What is actually meant by these two words, 茅盾?
[pronounced mao dun?] Please give some 词 句 如
例 子。[Is this the correct way of saying “give some
sentences as examples?]
FYI, I have some background of the Chinese language
including speaking and writing. I can converse comfortably
with Mandarin-speaking Chinese people. After having joined
your “每日学 华 语”, in August, 2010, I started your lessons
from May, 2009 to August, 2010 and revised them a couple of
times.
At first I thought I had enough vocabulary and when I picked
up a Chinese newspaper to read, I can hardly understand its
content as there are still many hard words I have not learned.
Please tell me how much longer I must go on learning Chinese
before I can read and understand a Chinese newspaper
comfortably?
If you mean 矛 盾 (spear-shield), lulanke has given a good explanation in the comment below.
For your last question, It really depends on the individual. In order for you to read and understand a Chinese newspaper comfortably, basically you have to know about 900-1000 Chinese characters and 11,000 phrases/words.
I hope you will continue to learn Chinese and never give up. And I am always here to help. 🙂
I meant to say 矛 盾. Please can you give some examples
as to how to use these two words? “请给一些句子的例子。”
Up to this moment in time, how many Chinese characters and
phrases/words are there up to the August lesson?
I will never give up learning Chinese until I can read and understand
a Chinese newspaper comfortably and beyond. However, I want to
commend you for creating such a user-friendly 网 站 for learning
Chinese. You are really a genius for using such 枝 术。 Judging from
the way you conduct the lessons, you must a graduate from some
university?
I picked up some of the Beijing pronunciations from you website
and spoke with a 北 京 accent to the local Chinese here in
Malaysia and they criticise that I don’t know how to speak
Mandarin well. For example, I say jin rong [金融] and they say,
“do you mean to say “chin yong”? That’s the problem I am
facing right now. 🙂 Thought I’d mention it in passing!
Here are two examples for “矛 盾”:
1. 他 的 心 情 很 矛 盾 。 (His feelings were mixed.)
2. 他 的 话 自 相 矛 盾 。 (What he says is self-contradictory.)
As you can see from the Daily Word category, there are 335 characters up to 29 August 2010. And remember, this is just characters, you need to learn around 11,000 Chinese words for you to read and understand a Chinese newspaper comfortably and beyond. And starting from Jan 2010, I had added a “Common Words / Phrases” session for each daily character that I post. So keep on learning, and I believe that you will master Chinese one day.
“jin rong” and “chin yong” is quite similar in term of pronunciation. Maybe you didn’t get the tone correct. In Chinese, change the tone will change the meaning of word itself.
Hmm only 335 words up to 29 August. Still a long way
off from 11,000 words. How much longer do you think
it takes to reach this target at the rate we are going
now? Two or three years? Yes?
Oh, by the way, what is the difference between characters
and Chinese words?
Hi Βωων Κυαν,
A word or phrase (词) (a unit of meaning) is composed of one or more characters (字).
Example “见” is a character, “再见” is a word which consists of 2 characters.
That’s pretty interesting, Min Min. At first, I thought,
for example, “见” is a word but it’s a character different
from English words in that, for example, the word, “English”
is a word made up of the characters, “e n g l i s h”
So you are saying that in Chinese a character by itself is
not a word but there must be two characters to form a
word. I think I got it now. Thanks all the same.
Hi Βωων Κυαν,
“见” is a character and also a word.
A character which has meaning by its own is also a word.
“见” is a character and also a word. “再见” and “见面” are words.
Hello Βωων Κυαν [文 光]
Allow me to anwer your question, 茅 盾 is just a name, but 矛 盾 means contradiction (the first mao has a gras radical). as in:
máo dùn xiān shēng shuō máo dùn biǎo miàn huà le
茅 盾 先 生 说： 矛 盾 表 面 化 了
Sir MaoDun said, The contradiction has become appeared
máo 矛 is a spear dùn 盾 is a shield. The story goes that in ancient times a marked salesmen sold spears saying his spears penetrated everything on earth, nothing could stop them. The next morning he was selling his shields saying they were so hard nothing could penetrate them, a astute buyer who was present the day before when he was selling spears, said “But what about your spears then”. The marked salesman was dumbfounded and left.
