Tag: Chinese Culture

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Culture Current Events

rùqīn

rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

On February 24, 2022, Russia sent significant military forces into Ukraine, resulting in the largest scale open warfare in Europe since World War II. Knowing certain Mandarin expressions will help us in the Mandarin field as we hear about and talk about Ukraine in the time ahead.

The article “Russia Invades Ukraine” has been featured on jw.org since not long after the crisis began, and the Mandarin translation of that article’s title is “Éluósī (Russia 俄罗斯 俄羅斯) Rùqīn (Rù·qīn Enters · Invades → [Invades] 入侵) Wūkèlán (Ukraine 乌克兰 烏克蘭) 🔗”. So, we can see that this week’s MEotW, “rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵)”, corresponds with the English word “invades”.

To Be Resultative…

Another way to say “invade” in Mandarin is “qīnrù (qīn·rù invade; {intrude into} · {enter | [go] into} → [invade; intrude into] 侵入)”, which has the same morphemes as “rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵)”, but in reversed order. There may be a difference between these two words, since the ABC Chinese-English Dictionary refers to “rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵)” as a verb, while it refers to “qīnrù (qīn·rù invade; {intrude into} · {enter | [go] into} → [invade; intrude into] 侵入)” as a resultative verb, in which “rù (enter; {go into}; join 入)” is taken to mean “into”, as opposed to the verb “enter”.

Or Not to Be Resultative?

On the other hand, the dictionaries I have checked re “rù (enter; {go into}; join 入)” itself, including the ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, emphasize its meaning as being the verb “enter”, and not so much as being the preposition “into” (although I think it can be used that way). If we indeed take both their morphemes to be verbs, then it would seem that the case of “rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵)”/“qīnrù (qīn·rù invade; {intrude into} · {enter | [go] into} → [invade; intrude into] 侵入)” is similar to the case of “fǎlǜ (law 法律)”/“lǜfǎ (law 律法)”.

Regarding “fǎlǜ (law 法律)”/“lǜfǎ (law 律法)”, the MEotW post for “fǎlǜ (law 法律)” had this to say:

But, Why?

If “lǜfǎ (law 律法)” and “fǎlǜ (law 法律)” both mean basically the same thing, why did the world’s Mandarin-speaking population bother to switch the order of “lǜ (law; statute; rule; regulation 律)” and “fǎ (law | method; way; mode | standard; model | {magic arts} | {follow; model after} 法)” in popular usage? Who knows? Appendix A2 of the Mandarin NWT Bible, probably wisely, does not get into the why of it, just mentioning that “fǎlǜ (law 法律)” is now the more common usage. Even if it turns out that there was a reason, it may not be what most would consider a good reason. Sometimes people are just weird, and, speaking as a Chinese person myself, that includes Chinese people—just look at some of the arbitrary ways in which Chinese characters have been designed, that have turned trying to figure out the pronunciations and meanings of unfamiliar Chinese characters into a guessing game.

Speaking of what’s commonplace or popular and why, I am reminded of this quote from William Goldman, who wrote the screenplay for The Princess Bride as well as the screenplays for several other successful, well-known movies:

Nobody knows anything…Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess

Speaking of The Princess Bride, that movie is a treasure trove of quotable quotes, including this one that serves as a precautionary admonition to us Mandarin language-learners:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Categories
Culture Current Events

pòfáng

pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

As 2021 drew to a close, articles appeared on the Internet with lists of Chinese (Mandarin) expressions that were deemed to have been significant in 2021, perhaps reflecting what had been on the minds of many Chinese people in that year.

One of the expressions that appears on these lists is this week’s MEotW, “pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防)”.

Here are some quotes from some of these articles about “pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防)”:

破防 pòfáng

Defense torn down

Originally a term used in online games, this phrase has been taken up by netizens to indicate the emotional impact on oneself from some event or news.

