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Narrating Events in Chinese

**This is adapted from a handout my Chinese teacher gave us.

Beginning of past events

（刚）开始的时候：at the very start Less formal, emphasizes the very beginning of the event 刚开始的时候，我觉得很内向。

一开始 ：at the very start Emphasizes the very beginning of the event

最初：at first, originally, initially

起先：at first, in the beginning 起先，我不同意这个想法。

起初：originally, at first, at the outset

Sequential order of past events

以后：after, later, afterwards, following, later on, in the future Indicates a point after a point in time/a period after a period of time, can be used alone or after some time phrase (五年以后、毕业以后) OR just means in the future 上大学以前，我们以为大学生很轻松。上大学以后，我们才发现了大学生活每天都很忙。

从那以后：since then 从那以后，他们成了无话不谈的好朋友。

此后：after this, afterwards, hereafter Means 从这以后 but more formal 此后，两个人失去了联系，再也没见过面。

然后：after, then, afterwards, after that Indicates an act that happens after a certain act or a certain condition. It is often used along with 先 to show the sequence of events 昨天我先去银行取钱，然后去书店买了三本书。

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Chinese Slang :  saying that someone is stupid

白目 báimù - stupid. Literally, white-eyed, blind. Here it means not understanding the situation and reacting in a wrong way as a result.

白痴 báichī - Idiot, someone with mental retardation.

250 二百五 èrbǎiwǔ - stupid person/idiot 

脑残 nǎocán - 'Deficient Brain’ - Disabled brain, brain has a problem.

大脑进水 dànǎo jìn shuǐ - water leaked in the brain.

笨蛋 bèndàn - Idiot (lit. stupid egg).

蠢蛋 chǔn dàn - dummy, fool

傻瓜 shǎguā (also 傻子 shǎzi)- dummy, fool, idiot. The term was in use as early as the Yuan Dynasty.

呆瓜 dāiguā (also 呆子 dāizi) - dummy, fool, idiot.

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Chinese Internet Slang

Numbers

1314: “For ever”, usually preceded by a phrase such as “I love you” or whatever. 1314 (pinyin: yīsānyīsì) represents 一生一世 “one life, one world” (pinyin: yīshēng yīshì).

233: “laughter" 233 (pinyin:èr sān sān） represents 哈哈哈 （pinyin: hā hā hā).

4242: “Yes” or “It is”, 4242 (pinyin: sìèr sì'èr) represents 是啊是啊 (pinyin: shì’a shì’a).

520: “I love you”. 520 (pinyin: wǔ'èrlíng) represents 我爱你 (pinyin: wǒ ài nǐ).

555: “(crying)”. 555 (pinyin: wǔwǔwǔ) represents 呜呜呜 (pinyin: wūwūwū) the sound of tearful crying.

666: “doing something really well” 666 (pinyin: liùliùliù) represents 溜溜溜 (pinyin:liùliùliù ).

7451 or 7456: “I’m angry”. 7451 (pinyin: qīsìwǔyī) or 7456 (pinyin: qīsìwǔliù) represents 气死我了 (pinyin: qìsǐ wǒle)

748: “Go and die!”, 748 (pinyin: qīsìbā)：represents 去死吧 (pinyin: qùsǐba), the equivalent of “Get lost!”, or “Go to hell!”

88: “Bye bye” (goodbye). 88 (pinyin: bābā) represents “bye bye" 

995: "Help”, “Save me!” 995 (pinyin: jiǔjiǔwǔ) represents 救救我 (pinyin: jiùjiù wǒ).

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hello world~!

hello everyone! for the sake of anonymity, you can call me “j” !! I’m a student in america, and will soon finish my third year of uni. I took two semesters of chinese last year, and while I did learn a lot, I’m still not as skilled as I’d like to be. I can generally understand and speak mandarin (not fluent yet though), but my writing and reading skills aren’t quite as great (read: trash lol). with the current situation, I’ll have more time on my hands this summer, so one of my goals is to really improve my chinese! I’ll be sharing my journey of learning chinese here in this little space — I hope you’ll join me! let’s have fun learning chinese together~! (p.s. I’ll try to write my posts in both english and chinese to practise writing in chinese more!)

~~~

大家好！我叫 “j”！我是在美国出生的，很快念完大三。我去年学了两门中文课，可是我的中文还不太流利。我能听懂中文，可是读写还不够好！所以说，我这个暑假想把中文学好。我会跟你们分享我自己学中文的过程，希望我们都能努力学习。加油！

p.s. 我这里的发布会用英文和中文写，因为我想多练习写中文！

#langblr #chinese #mandarin #mandarinblr

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Reading Chinese Names: Female Names

One thing I have noticed recently is that many Chinese learners are not well-equipped to read Chinese names. This is because textbooks usually have names like 王朋 and 张天明 that use basic characters learners already know. But real Chinese names often contain characters that are not taught in classes/textbooks.

I compiled a corpus of over 515 characters found in around 1000 female given names. These names came from members of idol groups (like SNH48 and AKB48-SH) and participants on idol survival shows (like Produce 101 China). I did my best to remove duplicate individuals (like the AKB48 members who participated in CZ101) and not include stage names that are not authentic Chinese names (like 欧若拉). A lot of performers go by stage names that sound authentic or have changed their legal name–I included these. I separated the names into individual characters and then counted how many times each character occurred in the corpus as a whole. Note that these data are not necessarily representative of the overall populations of China and Taiwan. However, I think this info is still valuable.

Below I have the top 75 characters, aka those that were found at least 7 times. I’ve included all the counts for those who may be interested.

佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 35

怡 yí - harmony, pleased / 31

雨 yǔ - rain / 29

欣 xīn - happy / 26

嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 24

婷 tíng - graceful / 20

琪 qí - fine jade / 20

诗 shī - poem, poetry, verse / 18

慧 huì - intelligent / 17

梦 mèng - dream, to dream / 17

羽 yǔ - feather, 5th note in pentatonic scale / 17

雅 yǎ - elegant / 17

馨 xīn - fragrant / 17

倩 qiàn - pretty, winsome / 16

小 xiǎo - small, tiny, few, young / 16

思 sī - to think, to consider / 15

文 wén - language, culture, writing, formal, literary, gentle / 15

美 měi - beautiful, very satisfactory, good, to beautify, to be pleased with oneself / 14

依 yī - to depend on, to comply with or listen to sb, according to, in the light of / 13

天 tiān - day, sky, heaven / 13

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