Hence the meaning of 矛 盾 spear-shield meaning contradiction.
Hope this explains your question.
Thanks for your explanation which appears pretty easy
to understand. So there are actually two different words,
one with a 草字头 and the other without
My understanding of 表 面 is outside surface and 化 了 is
scratched。 Literally, doesn’t it mean “surface is scratched”?
Literally translated, “矛 盾 表 面 化 了” is the surface of the
contradiction is scratched. What actually does it mean?
Your 推 销 员 illustration of 矛 盾 spear-shield makes sense
to me. Please give more 例 子 on how to make 词 句 with
矛 盾
What other occasion can you use 万事如意 other than on
Chinese New Year?
Can you also or Min Min address second part of my previous
post?
Chinese has no alphabet like English. English “characters” denote sound, not meaning. So we write down the sound of a word an remember its meaning. Not so in
Chinese, The Chinese write down the meaning of a word not its sound. Like the number system in English, 5, meaning five objects pronounced five, but a Dutchman
would pronounce the same “character” as vijf, an Arab gamsa and a Chinese wu, al different pronunciations for the same character.
So each word in the Chinese language has its own character, conveing the meaning, the sound you have to remember. That is why Chinese is difficult to learn because you need to memorize at least 5000 characters to be able to read a Chinese newspaper!
Old Chinese in particular used one character for one word, modern Chinese combine two characters or more to make a word, chī fàn 吃 饭
meaning eat rice =to eat. (Both words separately have meaning to, to eat and rice).
Personally I think that is why the Chinese language is the oldest language in existence, because although the language changed considerably in pronunciation during the ages, and still varies greatly from place to place, think of Cantonese, the Chinese script remained readable through the ages and from place to place since it doesn’t write down the sound of words only its meaning!
Hope that this make things more clear to you.
Thanks, Roland or 陆蓝克 for your interesting analysis.
I agree with you that one has to write the meaning of a Chinese
word not its sound. But with me, I learn how a Chinese word is
pronounced first and memorise its sound and learn its meaning.
After all this, I write it down on a piece of paper a few times to
help me to remember it better.
That’s why the 汉语拼音 in Romanised characters with a human voice
pronunciation on Min Min’s website is very helpful. I can learn one
month’s lesson in a few hours. I also write every word, every sentence,
and the meaning of every word and sentence in a note book and
revise each and every lesson a few times.
I agree the Chinese language is kind of difficult to learn. You
have to remember the many artistic strokes of each and different
words. That makes it even harder to remember how a word is
written at times even though you know its meaning and its sound.
Hello! I have been checking the pronunciation of this word in a dictionary website and it has a longer sound, almost like a hou1 but I thought this should be a short sound like kan4 (to see)? Thanks!
Here is the link! It is a dictionary website so I am not sure if this has the correct pronunciation, because it does not really sound short enough like the word kan 看
kàn. I think hou should sound like kan, am I correct? Thanks!
Just another question, what is the difference between 咱们
zánmen and 我们
wǒmen? Thanks!
ni hao min min, i want to ask you again ^_^
what is different 得空 with 有空？ because in some book write with 有空 in sentence no.2
thank you
Hi XianYuSeung,
得空 and 有空 have the same meaning. So you can say:
午餐后你有空吗？
thank you ^_^ now i have more words has same meaning thank you again ^_^
Hi Min Min
What is actually meant by these two words, 茅盾?
[pronounced mao dun?] Please give some 词 句 如
例 子。[Is this the correct way of saying “give some
sentences as examples?]
FYI, I have some background of the Chinese language
including speaking and writing. I can converse comfortably
with Mandarin-speaking Chinese people. After having joined
your “每日学 华 语”, in August, 2010, I started your lessons
from May, 2009 to August, 2010 and revised them a couple of
times.
