象征好運(yùn)的漢字等等。我認(rèn)為這將是一個(gè)很好的東西方的融合。

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Marta
Uhm, I looked it up on Taobao but house flags are not common here. However, there are many vendors who make custom flags

嗯，我在淘寶上查過(guò)，但是房子上的旗幟在這里不常見(jiàn)。然而，有很多供應(yīng)商可以自定義旗幟。

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hcyip
Very interesting. I’ve never know about this superstition of hanging plants (is it scallion?) and garlic outside the door to protect against spirits. Don’t you find this similar to stories in the West about using garlic to protect against vampires, ha?

非常有趣。我從來(lái)不知道這種懸掛植物的迷信(是大蔥嗎？)和把大蒜放在門外，防止惡靈侵入。你不覺(jué)得這和西方用大蒜抵御吸血鬼的故事很相似嗎？

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Marta
Yes! So this proves garlic is effective against evil xD

是的！這就證明了大蒜對(duì)惡靈是有效的，哈哈