滴
滴 – Di1 – Drip, Drop
滴流 – Di1 Liu2 – Drip Flow — Trickle
Archive for October, 2006
冠
冠 – Guan1 – Hat, Crest
王冠 – Wang2 Guan1 – King Hat — Crown
醒
醒 – Xing3 – Wake Up, Awake
I’m playing Wind Waker now and it’s really good. My Zelda senses have completely come back to me, I can even tell what’s in the treasure chests before opening them.
吝
吝 – Lin4 – Stingy
蓊
蓊 – Weng3 – Plant In Bloom, Thick
屠
屠 – Tu2 – Slaughter
屠殺 – Tu2 Sha1 – Slaughter Kill — Massacre
製
製 – Zhi4 – Manufacture
打製 – Da3 Zhi4 – Strike Manufacture — Forge
木製 – Mu4 Zhi4 – Wood Manufacture — Wooden
自製 – Zi4 Zhi4 – Self Manufacture — Homemade
阱
阱 – Jing3 – Pit, Trap
Nick’s Char Pit: don’t bother.
箭
箭 – Jian4 – Arrow
暗箭 – An4 Jian4 – Secret Arrow — Attacked by a Hidden Enemy, Stabbed in the Back
副
副 – Fu4 – Secondary, Auxiliary, Deputy, Assistant, Vice-
副作用 – Fu4 Zuo4 Yong4 – Secondary Effect — Side Effect
徒
徒 – Tu2 – Apprentice, Disciple
徒弟 – Tu2 Di4 – Apprentice, Disciple
翔
翔 – Xiang2 – Soar
滑翔 – Hua2 Xiang2 – Smooth Soar — Glide
肚
肚 – Du4 – Belly
肚子 – Du4 Zi5 – Belly, Stomach
肚臍 – Du4 Qi2 – Navel
慕
慕 – Mu4 – Admire
慕斯 – Mu4 Si1 – Mousse
“Chocolate Mousse Cake” and “Chocolate Mousse” are not actually the same thing. Restaurant menu writers: note this well. Your freedom may depend on it.
Outpost.com finally gone, replaced by Frys.com
Outpost.com: Free delivery. Overnight.
I worked there for two years, from the time when shooting gerbils out of cannons and losing money on every order (but making it up on volume!) seemed like a good idea, to the time when being able to pay the electric bill was considered a luxury. I got out just before the buyout by these Fry’s folks, who seem to have been pretty much igoring the web site. I’m amazed it’s still up and running and being updated after all this time.
逝
逝 – Shi4 – Depart, Die
The Departed: Good! Liked it more than the original, and thanks to my terrible memory, the suspense was not ruined.
刷
刷 – Shua1 – Scrub, Brush, Swipe, Select
刷卡 – Shua1 Ka3 – Swipe Card — Use Credit Card
霹
霹 – Pi1 – Clap Of Thunder
牧
牧 – Mu4 – Shepherd
綜
綜 – Zong1 – Sum Up
綜合 – Zong1 He2 – Sum Join — Integrate
You know how sometimes you get some furniture that you have to assemble yourself, and the instructions have been Very Poorly translated from some asian languange? And you want to tear your hair out? I’m doing that right now at work, except instead of furniture, it’s some computer code, and instead of my hair, it’s the veins from my wrists.
The best part about it is that the code I’m trying to integrate is open source, which generally doesn’t have the most comprehensive documentation, and I have to live on the subset that they translated, badly. And normally this isn’t as much of a problem, because even if the documentation isn’t available, you can juse Use The Source™, right? Well, it’s a lot harder when the comments are in Japanese.
蠻
蠻 – Man2 – Barbarian, Bullying, Very, Quite, Rough, Reckless
中文.com says this one really means “Barbarians to the South”… prompting the obvious question. And here’s the answer:
狄 – Di2 – Barbarians (to the North)
夷 – Yi2 – Barbarians (to the East)
But I can’t find the word for “Barbarians to the West”!
Taiwan Girls STRIKE BACK
I was horrified today to see that the famous picture of Taiwan Girls has dropped out of Google’s image search results! So here’s a new one, taken of the same four just today:
鋅
鋅 – Xin1 – Zinc
Remind me to ask Jenny what she thinks of zinc tomorrow.
蜿
蜿 – Wan1 – Slither
篇
篇 – Pian1 – Sheet, Piece Of Writing, Chapter
玲
玲 – Ling2 – Sound of Tinkling Jade
Also 瓏 – Long2 – Sound of Tinkling Jade
玲瓏 – Ling2 Long2 – Lovely
撞
撞 – Zhuang4 – Hit, Strike, Bump Into
Things that go 撞 in the night?
棄
棄 – Qi4 – Abandon, Relinquish, Discard, Throw Away
互
互 – Hu4 – Mutual
槍
槍 – Qiang1 – Gun, Spear
I wonder if there is an interesting story behind this one. Why the same word for Gun and Spear?