the close association between gui 鬼 as in “ghost” and gui 归 as in “to return, to go back to where you belong;” such that ghosts are coming back to the living and the living are coming back to ghostliness. these two states are two sides of the same coin, of the same existence.
chinese ghosts are about coming home…..!
the ghost = the restored image of the living yet alienated human in chinese society. the ghost = a manifestation of the need to return home, where one belongs, and so order and humanity is restored.
Aaa!!! This gives so much more context to the song “Gui” (the 归 “to return” one) from the “Word of Honor” soundtrack, that plays when Wen Kexing goes in to save Zhou Zishu!
Thought i’d try a slightly different approach, particularly for the nouns to remember them. By breaking down individual meanings of the radicals within each character + pairing with a context driving trigger sentence. With Chinese, the radicals tell a story of how the word came to be, so perhaps looking at Chinese characters through that approach will encourage another level of long-term memory.
**Radical meanings are in bold + the vocabulary is CAPITALISED
I wanted to share a resource for reading practice that I stumbled across recently. It’s called the Chinese Reading World, and it was a project led by the University of Iowa.
The site was put together from 2005 to 2008, so it’s not super up to date. However, there is a ton of content! Everything is sorted into 3 levels: beginning, intermediate, and advanced.
Each level has 30 units, and each unit has 10 lessons. The lessons begin with a vocab pre-test, then there is a reading with some comprehension questions. Lastly, there is a vocab post-test, which is the same as the initial test (at least for the lessons I’ve done so far). There’s audio for each lesson text, but unfortunately it can’t be streamed—you have to download it. There is also an achievement test at the end of each unit.
My experience has actually been that I already know all the words on the vocabulary tests, but the reading passages contain other words that I’m not familiar with.
So far, the readings I’ve encountered are not very long. This is nice since reading longer pieces can be frustrating at times. With shorter readings, you can just read 1 or 2 on some days and read more when you have more time/patience. I believe the readings are taken from Chinese newspapers.
Also, every unit has a theme. With 90 units total, there are bound to be themes that interest you. Example unit topics:
Directions and Asking Direction 方向和问路
Sports and Outdoor Activities 体育和户外运动
Chinese Music and Musicians 中国音乐和音乐家
Chinese Minorities and Local Customs 地方习俗和民族风情
Chinese Sports and Olympic Games 体育和奥林匹克
Contemporary Chinese Literature and Writers 中国当代文学和作家
The 3 levels also each come with 5 proficiency tests. They seem to be based on vocabulary knowledge, so expanding your vocab is clearly a huge focus of this site. The only thing I’m unclear is about is I’m not sure exactly when the proficiency tests are meant to be taken. After completing all units? Or are they spaced out so you are supposed to take test 1 after the first few units, test 2 after the next few, etc.?
I’ve started working my way through the advanced section this week. With 300 advanced lessons alone, it really feels like I have an infinite number of articles to go through!
lets give it up for pretentious bitches i love snobs who try to keep intellectualism alive gooooooo assholes
“are you serious” look like it or not annoying assholes are a vital part of the “weird art” ecosystem and without them everyone would talk about iron man dying as the modern last supper. we need these bitches
Hey! I'm just wondering how often you come across this construction (h t t p s ://im gur. com/gallery/c28v2hv) and what's the best way of remembering/really understanding this. Thank you! (sorry for sending a link btw it's just easiest from my book)
I assume you’re talking about the top page rather than the neuter gender
The neuter/neutral gender is harder to spot in Spanish since it typically ends in -o; it’s easier to think of it as “agender” meaning that when you see lo, alguno, ninguno, esto, eso, aquello you’re talking about a thing as a concept or an abstract idea, not as a thing
That’s why you’ll see por este motivo “for this reason” or por esta razón “for this reason” and then por esto “because of this” where no noun was actually used
If I had to guess it’s talking about times when the noun isn’t specifically stated and what you should do. In general, you treat it as agender which largely looks masculine aside from what I mentioned above, unless you have a specific noun in mind in which case you follow normal direct object pronouns lo, la, los, las
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As for how often you use random feminine articles: fairly often, it depends on the phrase… The listed examples aren’t totally the most common but I think I see what they’re going for
In other words: the specific words/phrases sometimes, but the general concept they’re describing - yes you see it a lot
As for the overall concept… I don’t know if the source mentions this but what I think you’re having a hard time with is why it’s feminine plural. That’s part of an overall linguistic trend in Spanish called femenino de indeterminación which is “feminine of/due to being undetermined”
It’s a trend in Spanish that in some cases you will see a feminine object or adjective used in cases where there isn’t something specific used as a noun