At first I thought I had enough vocabulary and when I picked
up a Chinese newspaper to read, I can hardly understand its
content as there are still many hard words I have not learned.
Please tell me how much longer I must go on learning Chinese
before I can read and understand a Chinese newspaper
comfortably?
Thanks
Hi Βωων Κυαν,
It is not that correct to say “词 句 如 例 子”. However, you can try to say “请给一些句子的例子。”
句 子 的 例 子 == sentence’s example.
For 茅 盾, do you mean 矛 盾?
茅 盾 is a famous writer. You can read more in Baidu:
http://baike.baidu.com/view/15673.htm
or in English:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://baike.baidu.com/view/15673.htm&sl=zh-CN&tl=en
If you mean 矛 盾 (spear-shield), lulanke has given a good explanation in the comment below.
For your last question, It really depends on the individual. In order for you to read and understand a Chinese newspaper comfortably, basically you have to know about 900-1000 Chinese characters and 11,000 phrases/words.
I hope you will continue to learn Chinese and never give up. And I am always here to help. 🙂
Thanks, Min Min.
I meant to say 矛 盾. Please can you give some examples
as to how to use these two words? “请给一些句子的例子。”
Up to this moment in time, how many Chinese characters and
phrases/words are there up to the August lesson?
I will never give up learning Chinese until I can read and understand
a Chinese newspaper comfortably and beyond. However, I want to
commend you for creating such a user-friendly 网 站 for learning
Chinese. You are really a genius for using such 枝 术。 Judging from
the way you conduct the lessons, you must a graduate from some
university?
I picked up some of the Beijing pronunciations from you website
and spoke with a 北 京 accent to the local Chinese here in
Malaysia and they criticise that I don’t know how to speak
Mandarin well. For example, I say jin rong [金融] and they say,
“do you mean to say “chin yong”? That’s the problem I am
facing right now. 🙂 Thought I’d mention it in passing!
Hi,
Here are two examples for “矛 盾”:
1. 他 的 心 情 很 矛 盾 。 (His feelings were mixed.)
2. 他 的 话 自 相 矛 盾 。 (What he says is self-contradictory.)
As you can see from the Daily Word category, there are 335 characters up to 29 August 2010. And remember, this is just characters, you need to learn around 11,000 Chinese words for you to read and understand a Chinese newspaper comfortably and beyond. And starting from Jan 2010, I had added a “Common Words / Phrases” session for each daily character that I post. So keep on learning, and I believe that you will master Chinese one day.
“jin rong” and “chin yong” is quite similar in term of pronunciation. Maybe you didn’t get the tone correct. In Chinese, change the tone will change the meaning of word itself.
Hmm only 335 words up to 29 August. Still a long way
off from 11,000 words. How much longer do you think
it takes to reach this target at the rate we are going
now? Two or three years? Yes?
Oh, by the way, what is the difference between characters
and Chinese words?
Hi Βωων Κυαν,
A word or phrase (词) (a unit of meaning) is composed of one or more characters (字).
Example “见” is a character, “再见” is a word which consists of 2 characters.
That’s pretty interesting, Min Min. At first, I thought,
for example, “见” is a word but it’s a character different
from English words in that, for example, the word, “English”
is a word made up of the characters, “e n g l i s h”
So you are saying that in Chinese a character by itself is
not a word but there must be two characters to form a
word. I think I got it now. Thanks all the same.
Hi Βωων Κυαν,
“见” is a character and also a word.
A character which has meaning by its own is also a word.
“见” is a character and also a word. “再见” and “见面” are words.
