1:40 - "discern" the truth / right from wrong 1:50 - "deliberation" 3:11 - "to be critcal" of someone or something 3:30 - "Well, don't look at me!!" 10:10 - "condolence"
I love the way you say things slowly and carefully, and how easy it is to tell the tones. When I listen to you, it's a lot easier to understand the words written onscreen. Sometimes, when I feel like I'm not doing very well and my Chinese isn't getting any better, watching your videos always makes me understand things again~ Thank you so much!
You're absolutely right. People need to understand that translation can be a tricky process, it's not just a one-to-one correspondence. So sometimes you have to make a whole sentence just to translate one word accurately, or not bother and just replace it with something simpler.
Yep like ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I apologize’ have very similar meanings except for if you are at a funeral...’Duìbùqǐ’ means I apologize, not I’m sorry...this helped me a lot because I didn’t know ‘Duìbùqǐ’ was only for apologizing
One word that is difficult to directly translate is "peace" in its many shades of meaning. There is the peace that is the lack of war or fighting, there is the peace of being content with your life, there is the peace that is imposed from outside = pacified etc. The Chinese name of Vietnam was Annam = the peaceful south, but the meaning was the pacified south.
THIS video is my favorite! I laughed so often. The skit you made about the crushed dog - oh, sorry - was classic! And I learned so much. I repeated you till I could recall and say the phrases without looking. Thanks always for making learning Chinese so fun! From Tokyo.
Hi. I'm native Chinese and Mandarin tutor. Cheesy has different expressions in Mandarin. if you are describing a "chessy joke" it's "冷笑话"。 If you say "a chessy movie", it's more like "庸俗"、“俗气的电影”
Thanks! I also wanted to know how to express "confused" but never knew. Now I know why. One other word I noticed Chinese don't use a lot (compared to English) is "about".
Really good! 说 老师， your understanding of the nuances of English and Chinese and your ability to go back and forth illuminating the same topics in English and Chinese is truly impressive (真 厉害的）！ ❤
The "sorry" part reminded me of someone I've seen online, who said "'I'm sorry' and 'I apologize' can be used interchangeably in many situations. EXCEPT if you are at a funeral, then you really shouldn't replace 'I'm sorry' with 'I apologize' (unless you are trying to imply that you are responsible for the person's loss)".
Here's one in Chinese that is hard to translate into English: 随便 (sui2bian4). We have equivalent English translations for its various uses, but the actual word does not have an exact English translation. Great lesson. Thanks!
Very good Too many Chinese channels on youtube either continually retread the basics, or teach rarely used slang, but your channel helps people who've studied Chinese sound more natural
Another great video, I am also learning Dutch right now and there are so many words that can not be directly translated into English. So what did I manage to learn from your video today....你太厉害了
In Dutch: Ik heb een extension in mijn browser die Chinees vertaalt naar Engels en het zegt dat de betekenis van de woorden 厉害 is: tremendous, awesome, violent, difficult to deal with, serious, radical, difficult to endure, terrible, serious. Veel betekenissen. Het blijft raden. Now in English. I have an extension in my browser which translates Chinese to English and it says that the meaning of the words 厉害 is: tremendous, awesome, violent, difficult to deal with, serious, radical, difficult to endure, terrible, serious. A lot of different meanings. It's always guessing. Same with Dutch-English.
@@isabo3556 Ja, ik leer Nederlands. Er zijn zoveel spreekwoorden. Zoals "Nu komt de aap uit de mouw" In English:-The monkey is coming out the sleeve🤣 I like to hear the idioms in different languages. Yesterday I heard a new Chinese one that I came across 我的耳朵怀孕了 😊 ..Weet je wat het betekent?
@@isabo3556 Je hebt het letterlijk goed begrepen. Mijn oren zijn zwanger. Chinezen zeggen het als ze het geluid van iemand die zingt leuk vinden. Of ze houden van het geluid van hun stem. Grappig ja😊
When I learned English, my teacher said: English isn't created to be translated into another language. So you have to think like an English speaker. If what you want to explain doesn't have a word in English, it's better to use what you know and explain your idea. So I take the same mindset in learning Chinese. I'm trying to think everything in Chinese instead of thinking in my mother tongue language and translating it. This is also the reason why I like to look up meanings of words in that word's language, it helps in thinking and fluently speaking
As an experienced teacher, I can confidently say that you are an excellent Chinese teacher, Shuo! You speak clearly and slowly, your examples are brilliant and your lessons are clever and well thought-out. Don't let any insensitive and disrespectful "student" ever doubt you, OK? I can see that your knowledge is deep and that you are very proficient! Oh... and your hair is just fine... it ALWAYS looks great!😊 Shuoshuo Chinese rocks!
@@ShuoshuoChinese I really like your sense of humour, too, Shuo! I also saw your video on why you moved to Thailand... good on you for having the courage to get a life and break away from the incredibly-oppressive culture!! I know both Thailand and China well and you made a good choice! I wish you a very happy life, Shuo!😀
Regarding words that cannot be translated, certain philosophical/religious terms in Chinese don't seem to have an English equivalent, or require more explanation. For example, 無為 literally translates to 'no action' or 'inaction' but needs to be explained more as it's kind of like 'going with the flow' or 'letting nature take its course'. Also, many Buddhist terms are translations of Sanskrit words that also have no English equivalent. For example, the word 法 when used in a Buddhist context means "Dharma", which is itself a Sanskrit word that means 'the teachings of the Buddha', but is still distinct enough that Buddhist teachers simply use the Sanskrit word. The same is true for many of the names of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, whose Chinese names are 'translated' into English by giving the Sanskrit name (e.g. 地藏 = Kshitigarbha, 文殊 = Manjushri). Those names mean "Earth Store" and "Gentle Glory" in Sanskrit respectively, but those terms are not commonly used in English.
