万国语文

Enter your search terms Submit search form

 

l         Please Steek Gently = Please close door gently (关门 / 關門 is an entry in a Chinese-English dictionary yielding steek, archaic.)

l         New Shipu Hotel = not a hotel but a restaurant. The confusion results from the Chinese word "饭店 / 飯店" which can mean both hotel and restaurant (c.f. inn). Although alternative words are available to make the distinction, this word is often used by owners when naming their establishment.

l         Welcome to our fine restaurant = sign in a hotel room (see note above)

l         Small two pots of heads = Erguotou (二锅头 / 二鍋頭), a type of Baijiu, appearing on a menu inside Oriental Plaza, Beijing

l         Deep fried ghost or deep fried devil and oil fried ghost (油炸鬼) = A literal translation of a name for Youtiao used in southern China.

l         Xin Zhong Guo Kids Stuff = a toy and parenting store, (name of the store is "New China") Wangfujing, Beijing

l         Bake the Cell Phone (烘手机 / 烘手機) = Hand dryer (a result of poor parsing)

l         Kindly Treat the Virescence around in the Way Life is Treated = Treat the grass in the same way as you would treat life. "Virescence" is a rarely-seen word meaning "greenness." Found at Tiger Hill in Suzhou.

l         Waiting Office = Waiting hall. Found at Zhongdian main bus terminal, Yunnan.

l         Gentals = Toilet sign in a four star hotel, Beijing.

l         Male man toilet = Toilet sign in main bus station, Beijing.

l         Van Gogh Preferred Banking = Advertising slogan for branch of foreign bank, near the Bund, Shanghai. (Van Gogh was wretchedly poor for most of his adult life until his death).

l         The Chain-Bridge runs East and West like a Rainbow = Sign pointing towards a chain-bridge near Jinshanling, on the Great Wall.

l         Rubbish Receptacle = engraved on a stone lion garbage 'can' in Luoyang.

l         Rear Service (后勤 / 後勤）= Administrative and Student Services, as appeared in Dalian Medical University web site

l         Fuck the Certain Price of Goods (干货计价处 / 乾[幹]貨計價處) = A translation of "Dry Goods Pricing Department" on a sign at supermarket in China. The merger of the traditional character for "dry" (乾) and the character meaning "to do" (幹), also commonly used to denote the vulgarity "fuck," into one single simplified character (干) [dry] likely led to this confusion. The characters comprising the word for "pricing" or "valuation" (计价 / 計價) can be translated separately as "certain" (计 / 計) and "price" (价 / 價).

l         You are enough (你已經說夠了) = That's enough

l         Haw a thick soup = Soup made from the Haw, which is the fruit of the Hawthorn. "Haw" is no longer common in English. (made by a Chengde company)

l         Question Authority = If you have questions, please ask the official in charge. OR Information centre. Could be mistaken for a call to revolution.

l         The City is Clean. The People are Happy = Do not litter, as written on the back of a bag of crisps, next to the common man-and-trashcan icon.

l         In 2007, there was great breakthrough in the reserve increasing of energy and mineral resources in China = On the Chinese government booth at the 2008 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Conference, announcing a significant increase in known energy and mineral reserves in the country.

摘要：In 2007, there was great breakthrough in the reserve increasing of energy and mineral resources in China = On the Chinese government booth at the 2008 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Conference, announcing a significant increase in known energy and mineral reserves in the country.　查看全文

摘要：Chinese Pidgin English was spoken in China beginning in the 17th century. "Yangjing Bang English" in Chinese (洋涇濱, or 洋泾浜) derives from the name of a former creek in Shanghai near the Bund where local workers communicated with English-speaking foreigners in pidgin.　查看全文

Words of Joseph Papp on how to read Shakespeare:

... from here you can go on to dialogues or other more challenging scenes. Although you may stuble over unaccustomed phrases or unfamiliar words at first, and even fall flat when you're crossing some particularly rocky passages, pick yourself up and stay with it. Remember that it takes time to feel at home with anything new. soon you'll come to recognize Shakespeare's unique sense of humor and way of saying things as easily as you recognize a friend's laughter.
    And then it will just be a matter of choosing which one of Shakespeare's plays you want to tackle next. As a true fan of his, you'll find that you're constantly learning from his plays. It's a journey of discovery that you can continue for the rest of your life. For no matter how many times you read or see a particular play, there will always be something new there that you won't have noticed before.

摘要：德语的格有两种形式： 纯粹格（reiner Kasus）和介词格（Pr?positionalkasus）。同样的句子内容，有时可以用纯粹格和介词格来表示： Er schreibt seinem Vater einen Brief. （纯粹格） Er schreibt an seinen Vater einen Brief. （介词格） 这两个句子的意思是一样的，都表示“他给他的父亲写信。”　查看全文

摘要：The grammar translation method instructs students in grammar, and provides vocabulary with direct translations to memorize. It was the predominant method in Europe in the C19. Most instructors now acknowledge that this method is ineffective by itself. It is used by many Latin teachers, because a dead language is usually only written.　查看全文

摘要：Because of Germany's geographic position in the centre of Europe and its long history as a disunited region of distinct tribes and states, there are many widely-varying names for Germany in different languages, perhaps more than for any other European nation: for example, in German the country is known as Deutschland, in French as Allemagne, and in Polish as Niemcy.　查看全文

