第两百四十二天

[nnozomi]

语法
原来 for "all along" (as in secrets finally revealed, etc.) (bottom of page)
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_%22all_along%22_with_%22yuanlai%22

词汇
肉, meat (pinyin in tags)
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-1-word-list/

Link to introductory grammar, day 27

Guardian:
吃点牛肉干，补充一下体力吧, eat a little beef and keep up your strength (not sure what 干 is doing in there)
原来他不仅住在我们家小区，还跟我是对门, so he wasn't just living in our neighborhood, he was right across from us
原来你一直在这儿啊, so you've been here all along

Me:
我不是不喜欢吃鱼肉，而不喜欢那些太多骨子。
原来在这里有花种，现在开花才发现了。

Comments

[sakana17]

Border Town Prodigal, episode 38:
原来你是魔教的人。

[nnozomi]

now that's nicely ominous...

[sakana17]

Unusually for Border Town Prodigal, it is less ominous in context! :D

[presumenothing]

It's there because 牛肉干 is the entire noun/name in itself! Probably some kind of dried meat that would be rendered as beef jerky in translation, though that always makes me raise an eyebrow (then again I don't actually know what jerky is beyond book descriptions…)

[nnozomi]

牛肉干 is the entire noun/name in itself!
That makes sense! I wonder why it's not 干牛肉.

[grayswandir]

Looks like 干 can be a noun that means dried food -- I just found 豆腐干 for "dried tofu," as an example, so I guess in 牛肉干 the 牛肉 part is actually the adjective/descriptor?

[nnozomi]

Makes good sense! 原来是这样啊 ;)

[presumenothing]

Yup, exactly! 肉干 is already a valid noun in itself, and then there's 鱼干 ofc. Pretty much the same way you get 梅干し and such in JP?

[grayswandir]

Huh, the translation of 原来 as "all along" surprises me a little, although I guess it's kind of hard to describe the meaning otherwise. I feel like the way to express the same idea in English is pretty much always just "so..." or "it turns out..." (emphasizing the speaker's moment of realization), and sentences where the English translation would say "all along" would usually have a separate emphasis on that part in Chinese, too (like your third Guardian example, where "all along" is conveyed by 一直). But I don't really have any better ideas for how they should explain it, either！ I've just always gotten the impression that 原来 is less about "it was always this way," and more about the realization. Especially for examples like 原来是这样, where I would definitely just translate it as something like "Oh, so that's how it is."

A Canto translation, while I'm here:

普通话：原来是这样！
广东话：原来係噉！

[nnozomi]

It's very hard to put into English, isn't it? I kind of think of it fairly literally as "来 since 原 the origin," which doesn't really make sense; used for noticing not just how something is but that it's been that way already? "it turns out" as you say is pretty good. Oh dear. (原来是这样 goes perfectly into Japanese, for the record...).
and thank you for the Cantonese! Always fascinating.

[presumenothing]

中秋节 greeting card! (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)

On topic, 原来 there are some regional varieties of mooncakes that have savoury 肉 filling instead of the usual sweet ones (well, I already knew this, but for the sake of grammar… XD)

[nnozomi]

中秋节 greeting card! (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)
是不是你自己的歌声？？？非常好！❤️❤️❤️ 中秋快乐！

(also, I wish we were all in one place and could have a mooncake tasting party, I'd like to try ALL the varieties...)