第三年第两百零八天

[nnozomi]

成语
细皮嫩肉 smooth-skinned, soft-fleshed
精挑细选 to select very carefully
芝麻绿豆 trivial, minuscule
青面獠牙 fierce-looking (lit. pale face, bared teeth)
面面俱到 take care of everything (lit. prepared in every aspect)
人面兽心 a wolf in sheep's clothing, a malicious liar (lit. human face, beast's heart)
缩头乌龟 a coward, a (metaphorical) ostrich (lit. a turtle pulling its head in)
藏头露尾 telling only part of the truth (lit. hiding the head and showing the tail)
苦海无涯，回头是岸 there's still time to repent (lit. the bitter sea is boundless, turn your head to find the shore)
细皮嫩肉 xìpí nènròu; 精挑细选 jīng tiāo xì xuǎn; 芝麻绿豆 zhīma lǜdòu
青面獠牙 qīngmiàn liáoyá; 面面俱到 miànmiàn jùdào; 人面兽心 rénmiàn shòuxīn
缩头乌龟 suōtóu wūguī; 藏头露尾 cángtóu lùwěi; 苦海无涯，回头是岸 kǔhǎi wúyá, huítóu shì àn

语法
Direction words: 朝 vs 向 vs 往
https://mandarinbean.com/chao-vs-xiang-vs-wang/
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22chao%22_%22xiang%22_and_%22wang%22
Words for "all": 全 vs 都
https://mandarinbean.com/quan-vs-dou/
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_%22all%22_adverb_%22dou%22
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Indicating_the_whole_with_%22quan%22
Words for "just now," 刚, 刚刚, 刚才
https://mandarinbean.com/gang-cai/
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Comparing_%22gang%22_and_%22gangcai%22

词汇
飞行 flight, flying
费, fee/cost; 费用, costs/expenses; 交费, pay; 浪费, waste; 收费, collect fees; 消费, consumption; 学费, tuition
分别, part; 分配, distribution; 分组, grouping; 得分, score
丰富, rich, plentiful
风险, risk
否定, negative; 否认, deny
飞行 fēixíng flight, flying
费 fèi, fee/cost; 费用 fèiyòng, costs/expenses; 交费 jiāofèi, pay; 浪费 làngfèi, waste; 收费 shōufèi, collect fees; 消费 xiāofèi, consumption; 学费 xuéfèi, tuition
分别 fēnbié, part; 分配 fēnpèi, distribution; 分组 fēnzǔ, grouping; 得分 défēn, score
丰富 fēngfù, rich, plentiful
风险 fēngxiǎn, risk
否定 fǒudìng, negative; 否认 fǒurèn, deny
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-3-word-list/

玩玩
Some stuff from https://improvemandarin.com . While I can’t speak to their absolute reliability, they have a lot of interesting and/or useful things: large quantities of HSK practice tests as well as blog posts including things like cat-related Chinese vocabulary, Mandarin vs Cantonese and vs Shanghainese, most popular Chinese name trends (linked before, I think), three different ways to say “but”, and so on.

我服了，太热了吧。吃冰淇淋吃冻香蕉喝薄荷水。大家过得怎么样，8月还没问题呢？

Comments

[sakana17]

That's fascinating about Shanghainese! I knew it was a Wu language, but didn't know what that meant in terms of differences with Mandarin.

Some music links from the farmboys:
Lu Zhuo singing 美声 (bel canto) (not a clip from the show, looks like some of the guys were guests on another iQiyi show)
&
Zhuo Yuan singing "大城小爱"

[nnozomi]

I'm oppressed by the number of completely different dialects there are! (But it's neat.)

aw, Lu Zhuo! Impressed that he can just come up with an aria on the spot. He sounds more like a baritone than a tenor there, I wonder what his voice classification at the conservatory was...

and that song is a perfect fit for Zhuo Yuan <3

[grayswandir]

Thanks for the links! I found the post about Shanghainese in particular really interesting. (It's a shame their "step-by-step guide to help you progress to a conversational level in Shanghainese in just a few short months" seems to have vanished!)

I was just reading through some of the Wikipedia article on Shanghainese recently, and it's really fascinating how different some of its features are from Mandarin. (It sounds to me like it's more different from Mandarin than Cantonese is.) The tone sandhi system sounds crazy complicated, and apparently the language can be regarded as having something like tenses and inflection, at least more so than Mandarin does. And there's some neat stuff like adding -頭勢 to an adjective as a sort of affix to turn it into a noun. I've been wanting to look into it more, especially just lately after watching War of Faith. There's one character in the show who always speaks in Shanghainese, and I found it really interesting to listen to his dialogue and try to hear which words sounded sort of like Mandarin, and which ones I couldn't figure out at all.

I'd read the page about Cantonese before, and it seems pretty accurate from what I know, although there are maybe a few examples in the comparison charts that aren't as common/universal as the charts sort of imply. For instance, 欢喜 does mean "like" in Cantonese, but in my experience it's almost never used (it's always 鍾意 instead). And "feisi" is one way to say "face," but I think just 面 is more common (畀面, "to give face," 冇面, "to lose face," 洗面, "to wash one's face," etc.).

[nnozomi]

The huge difference between Shanghainese and Mandarin blows my mind--to find Japanese dialects that different from standard Tokyoese you'd have to go out to the remote islands, nowadays. My brain doesn't have the capacity for this many languages under one heading! Keep us posted if you read more about it?

Glad to hear your take on the Cantonese page--it does sound as if they're picking some examples for effect. So interesting.

[trobadora]

Thank you for those links! Lots of fascinating stuff to read. :D

[nnozomi]

Yes! The big vocabulary collections are exciting but also alarming... ;)