除 – Chu2 – Remove, Divide

除夕 – Chu2 Xi4 – New Year’s Eve

菲 – Fei1 – Fragrant

Mark Rosenfelder really likes 王菲. But that’s one of the less interesting pages on his site. Here’s some other pages that I particularly liked:

If English was written like Chinese: The step by step transformation of English into a pictogram based language. You’ll learn a lot about why Chinese is the way it is.

The Zompist Phrasebook: Such useful phrases as “We kicked your ass in World War II”, “Where can I find the dissidents?”, “So far as I can see, Heinlein is just a second-rate Ayn Rand.”, “There’s a corpse on the bed. Please change the sheets.”, and “Oh sure, you’re going to shoot me, right?”

Virtual Verduria: An entire fantasy world he created, complete with 10 different languages (for example: flaidish), an atlas, and a Civ style chart of which cultures were powerful at what times in Almean history.

The numbers 1 through 10 in many languages: How many languages? 4500. That has to be all of them, right? Including hundreds of Chinese dialects.

Hiragana Flashcards, Fun facts about Quencha, language of the Incas, How to create your own language in N easy steps, his own comic strip, his other own comic strip, his own line of t-shirts, and a simple explanation of the events of the past 100 years.

He also has a weblog type section and innumerable other things. You can spend several days reading the whole site. Have fun!

By the way, Mark, if you ever notice this: What’s a zompist?

坐 – Zuo4 – Sit

坐月子 – Zuo4 Yue4 Zi5 – Sit Month

坐月子 is the traditional thing to do after giving birth, if you’re Chinese. You are really supposed to just sit for one month, and you and the new baby are taken care of by somebody else, usually a grandmother. There’s special foods you’re supposed to eat and a whole list of things to do and not do to help restore your body. This site has all the details.

This tradition is so strong in Taiwan, that for mothers who don’t have an extended family member available there are 坐月子中心 – Zuo4 Yue4 Zi5 Zhong1 Xin1 – Sit Month Centers! Here’s one, called 樣媽咪 – Yang4 Ma Mi – Model Mommy. You go in and live there for a month, and specially trained 坐月子 professionals take care of you and baby. I’m not sure how much that costs, but they also have the take out version, for NT$50,000 (about $1500).

毒 – Du2 – Poison

Tonight’s main feature: 五毒 – Wu3 Du2 – Five Poison — Five Venoms

惠 – Hui4 – Benevolent

惠伶 – Hui4 Ling2 – Benevolent Clever — Sharena and Janice’s new sister, AKA “Mira” – FINAL NAME

(by the way “Mira” is pronounced My-ra)

人 – Ren2 – Person

聖誕老人 – Sheng4 Dan4 Lao3 Ren2 – Christmas Old Person – Santa Claus

Or 聖誕老公公 – Sheng4 Dan4 Lao3 Gong1 Gong1 – Christmas Old Grandpa – Santa Claus

Santa brought Jenny a present! He even apparently reads her wishlist. I got nothing! Nothing! Jenny says it’s because I was bad, but I think it must be some mistake. Maybe he only checked his list once this year.

聖 – Sheng4 – Holy, Sacred, Saint, Sage

聖誕 – Sheng4 Dan4 – Holy Birth — Christmas

Best present received: Remote Control Helicopter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Too bad I can’t fly it until it’s at least 50°F out.

And in other birth-related news: Sharena and Janice have a new sister, possibly named “MIRA”? More as it develops.

前 – Qian2 – Front, Forward, Preceding

前夕 – Qian2 Xi4 – Preceding Evening – Eve

血 – Xie3 – Blood

流血 – Liu2 Xie3 – Flow Blood — Bleed

Dear Hyundai Owners: For your convenience, we have mounted razor sharp blades just out of view on the inside of your trunk. We hope you have as much fun finding them as we had placing them.

Thanks!

Hyundai Motor Company

牌 – Pai2 – Brand, Cards, Dominoes

老牌 – Lao3 Pai2 – Old Brand — Old Style, Old School

That’s what type of game Viewtiful Joe is. You run from left to right, and punch and kick an endless stream of bad guys. That’s it. It’s great! It’s incredibly fast paced, completely crazy, and great fun. Everybody should try it. At least rent it.

You can get a good idea of the style (equal parts comic book, power rangers, animation, and pure strangeness) by watching this music video, Viewtiful World. Or this one for a look at the gameplay.

雙 – Shuang1 – Double, Pair

I have determined that Mario Kart Double Dash!! is very good! The new added twist is that each kart is controlled by two people, and that adds more fun. You really have to work together to win.

雙胞胎 – Shuang1 Bao1 Tai1 – Double Womb Embryo — Twins

Two of Jenny’s sisters are 雙胞胎. But you wouldn’t know it unless they told you, because they’re 異卵 – Yi4 Luan3 – Different Ovum — Fraternal, not 同卵 – Tong2 Luan3 – Same Ovum — Identical.