It’s important to note that this is in the absence of a clear noun, which is why I can’t 100% say that they’re all necessarily accurate/necessary - jugárselas as “to risk everything” can also be phrased as jugárselo todo it’s just with todo as a clear noun it keeps it as lo instead of las
But this can exist as adjectives or in singular or plural
Really common examples:
(tomar algo) a la ligera = (to take something) lightly, to not take seriously
a la buena de Dios = “left up to fate”, “whatever happens happens” [lit. “to the good of God”, but kind of like “however God wills it”]
por las buenas = the easy way por las malas = the hard way
a sabiendas = “knowing full well”
a solas = “one-on-one”
a escondidas = “in secret”, “behind someone’s back”
a secas = “no frills”, “only”, “with nothing else” [as an example if you said una milanesa de pollo a secas what you’re describing is “a breaded chicken cutlet with nothing else” as in no sauce, no bread, no vegetables just a cutlet - that’s what a secas means; with non-food things it comes out as “plain and simple”]
There’s no specific reason why it’s feminine. And two men could talk a solas and it’s not a matter of any grammatical gender or agreement… it’s more of a quirk that happens every so often with specific phrases like the ones you listed and the ones above
Another really common one that’s a bit of a regionalism is saying pasarla bien [or more intense pasarla en grande] which is like “to have a great time”, like vamos a pasarla muy bien “we’re going to have a great time”. Sometimes people use lo but la seems to be more common….. And I say it might be a regionalism because a different common expression is pasarlo bomba meaning “to have a blast” almost always with lo instead of la from what I can recall
Another, and I don’t know if this is specifically Spain, is liarla parda which means “to make a mess (of something)” and some people use it as like partying “to tie one on” or “to go wild” or “to go on a bender” sort of thing, or it could possibly just mean to actually “make a mess”. Literally though it’s hard to explain; it means “to tie (a brown one)” but some people believe it meant “to catch a brown hare” [la here would be la liebre “hare”, synonymous with el conejo “rabbit” in modern contexts; but pardo/a is specifically a brownish coloring in animals]… whether or not it’s a hare, people use that expression as if it were feminine
Side Note: I would also say traérselas is more like “to be difficult to deal with” not necessarily treacherous in the way of will betray you but like “that will trip you up” or if it’s a person it’s like “they’re a tough nut to crack” but it tends to be said of something rather than someone and it’s like perplexing or confusing - they’re working with limited space so I get it)
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Out of those that I saw listed, the ones I see the most are vérselas, apañárselas or arreglárselas although this is the infinitive form and it’s considered idiomatic and fairly advanced as far as language learning
For example - tendrás que vértelas conmigo is “you’ll have to deal with me” which is like saying there will be a confrontation; the con is almost always with someone so in this case conmigo “with me”, but could possibly rephrase the thing to say contigo “with you” or con (alguien) “with someone”… like ellos tendrán que vérselas con el rector “they’ll have to deal with the principal”
To note further, the reflexive pronoun here is now te to adhere to tendrás which is also tú …that’s important because vérselas if you saw it by itself is infinitive showing that you use a reflexive pronoun here with it, but that it will apply to the subject… which is why I said tendrán que vérselas as plural, but it could be tengo/tendré que vérmelas “I have to deal with/face off against (something/someone)”
Another example as a command: apáñatelas which is something like “deal with it” but could be plural - apáñenselas [as in a sentence like apáñenselas ustedes solitos which reads like “you all figure it out by yourselves” or “you deal with it yourselves”]
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So keep that in mind, if you’re saying something like me las doy de chef “I’m something of a chef” or “I fancy myself a chef” etc it has to be in agreement with your subject; that’s how reflexive pronouns work, but they use se in that infinitive form so you know that it takes reflexives
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As far as why it is that way… I couldn’t really tell you. People tend to believe that it’s a substitute for la cosa or las cosas a lot of the time
With vérselas for example some people use the expression verse las caras which is “to face off against someone”, literally “to see each others’ faces” which is possibly why it’s las
In most cases you can phrase it other ways or put a noun in and then it isn’t feminine anymore, but some expressions like a sabiendas or a escondidas are so commonplace that you find them eventually… With verbal expressions it’s something to be aware of as you go forward even if you’re not totally comfortable reproducing it… and just know if you see it randomly feminine, that’s a known thing
You can probably find more examples of it if you look up femenino de indeterminación though - what I could find was mostly all in Spanish or German so I didn’t know quite how to recommend sources for further reading
Hey! I'm a bit stuck with the agreement with "Este tipo de + plural noun". When saying something like "This type of thing is my favorite." would I say "Este tipo de cosas es mi(s) favoritO or favoritAS? Does favorito agree with "este tipo" or "cosas" since "es" agrees with the collective noun, does the adjective also? Thanks!