摘要：Man does not live by consonants alone; a language needs vowels to function. In the box at the left is the Korean vowel that sounds like ah, the vowel sound you use when you say aha, which is what you're saying right now, because it's so easy and you understand it! Click the syllable to hear it.　查看全文

摘要：A light-hearted look at English as spoken by Londoners (Cockneys)　查看全文

摘要：A light-hearted look at some differences between English as spoken on both sides of the Atlantic. Spelling and pronunciation differences are not included. "The British and Americans are divided by a common language" George Bernard Shaw　查看全文

摘要：For example, Hindi and Urdu are very similar languages and belong to the same language family (Indo-European). Linguistically they are dialects of the same language. Hindi uses the Devanagari writing system derived from the extinct language Sanskrit; Urdu writing uses the Nastaliq script derived from Arabic.　查看全文

摘要：Do you know which languages are most spoken today? Is your mother tongue one of them? Are you interested in getting to know other languages?　查看全文

摘要：Although there are many French regional accents, only one version of the language is normally chosen as a model for foreign learners. This is the educated standard variety of Paris, which has no commonly used special name, but has been termed "français neutre".　查看全文

摘要：The linguistic definition of a Swedish dialect is a local variant that has not been heavily influenced by the standard language and that can trace a separate development all the way back to Old Norse. Many of the genuine rural dialects, such as those of Orsa in Dalarna or Närpes in Österbotten　查看全文

摘要：Et comme qui dirait des beautés de langueur; Mais ces inventions de nos muses tardives N’empêcheront jamais les races maladives De rendre à la jeunesse un hommage profond, - A la sainte jeunesse, à l’air simple, au doux front, A l’œil limpide et clair ainsi qu’une eau courante, Et qui va répandant sur tout, insouciante Comme l’azur du ciel, les oiseaux et les fleurs, Ses parfums, ses chansons et ses douces chaleurs!　查看全文

摘要：You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income. You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.　查看全文

Today, Spanish is spoken by about two hundred and sixty million people around the world. These people who share the same language are the Hispanic people. They live in Spain, South and Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean... and also in the United States. As many as fifteen million Americans are of Hispanic background.

When I get listless, I would feel so low that I found myself stuck in a cacoon that I cannot get out of, whatever I did for self-soothing...
Then, one day, I found this old book of mine at the remotest corner of my drawer -- I decided to read through it by following the callendar of the author -- Mrs. Cowman.

September 2
"Unto you it is given... to suffer." (Phil.1:29)
God keeps a costly school. Many of its lessons are spelled out through tears.
This school of our Heavenly Father will soon close for us; the term time is shortening every day. Let us not shrink from a hard lesson or wince under any rod of chastisement. The richer will be the crown, and the sweeter will be Heaven, if we endure cheerfully to the end and graduate in glory. --- Theodore L. Cuyler.

The finest china in the world is burned at least three times, some of it more than three times. Dresden china is always burned three times. Why does it go through that intense fire? Once ought to be enough; twice ought to be enough. No, three times are necessary to burn that china so that the gold and the crimson are brought out more beautiful and then fastened there to stay.

We are fashioned after the same principle in human life. Our trials are burned into us once, twice, thrice; and by God’s grace these beautiful colors are there and they are there to stay forever. ---Cortland Myers.

以各语种学术研究和学习探讨为主，在各语种栏目下，可设计该语种各个分支学科的内容。由于版面问题，暂时没有设置太细的栏目划分。例如：法语歌词欣赏可以暂归入“法语”栏目。

欢迎大家踊跃发贴。

Unitarianism is "the form of Christianity that denies the doctrine of the Trinity, believing that God exists only in one person. While there were previous antitrinitarian movements in the early Christian Church, like Arianism and Monarchianism, modern Unitarianism originated in the period of the Protestant Reformation" (Columbia Encyclopedia). And the Oxford English Dictionary defines a Unitarian as one "who affirms the unipersonality of the Godhead, especially as opposed to an orthodox Trinitarian; spec. a member or adherent of a Christian religious body or sect holding this doctrine."

According to Britannica Online, English Unitarianism begins with

John Biddle (1615-62), an English Socinian, whose knowledge of the Greek text of the New Testament convinced him that the doctrine of the Trinity was not of scriptural origin, published his Unitarian convictions in Twelve Arguments Drawn out of Scripture . . . (1647) . . . The first English Unitarian congregation, Essex Street Chapel, was founded in London in 1774 by Theophilus Lindsey, who previously had been an Anglican clergyman. The scientist and dissenting minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) influenced Unitarian ministers by his scriptural rationalism, materialist determinism, and emphasis on a humanitarian Christology. The scholar and theologian Thomas Belsham supported Priestley's emphasis on a humanitarian Christology and opposition to Arian views. The British and Foreign Unitarian Association was founded in 1825.

Although Unitarianism began as a "a scripturally oriented movement," by the mid-nineteeth century "the leadership of James Martineau in England and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker in the United States" transformed it into a religion of reason (Columbia Encyclopedia).

希望我们的这个想法不至于太天真。从今天开始，每天踏踏实实地做一点，希望在大家的共同努力下，打造一个真正汇集万国语言资源的基地。