Hello Βωων Κυαν [文 光]
Allow me to anwer your question, 茅 盾 is just a name, but 矛 盾 means contradiction (the first mao has a gras radical). as in:
máo dùn xiān shēng shuō máo dùn biǎo miàn huà le
茅 盾 先 生 说： 矛 盾 表 面 化 了
Sir MaoDun said, The contradiction has become appeared
máo 矛 is a spear dùn 盾 is a shield. The story goes that in ancient times a marked salesmen sold spears saying his spears penetrated everything on earth, nothing could stop them. The next morning he was selling his shields saying they were so hard nothing could penetrate them, a astute buyer who was present the day before when he was selling spears, said “But what about your spears then”. The marked salesman was dumbfounded and left.
Hence the meaning of 矛 盾 spear-shield meaning contradiction.
Hope this explains your question.
万事如意
陆蓝克
Hi 陆蓝克
Thanks for your explanation which appears pretty easy
to understand. So there are actually two different words,
one with a 草字头 and the other without
My understanding of 表 面 is outside surface and 化 了 is
scratched。 Literally, doesn’t it mean “surface is scratched”?
Literally translated, “矛 盾 表 面 化 了” is the surface of the
contradiction is scratched. What actually does it mean?
Your 推 销 员 illustration of 矛 盾 spear-shield makes sense
to me. Please give more 例 子 on how to make 词 句 with
矛 盾
What other occasion can you use 万事如意 other than on
Chinese New Year?
Can you also or Min Min address second part of my previous
post?
谢 谢
Hello Βωων Κυαν [文 光]
Chinese has no alphabet like English. English “characters” denote sound, not meaning. So we write down the sound of a word an remember its meaning. Not so in
Chinese, The Chinese write down the meaning of a word not its sound. Like the number system in English, 5, meaning five objects pronounced five, but a Dutchman
would pronounce the same “character” as vijf, an Arab gamsa and a Chinese wu, al different pronunciations for the same character.
So each word in the Chinese language has its own character, conveing the meaning, the sound you have to remember. That is why Chinese is difficult to learn because you need to memorize at least 5000 characters to be able to read a Chinese newspaper!
Old Chinese in particular used one character for one word, modern Chinese combine two characters or more to make a word, chī fàn 吃 饭
meaning eat rice =to eat. (Both words separately have meaning to, to eat and rice).
Personally I think that is why the Chinese language is the oldest language in existence, because although the language changed considerably in pronunciation during the ages, and still varies greatly from place to place, think of Cantonese, the Chinese script remained readable through the ages and from place to place since it doesn’t write down the sound of words only its meaning!
Hope that this make things more clear to you.
万事如意
陆蓝克
Thanks, Roland or 陆蓝克 for your interesting analysis.
I agree with you that one has to write the meaning of a Chinese
word not its sound. But with me, I learn how a Chinese word is
pronounced first and memorise its sound and learn its meaning.
After all this, I write it down on a piece of paper a few times to
help me to remember it better.
That’s why the 汉语拼音 in Romanised characters with a human voice
pronunciation on Min Min’s website is very helpful. I can learn one
month’s lesson in a few hours. I also write every word, every sentence,
and the meaning of every word and sentence in a note book and
revise each and every lesson a few times.
I agree the Chinese language is kind of difficult to learn. You
have to remember the many artistic strokes of each and different
words. That makes it even harder to remember how a word is
written at times even though you know its meaning and its sound.
Thanks again for your explanation.
Hello! I have been checking the pronunciation of this word in a dictionary website and it has a longer sound, almost like a hou1 but I thought this should be a short sound like kan4 (to see)? Thanks!
Hi Mervin,
后 should has the sound hòu, which has a short sound.
Would you mind to share the link of the dictionary?
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=hou
Here is the link! It is a dictionary website so I am not sure if this has the correct pronunciation, because it does not really sound short enough like the word kan 看
kàn. I think hou should sound like kan, am I correct? Thanks!
Just another question, what is the difference between 咱们
zánmen and 我们
wǒmen? Thanks!
Hi Mervin,
The online dictionary has the correct pronunciation for ‘后’. It has the fourth tone.
咱们 is more informal used for daily conversation. When you are writing essay, it is better to use 我们。