Need more 生物學 – Sheng1 Wu4 Xue2 – Living Things Study — Biology terms? Here’s a Chinese/English Biology dictionary, everything from Abdomen to Zymogen.

(One last thing: 中文.com says this character is supposed to look like two birds in a hand. I like it!)

差 – Cha1 – Error, Discrepancy

Some people think my Chinese is 越來越好 – Yue4 Lai2 Yue4 Hao3 – Better and better. That’s nice to hear because I thought it was 越來越差 – Yue4 Lai2 Yue4 Cha1 – Worse and worse.

(in fact, here’s the proof: the first version of this post I said my Chinese is 越來越錯, which is itself, wrong!)

領 – Ling3 – Neck, Collar, Lead, Receive

領養 – Ling3 Yang3 – Receive Raise — Adopt

三喵 has adopted two kittens! I think she should call them 一喵 and 二喵.

王 – Wang2 – King, (a surname)

I think 王 looks cool. 帝 – Di4 – Emperor, too.

喇 – La3 – (onomatopoeia)

喇叭 – La3 Ba5 – Trumpet, Speaker

Christmas came early this year! Jenny’s sister sent us a set of speakers that we got today. Jenny couldn’t wait, so we opened them and put them up. Test discs: Jacky and the last good movie John Woo made. Sounds great! Thanks Judy!

Neat. It just so happens that the project i”m doing at work right now is called 喇叭水仙 – La3 Ba5 Shui3 Xian1 – Trumpet Narcissus – Daffodil.

永 – Yong3 – Always, Forever

Zonble says, if you want to learn Chinese calligraphy, you can start by writing 永. It contains most of the basic strokes. If you can write it well, you’re on your way.

廟 – Miao4 – Temple

廟 is the answer to yesterday’s riddle! Do you see it? On top is a dot, underneath is a dash, then there’s a slash on the left, two crosses and sun (日) and moon (月).

The clue was the word 醉 – Zui4 – Drunk. This riddle is from the movie 大醉俠 – Da4 Zui4 Xia2 – Big Drunk Hero, aka Come Drink With Me, which is like the Gone with the Wind of Kung Fu movies or something.

Looking up information about that riddle led me to several new amazing Chinese language resources. Here’s a list of the names of the basic strokes (like dot, dash, slash) that Chinese characters are made of, at The Chinese Outpost. I’d never seen this site before, but it is full of information!

Another site I have seen before, but I ran into again is Omniglot. It is a definitive, well researched and well written site about just about all human (and some non-human) writing systems. Here’s their page on Chinese.

Finally, I found the USC Chinese characters page. They have animations of how to write all the most common characters. For instance, here’s 安 – An1 – Peace. And, for each character, they have a link that you can click on to hear how to pronounce it! (click on the word, next to the record player)

醉 – Zui4 – Drunk

Here’s your riddle: What has a dot, a dash, a slash, two crosses, sun and moon?

車 – Che1 – Car, Chariot, Vehicle

車子 – Che1 Zi5 – Car

Lots of car trouble lately. Catalytic converters, timing belts, and flat tires, oh my.

溜 – Liu3 – Skate, Slip, Slide

溜溜球 – Liu1 Liu1 Qiu2 – Yo-Yo

I wonder if the origin of the English word yo-yo is “Liu1 Liu1″? Or maybe with French “joujou” (toy)? Anyway, I’m mentioning this because I think everybody should go watch this video: Japan National Yo-Yo Contest 2003.

了不起 – Liao3 Bu5 Qi3 – Amazing.

毯 – Tan3 – Blanket

地毯 – Di4 Tan3 – Floor Blanket — Rug

The long and entirely uninteresting story of our rug, which I have humanely spared you from, is over. It’s here.

際 – Ji4 – Border, Boundary

星際大爭霸 – Xing1 Ji4 Da4 Zheng4 Ba4 – Star Border Big Struggle Master — Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica comes in two flavors: Original, and extra crispy. The new series, amazingly, is not all that bad! I especially like the space battles. They’re like a huge 3D version of Asteroids or something.

鏟 – Chan3 – Shovel

鏟子 – Chan3 Zi5 – Shovel (noun)

鏟雪 – Chan3 Xue3 – Shovel Snow (verb)

Rake the roof, shovel the leaves, mow the snow….

絨 – Rong2 – Velvet, Woolen

絨布 – Rong2 Bu4 – Flannel

床單 – Chuang2 Dan1 – Bed Sheet

海 – Hai3 – Ocean, Sea

海盜 – Hai3 Dao4 – Sea Thief — Pirate

Today’s crime: I watched a movie based on an amusement park ride. And liked it!

突 – Tu2 – Dash, Charge, Sudden

突變異種 – Tu2 Bian4 Yi4 Zhong3 – Sudden Change Strange Type — MUTANT