第三百五十六天

[nnozomi]

新年快乐！祝大家平平安安健健康康的一年。(With LNY and our one-year anniversary here also coming up, it's gonna be a celebratory January.)

语法
算 + noun or adjective, "to be considered X" (plus some fun stuff at the bottom of the page)
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Making_judgments_with_%22suan%22
(I find this one very neat)

词汇
比如, such as; 比如说, for example 比如 bǐrú, such as; 比如说 bǐrú shuō, for example
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-2-word-list/

Introductory grammar, day 143

Guardian:
我看大家也算是吃饱喝足了, I see everyone seems to have eaten and drunk their fill
老大，玩游戏也算加班吧? boss, playing video games can also be considered overtime, right?
你知不知道这禁地里面有什么呀？比如说，能治百病的灵药之类的, do you know what's inside the forbidden place? Like, a panacea that can cure all ills or something?

Me:
新一年的开始算挺好的。
冬天我想吃甜的，比如说巧克力。

Comments

[trobadora]

新年快乐！Time flies, I have no idea how we got here already ...

[nnozomi]

Time flies! Got to look up how to say that in Chinese.

[trobadora]

Oooh, yes, that would be excellent to know!

[grayswandir]

The one I've heard is 时光飞逝, but looking up "time flies" in Pleco I'm getting all kinds of results:

光阴似箭 - time flies like an arrow

岁月如梭 - time flies like a weaver's shuttle (also 日月如梭, the sun and moon shuttle back and forth, also used together with the previous phrase: "光阴似箭，日月如梭")

光阴弹指 or 弹指光阴 - time passes in a flash (弹指: instant, blink of an eye, finger-snap)

斗转星移 - time flies / time passes (the big dipper turns, the stars move)

光阴荏苒 - time flies (荏苒 is totally new to me...)

白驹过隙 - time flies like the glimpse of a white colt flashing past a chink in the wall (from Zhuangzi)

Plus a whole bunch of variations that show up in example sentences, e.g. 时光有如流星, 岁月流转, 流光易逝, 时光飘逝, 日月推迁, 日月悄逝, 晷影匆移, 驹光飞逝...

[presumenothing]

I'd mainly go for 光阴似箭 unless you want to sound literary, though on the non-idiom front you can also just say something prosaic like 时间过得真快…

[grayswandir]

Thanks, that's good to know! Pleco was not helpful in that regard. XD I think I've also heard 日月如梭, but I can't remember the context so I couldn't have guessed whether it was literary or not. And in Cantonese I've heard 时间真系过得好快 for a more prosaic version, so I did wonder how to do that in Mandarin, too. (Can you also say 时间真的过得很快? That would be a literal translation of the Cantonese but it seems a bit clunky to me in Mandarin, compared to your version...)

[presumenothing]

Yeah, I'd only add the 真的 if I was going for emphasis and/or agreeing with someone ("time really does fly").

Tangentially, also just remembered the existence of “转眼间，…” for a fairly literal sentence-starter equivalent of "in the blink of an eye".

[trobadora]

Thank you! It's so hard to judge register when all you have to go on is drama dialogue and the dictionary, LOL.

时间过得太快 is what I've heard before, I think.

[presumenothing]

Yup, using 太 would lend itself to sorta-superlative ("time passes way too quick") rather than neutral-ish expression, so it's definitely usable too.

[trobadora]

Time always passes way too quickly for me, so this is useful to me! :D

[nnozomi]

谢谢, helpful! 箭 of course, the one I can never remember. (always annoyed that unlike Japanese, you can't just type "arrow" and get the various ➡️ ⬅️ ⬆️ ⬇️ options)

[trobadora]

Wow, what a collection, thank you for assembling all this! Now that you say it, I've heard 时光飞逝 and 光阴似箭 before, yeah ... not that I'd have been able to dredge them up from memory.

And I really love 斗转星移, that is delightful.

[nnozomi]

谢谢！ These are great. Of course 弹指 means finger-snap, that makes sense. I've only ever seen 荏 in an obscure Japanese place-name that nobody who isn't local can pronounce. The 如梭 ones are pretty... (Now I'm trying to think of a way to translate that time-honored English proverb "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana" and not coming up with anything yet. More study on puns needed. ;) )

[sakana17]

新年快乐！

The Rebel, episode 1:
刚才算什么考核？

Lost Tomb Reboot, episode 29:
比如说长期无人认领的各种原料 (this must be in Warehouse 11...)

[nnozomi]

考核 is a good one, new to me.

[elenothar]

Ooh, indeed fun stuff at the bottom. The tone of reluctance in particular is interesting to me, though I have trouble remembering that sort of thing without coming across it several times...

[nnozomi]

...I realized that although I can't actually, like, use it or anything, 算 to sound reluctant makes sense for me, and upon thought it's because you also have 酸 vinegar (like 酸奶), also suan, so if you're feeling vinegary about something of course you're reluctant...

[elenothar]

You're clearly already on a higher level if you're remembering things via homophone XD

[nnozomi]

I wish! Would also help if I could remember the respective tones, which of course I can't at all...

[elenothar]

I thank my vocab app daily for making me learn tones

[nnozomi]

I should set mine to do the same, and I do try, but honestly I think my brain has kind of given up... ;(