第七十七天

[nnozomi]

Unmistakably a 第七天 even to my dubious arithmetic skills.

语法 This week's grammar:
总是, always, with verbs
总是, always, with adjectives
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22always%22_with_%22zongshi%22
还，also, connecting two verbs under one subject
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22and_also%22_with_%22hai%22
刚 + verb, just (as in "it just happened"), also 刚刚
刚, just (happened), again, with the time it happened (~~ ago) added
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22just%22_with_%22gang%22
adjective + 死了 for emphasis (not actually dying).
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Negative_adjectives_with_%22-si_le%22

词汇 This week's vocabulary
北, north (also 北边, north side, and 北京, Beijing)
本, measure word for books, as in 一本书 (also 本子, book (really??) and 课本, textbook)
别, don't (also 别的, other, and 别人, other people)
病, illness (depressing but useful; also 病人, patient; 看病, to see a doctor; 生病, to get sick)
不, no or not ~ (also 不大, not big; 不对, wrong; 不客气, you're welcome; 不用, no need; 对不起, sorry; 是不是, is it?)
菜, a dish, as in a serving of food
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-1-word-list/

玩玩
Post something you like! Songs, questions, new words, etc. etc. Playlist from past days 🎵❤️
Mine: Liu Chang and his friend Wa'er take their four-year-old work!niece to a farm. Chinese hardsubs and just soothingly cute.

事务
Re: pinyin. People have suggested the Zhongwen browser extension (Firefox and Chrome links below) which allows hovering over hanzi characters to see the pinyin. This seems like the best compromise between people who would like to see it and people who would rather not? That said, if you would like to see pinyin here but can't easily deal with this extension for various reasons, comment/message/etc. and we'll see what other options there are.
https://addons.mozilla.org/ja/firefox/addon/zhongwen/
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zhongwen-chinese-english/kkmlkkjojmombglmlpbpapmhcaljjkde

Re: tags, pinyin issues included. People have kindly volunteered to help deal with tags; let me know what you think the ideal format would be...

Re: other: I think there should probably be a masterpost/masterpage somewhere that covers all the content posted in one big list/table/etc., but I'm not immediately envisioning what it would look like (or whether this can be handled by tagging, etc.). Tell me what would work for you.

周末或者周一愉快！

Comments

[grayswandir]

I hadn't thought about a masterpost, but if you do end up making one, I can think of a few things that might be useful to put on it! :D I assume you'd have links to the Grammar Wiki and the HSK word list, and maybe also a couple of dictionary sites (like Baidu and whatever else people usually use?), and the Zhongwen browser extension you mentioned. Maybe also a link to the search page for the community? (I don't know why, but DW does not make it easy to get to a specific journal's search page without a direct link. :P )

Since people have been asking about pinyin, it might be useful to have a link to a web-based Chinese-to-Pinyin converter, though I'm not sure what the best option is. I just did a quick browse, and I liked this one because it converts the text instantly (you don't have to press a "convert" button and wait for it to work), though on the down side, it also doesn't break the pinyin up into words, and you have to click the "tone marks" button or it will give you tone numbers instead. Google Translate is probably better, since it does automatic tone marks and has better formatting... it just stupidly only gives you well-formatted pinyin paragraphs if you translate from Chinese to Chinese. :P ) But anyway, a link to either that or Google Translate's Chinse-to-English preset might be useful. Or maybe someone else has a different suggestion for translation/pinyin conversion?

I feel like covering all the content from the comm in one masterpost would be unwieldy and hard to keep updated, so if it was me I'd probably just put a link to the tags page and then maybe a few links to broad tag categories to let people browse more easily, like the 一天一橘 tag and the 第七天 tag. I'm not sure what other kinds of tag categories people might find useful -- maybe categories like noun, verb, etc.? Though that could be complicated since a lot of Chinese words can take multiple forms. :/ Just a link to the tags page might be fine?

For the people who would like to see pinyin in the tags, I wonder if it would be helpful to put the pinyin right before the Chinese characters in the tags that already exist, so that they alphabetize themselves on the tag page? So like, instead of the tag just being "刚," it would be something like "gāng | 刚" or "gāng - 刚" or whatever? I don't know, I just thought of it because I notice that a lot of word lists use alphabetical order by pinyin, so I assume people who know pinyin find it easier to search for words that way.

(I don't really have an opinion about using pinyin or not in the posts, because I can't read it well enough for it to distract me. XD But like trobadora, I would definitely find it distracting if I could read it, and it would probably guarantee that I wouldn't read the Chinese, so I do think if it's included it might be best to have it behind a spoiler cut, or just in the tags, or something.)

[trobadora]

These are all excellent suggestions! I like the idea of putting the pinyin into the tags; that won't interfere with reading on the page but makes finding something much easier. (And you can still use browser search to find a character on the tag page.)

it just stupidly only gives you well-formatted pinyin paragraphs if you translate from Chinese to Chinese

LOLOLOL, I didn't know that!

(FWIW, the relevant DW search page is linked on the profile.)

[grayswandir]

(FWIW, the relevant DW search page is linked on the profile.)

Oh, hey, so it is. *facepalm* Thank you for telling me! Somehow the idea that "search for entries" actually means "search entries for a word/phrase" has never occurred to me! I only knew about the search function because of few journals I've seen that have it as part of their layout.

[trobadora]

Yeah, and there's nothing at all that tells you the comment search is also in there! Not the most intuitive, but once you know it's there, it's handy for quickly finding the link.

[presumenothing]

So like, instead of the tag just being "刚," it would be something like "gāng | 刚" or "gāng - 刚"

+1 on this because I just realised the tags are currently sorted by 部首 (and… stroke count as a secondary sort? can't quite tell but assuming from paper dictionary order)

…but -0.5 preemptively due to the possibility of multiple readings XD though I don't know how often this is gonna occur for the tagged words specifically.

[grayswandir]

due to the possibility of multiple readings

Oh, right, that thing we were just talking about. XD How many tags does 着 get?

[nnozomi]

How many tags does 着 get?
*makes note to avoid making anything 着-related the grammar point of the day for AS LONG AS POSSIBLE* ;)

[trobadora]

For multiple readings, it might actually be useful to have separate tags? We've been separating things out a lot, so they're likely to be in separate posts anyway.

[nnozomi]

In both links and proposals/thoughts this is a SUPER helpful comment, thank you so much for doing all the legwork that I've been too lazy to get to myself. I will keep referring back to it. (Especially now that we can search comments ;) ) Basically agreed on all your points, including having a collection of links as a masterpost, and also pinyin-first tags for alphabetization. I'll come back to specific points later when I (FINALLY) start putting it into practice, but all good thoughts.