Este tipo es mi favorito. = This type/kind is my favorite. Este tipo (de cosa/cosas) es mi favorito. = This kind (of thing/things) is my favorite.
The sentence itself is a bit ambiguous since there are some cases where you might choose to focus on cosas and I think there are some native speakers who would also get tripped up but, the de + noun is a kind of additional modifier for tipo - thus the root here is tipo and that’s what is being focused on
You can also think about it with a completely different set of nouns:
Este libro de historia es muy caro. = This history book is expensive Este libro de ciencias sociales es muy caro. = This book of social sciences is very expensive. Los libros de química son caros. = The chemistry books are expensive.
Esta antología de cuentos populares es muy famosa. = This anthology of popular stories is very famous.
The de + noun is almost like an adjective, qualifying [that is, “adding a quality to”] the noun
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Where it gets a bit weird is sometimes with collective nouns you’ll have the tendency to use the noun then talk about things/people in plural. It only really makes sense in contexts where you could be talking about either the collective noun or what’s being “collected”, as some contexts don’t make sense [like “this is an extensive collection of artists”; it wouldn’t make sense to think of artists as being extensive]
For people you might say… es un grupo de locos, son totalmente fuera de control “this is a group of crazy people, they’re totally out of control” where you could do either… saying es totalmente fuera de control is “the group” while son is “they are”
But in a straight sentence like the one you described it should besingular
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I will say that in general you tend to say este tipo de cosa fully singular; but if plural you might say estos tipos de cosas “these types of things”
In either case it will be tipo or tipos that count as the main nouns, not cosa/cosas
In most cases, agotar is used to mean “exhaust”, in the sense of cansarse which means “to become tired”. So, agotar is a stronger version of cansarse but that isn’t all it can mean.
Literally, agotar has to do with las gotas which means “drops” as in liquid. It means something closer to “drain” in this sense, but it’s used when things have been exhausted or tired out or a supply has gone dry. To say estoy agotado/a means “I am exhausted/drained”. It also carries the secondary meaning of “to be sold out” as in “a supply no longer exists”.
*Small Note: While agotar may be linked to liquids, it doesn’t mean an actual drain. Actual liquids are “drained” by using the verb desaguar which literally means “to pull the water out of” something. Agotar is more “deplete” than an actual drain.
Just note that there is the verb agotarse which has the same basic meaning as agotar but the emphasis on the subject is different. For agotar it means that “someone drained something”, emphasis on the subject. For agotarse it means “something was drained”, which places less emphasis on who received the action and more emphasis on the object.
The noun form of agotar is el agotamiento which refers to the “exhaustion” of someone but is usually more used when resources are depleted.
Estoy totalmente agotada; físicamente, emocionalmente y mentalmente agotada. - I’m completely exhausted; physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted.
Se agotaron las entradas. - The tickets are sold out.
Se me agota la paciencia. - I have no more patience. [very strong; stronger than yo no tengo paciencia para esto “I don’t have patience for this”.]
Dudo que se agote la leche en la tienda. - I doubt they’ll be sold out of milk in the store.
Somos amigos hasta agotar la existencia. - We’re friends until the end of time [literally, “until existence runs out”].
