Various queries/questions

Community-Created Courses Chinese
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1

… now, I’m not living in China and I’ll not go there to teach English…

But: my first task concerning working-with-Chinese-companies and of course the related terminology came into my office today…

what are your experiences with Chinese industrial/technical/legal terminology? how do you avoid troubles?

what specialised dictionaries are you using?

i you want to make/to contribute to a good course on technology/industry terms, let me know

2

technical or simply stronger dictionaries

http://eng.ichacha.net/ (English Japanese French Russian Korean Chinese)
http://www.minmm.com/minc/cedict.php
http://www.chinaorb.com/
http://dict.youdao.com/
https://cdict.net/
http://dict.cnki.net/
http://www.pristine.com.tw/lexicon.php
http://www.xiaoma.info/
http://www.legislation.gov.hk/eng/glossary/homeglos.htm (Legal, HK)
http://www.schnitzer-gmbh.com/lexikon/01lexikon.php?site=2

3

There’s a book-
商务汉语800句
Business Chinese 800

6

for those 1. with a real interest in the culture of China, in its extraordinarily rich and diverse history of ideas, and also 2. understanding French

here the links to the courses - in audio format - at the University of Geneva, of one of the most respected contemporary sinologists, Jean-François Billeter:

https://mediaserver.unige.ch/Auteurs/2475/Billeter%20Jean-François

enjoy! (but don’t forget that Billeter was a “child” of the Cold War… some of his political opinions are typical of that mentality)

8

various words for “soul”… do you know when to use which?

灵魂

一灵真性

精魂

灵体

魂魄

9

I’m not sure of all the ins and outs, but if you’re simply referring to somebody’s soul, especially in a spiritual sense, you can often use the single character: 灵 or 灵魂. (Both of these can also be used to mean ‘spirit’.)

心灵 is also a simple, common way to say this same idea, but not related to faith or religion. It is also translated ‘heart’.

I believe the others may all have similar ideas, but are a lot less common. (A Chinese friend just confirmed this, too.)

Have a great day!

1 Like
10

Many thanks @josephdaniellepalmer. Have a great day too!

11

http://www.xiaoma.info/compound.php?def=ambition&fhz=推&fdef=ambition
(http://eng.ichacha.net/ambition.html ; http://dict.youdao.com/search?le=eng&q=ambition&tab=&keyfrom=dict2.top)

can someone say, which of these itemps above are the most used words for

  • ambition to climb up the hierarchy in an institutional contex?

  • ambition to reach a certain goal (learn Pali, climb Anapurna, etc)

many thanks

12

I’m not using the information from those two websites, but here are some thoughts from the Pleco dictionaries:

大志 (da zhi - big mark/sign/aspiration) you want to make a big mark "high aim, lofty aim, exalted ambition, high aspirations"
雄心 (xiong xin - male/powerful/mighty heart) you have a mighty heart "great ambitions; lofty aspirations"
报复 (bao fu - to hold and to bear/carry on the back) the things you want to hold and carry "aspiration; ambition"
野心 (ye xin - wild heart) you have a heart with no boundaries “wild ambition; careerism”

1 Like
13

many thanks.

(I asked this in the other thread as well, but: do you happen to know this one character`?)

14

I think it’s 制 (zhi4).

15

vielen Dank! I think the same, but somehow “manufacture” does not fit into the schema…

many many thanks again

16

When used alone, it can mean system, with the idea of controlling, regulating.

17

i was just hurrying to tell you it might be a component in a compound having to do somthing with sliding (movement) regulator or with a “(apply the )brake” 制动…

any idea if this is a variant of hao?

thanks!

18

That doesn’t look like a real character. And which “hao”? A picture of the character in its context would be helpful. Now it looks like you have an associate who tends to write 别字 or you can’t read their handwriting (which is understandable).

The closest I can get is 囚 or 贝 or 巾 or 内 or 內 or 见.

19

it is some real character, but from mainland China 20 years ago… from a production plant design… And I cannot figure out what is that for…someone claimed on some uni site that is it an obsolete variant for “good” (but only one internet source and one young Chinese economist who wasn’t very sure about are not exactly hard evidence ). Anyhow, the plan does not have any other such adjectives, nowhere, so it cannot be that…

20

does anyone how to input the two different writings of jiāng, like in jiānglái

http://www.xiaoma.info/compound.php?cp=将来&fhz=将来&fpy=jiang%20

and in this http://dict.leo.org/chde/index_de.html#/search=zukünftig&searchLoc=0&resultOrder=basic&multiwordShowSingle=on&pos=5 (fur “zukünftig” jiānglái de , also this is the writing that i can input in courses but in here only the first writing can be copied… huh?:thinking: )

thanks

21

What do you mean by “input”? Do you mean how to type it?

For the second link, it’s difficult to select those characters because they’re a link. Try starting to the left of the “play” arrow icon and then clicking and dragging to the right.

22

no, i know how to type it… but by typing it i get only one version… the links were there to see the two charaters used… copy-paste does not function, i’ve tried - i get only one version "visible!

thanks

— [email protected] wrote:

23

One version is traditional (將), the other is simplified (将), so use the appropriate IME to type the appropriate character.

I don’t know what’s up with the rendering of the character. Instead of having 夕 as a part of it, it looks like 爫 to me.