My favorite Chinese word with no English translation is 事儿多, it means someone has either too many stupid things to do, or too many weird problems. Some emotions in Chinese are terribly difficult, like sad: 难过，不开心，伤心，悲桑 all are mean sad but only in the right context with the most universal just meaning "not happy" which can also mean angry. Another problem is there is no concept of stress, like I'm stressed, it always shows up as 我的压力很大, which means I have a lot of pressure. There's also the problems with 让 and 让开 not really having straight English equivalents, and when translated in have to be more defined. An interesting one is the concept of "in the way" doesn't exist in Chinese, it always has to be defined with a specific place or action.
I want to add something about the word "crush". I think the article you read is mostly correct. It is a short and intense feeling for someone. "Crush" is very one-sided, though. If I have a crush on a girl, that means I like her a lot, but she doesn't have the same feelings for me. When I find out she doesn't share my feelings, I am "crushed" because my feelings aren't returned. This also means that the word "crush" is more retrospective. You don't really know 100% you have a crush until you know how the other person feels. Of course, if you have a lot of crushes, then you start to learn what they look like and can tell before you know the other person's feelings.
hello mam. I 'm a new subscriber. I've done hsk4 and I find your videos extremely interesting and useful for me to refresh my language skills. can you please consider making more videos like the one you made on "Why I left china and won't go back". these type of videos are really interesting and very helpful for me to learn Chinese. thank you so much you are a wonderful person!
I love your content, but I'd prefer it if you did some videos that are entirely in Chinese. I lived in Qingdao for 9 years, so I got pretty good at Chinese. But, because I'm living in Australia now I don't get to practice. I like the language immersion approach, but your English explanation is really good!
My biggest difficulty is that most chinese learning resources are based on english. English is not my first language, so I have to translate it twice, which makes finding the exact meaning of expressions even more difficult.
I guess for 'to judge' dependant on context one could use 批評 as it conforms more or less to the English equivalent when we say 'to judge' in that we usually mean to criticize
Interesting that 画 can have a meaning akin to “and” in “指手画脚”. I would never have guessed! I tend to think of 了不起 as the most-direct equivalent of “impressive.” Regarding “confuse,” 混淆 is along the lines of “confusing” one thing for another.
画 doesn't really exactly mean 'and' here. As in Chinese, we have a lot of 成语 (like fixed phrases or idioms). In the case of 指手画脚, both 指(point) and 画(doesn't mean draw here, kind of means 比划 or gesturing) are verbs while 手 and 脚 are both the object of the verbs. If you see more 成语, you'll find this pattern very often with the verbs on the first and third positions while nouns on the second and fourth. Hope this can help your understanding
I always struggle to translate concepts like sarcasm, irony and euphemistic into Chinese. For the latter, the best I've been able to find is 委婉的 but I think it doesn't quite seem to have the same sense.
I think sarcasm, irony, and euphemistic can be translated to 反讽，讽刺，and 委婉的, respectively. But yeah, I agree that 委婉的 is not exactly the same as euphemistic.
Great video as usual! I can't understand how student dare to question you 🤔 we can see from you video that you are really careful and devoted in teaching Chinese! At least I learned a lot in this video! Thanks!
fun fact, about the "I have a crush" expression. In Greece we say (litteral translation) "I bit the sheet metal" or "I stepped on it with him/her" . They both have a cultural background that faded and the expressions lost their meaning. I know the origin of the "I stepped on it" but it's tooooo long. 😜 It's really very interesting and educative to see how people from different countries express themselves. I really believe that you can never translate emotion related words accurately because people experience emotions differently in different countries.
Great content! For the last one, sorry, I would love to have some more example. For example, if someone is ill/feeling bad or if someone lost their job. I really don't know what to respond in chinese if someone tells me something bad has happened, only saying "我明白" or "好的" makes me feel rude.
We actually don’t have a fixed pattern to respond to that (except for 节哀顺变）It really depends on different situations and how close you and the other person are. If someone bad happens to my close friend, I may ask them more details like how did it happen or when did it happen. If they are not that close to me, I may say something like “一切都会过去的”(everything will pass) “我知道这一定很难，但是你会没事的”（I know it is hard, but you will be fine)
hi. in japanese theres an expression 残念, that means something along the lines of "thats too bad" or "thats a shame". Is there a similar expression in chinese?
Nice channel. Guess judge can be translated as 打量? If that make sense? Would love to see more of your video comparing the English and Chinese equivalent, for example the word 加油/努力
If you could, could you translate some lyrics from Higher Brothers. For an example in the song "Do it like me", the member Psy.P pronounces Méi yôu rén in a weird way. Thx :P
I wonder about being confused by someone's words - like, someone's telling you something and you can see that they're clearly contradicting themselves, and you're like: Wait, wait, you've lost me here. - "I'm confused, haven't you just said that ..." it's not the same as being uncertain about whether the correct grammar choice is A or B, but it's not the same as being confused about your whole life either?
@@ShuoshuoChinese I’ve been thinking and I’ve thought of another word. I cannot translate the word “frustrated.” Whenever I try to tell my Chinese friends that I am frustrated, they misunderstand me and think I am depressed or mad.
I wish we had a phrase in English equivalent to 加油! I feel like it captures the encouragement I want to give my friends better than English phrases like "good luck" or "you got this!"
I also don’t think you can directly translate “They” if you want to use they or them for a group of people that are different genders then it has to be 他 the male version
