Epic Chinese Words
Chinese is an awesome language, which is going to basically destroy my soul sometime soon, but hasn't done yet. One of the more interesting...features of Chinese is the tendency to take a famous proverb, cut it down to four characters, and make that word mean the moral of the entire proverb. Obviously, these make very little sense if you don't know the proverb in question, but I guess that's what dictionaries are for.
Anyway, the other night I was paging through my dictionary for various reasons, when I came across a number of these kinds of words. Unfortunately for, like, my life, I don't actually know how to do half of the tonemarks I'd need to write them out in proper pinyin, so this is bastardized pinyin, but I still thought some of you might be interested in one or two of these.
ningquewulan, would rather leave the post vacant than have it filled by anybody unqualified for it.
inguisheshen, monsters and freaks of all descriptions.
ningsibuqu, would rather die than submit or surrender.
fengshengheli, to be scared by the sigh of the wind and the cry of the cranes.
chachinanfei, even with wings he couldn't escape.
Later on I intend to look up the proverbs/stories/whatever you call them for these, if I can find them; I know my dad has a book of them in English, anyway. Am especially intrigued by that last one.
Anyway, the other night I was paging through my dictionary for various reasons, when I came across a number of these kinds of words. Unfortunately for, like, my life, I don't actually know how to do half of the tonemarks I'd need to write them out in proper pinyin, so this is bastardized pinyin, but I still thought some of you might be interested in one or two of these.
ningquewulan, would rather leave the post vacant than have it filled by anybody unqualified for it.
inguisheshen, monsters and freaks of all descriptions.
ningsibuqu, would rather die than submit or surrender.
fengshengheli, to be scared by the sigh of the wind and the cry of the cranes.
chachinanfei, even with wings he couldn't escape.
Later on I intend to look up the proverbs/stories/whatever you call them for these, if I can find them; I know my dad has a book of them in English, anyway. Am especially intrigued by that last one.