—“Words to Sum Up 2021”

screenshot of Sixth Tone article discussing “_pòfáng_”
—“The Best Chinese Internet Slang, 2021 Edition”

“Defense broken (破防 pòfáng)” is another buzzword to describe mental collapse that emerged in 2021. The term conveys being moved, shocked, or touched. An emotional scene in a movie or news of heroism online often causes netizens to say: “I burst into tears after seeing these defense breaking moments (看到这些破防瞬间, 我泪奔了 Kàndào zhèxiē pòfáng shùnjiān, wǒ lèibēn le).”
—“Internet Slang Terms that Defined 2021”

I personally have not yet heard “pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防)” used in actual conversation, so I don’t have a personal feel for when it may or may not be appropriate to use this expression. Hopefully the above explanations provide some guidance. As with any relatively colloquial or informal expression, we Mandarin field language learners should use our discretion about when and how we use “pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防)”, if we do. At the least, it’s nice to know what it means, at least approximately, if we hear it or read it somewhere.

Categories
Culture Theocratic

zìzhì

zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The ninth and final part of the fruitage of the spirit listed is self-control.— Jiālātàishū (Jiālātài·shū Galatia · Book → [Galatians] 加拉太书 加拉太書) 5:22, 23.

Galatians 5:22, 23 (WOL nwtsty-CHS+Pinyin)

The English word “self-control” is translated into Mandarin in the above scripture as “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)”, this week’s MEotW.

Literally a Verb, Effectively a Noun

Note that in “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)”, “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” is effectively used to mean the noun “control”, even though in this context its literal meaning is actually the verb “controlling”. This seems to be a case of “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” acting as a verbal noun, or gerundial noun. Verbal/gerundial nouns were discussed in the MEotW post on “jiàodǎo (jiào·dǎo teaching · {guiding [→ [instructing]]} 教导 教導)”:

One interesting thing to note about “jiàodǎo (jiào·dǎo teaching · {guiding [→ [instructing]]} 教导 教導)” (and about “jiàoxun (teaching → [reprimanding | knowledge gained from an error] 教训 教訓)”, for that matter) is that their component morphemes seem to basically be verbs. In certain contexts, however, they are used as nouns. An example of this being done in English is that “teach” and “teaching” are verbs (e.g. “Jesus was teaching the crowd.”), but in certain contexts, “teaching” is used as a noun (e.g. “The crowd was amazed at the teaching Jesus shared with them.”). When a word is used this way, it’s called a verbal noun, or a gerundial noun. Verbal nouns are quite common in Mandarin.

Over-Simplified But Still Extaordinarily Complex?

The character “制”, used to write the “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” in “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)” in both simplfied and traditional characters, is an interesting example of the different compromises involved in those two different writing systems.

If one looks up the simplified character “制” in a dictionary, one may see possible meanings as varied as “restrict; control; govern”, and “make; manufacture”. It turns out that this is because the simplified character “制” can correspond to the traditional character “制”, which can mean “restrict; control; govern”, and it can also correspond to the traditional character “製”, which means “make; manufacture”.

While using the single simplified character “制” to correspond to both “制” and “製” results in not requiring people to learn and remember the relatively complex traditional character “製”, it also results in the simplified character “制” getting “overloaded” (a term that’s used in computer programming) with multiple meanings, which in turn can result in greater ambiguity. At the same time, the simplified character “制” is still a character—it’s still significantly more complex and hard to learn and remember than an alphabetic represention would be. In comparison, the traditional characters “制” and “製” offer reduced ambiguity and can perhaps be said to work better as characters, but at the obvious cost of even greater complexity.

Too Many Words That Sound the Same?

Those invested in characters may point out that even simplified characters are often less ambiguous than Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), which renders “制”, “製”, and also every other character pronounced “zhì” as just “zhì”. The great advantage of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), though, is its elegant simplicity and significantly greater ease of learning and remembering compared to any character writing system.

It is indeed unfortunate that Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) has inherited a spoken Mandarin language that has come to have many homophones in it, probably from centuries of inappropriate cultural reliance on characters that are seen to disambiguate speech that is heard, instead of just making sure that the speech itself is not riddled with homophones. Even so, the truth is that today homophones are no more a problem in Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) than they are in spoken Mandarin, which people speak to each other all the time without having problems with homophones. How do Mandarin speech and the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) that simply and directly represents it accomplish this? “Content is king, but context is God.”

(For a more in-depth discussion about homophones in Mandarin and whether they really make Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) unworkable as a writing system for Mandarin, see the subheading “But There Are So Many Words That Sound the Same!” in the article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Was Plan A”.)