Daimashin

Pundit was really funny to me when I was a child. I thought "pundit" was pronounced as "poon-dit." I also thought that pundit was an Indian word, silly me. 

I too have played this game before but like most guessing games, the questions tend to recycle as the more you complete. I played a lot and started seeing repeats which got repetitive quick. The good thing is that, it did got me thinking about a lot of words that I otherwise wouldn't use.

Never heard about this before. Maybe women like to talk more but as to learn a language faster never crossed my mind. I think it all depends on the individual's intelligence, but there are more cases of men learning things faster so I don't think so.

Speaking about eye catching headlines and stuff, I've learned not to fall for these headlines nowadays because like thekernel said, headlines are misleading most of the time.

煮豆燃萁 (Zhǔdòu rán qí) - Brothers' Feud.

Literal Meaning - Cook beans boil stalks

During the Three Kingdoms, Cao Pi once devised a plan to kill his brother Cao Zhi because Cao Pi was afraid that his brother will usurp his throne. The truth was that Cao Zhi was a good man and had no intentions to compete with his brother. One day, Cao Pi summoned Cao Zhi into the castle and ordered him to create a poem in seven steps or Cao Zhi will be sentenced to death. Cao Zhi then read out a poem and made Cao Pi feel guilty and finally let Cao Zhi go. The poem goes like this:

煮豆燃豆萁, (Zhǔdòu rán dòu qí)

豆在釜中泣, (Dòu zài fǔ zhōng qì)

本是同根生, (Běn shì tónggēn shēng)

相煎何太急. (Xiāng jiān hé tài jí)

The poem meant that both of them came from the same roots, and now one of them wants to kill the other. "煮豆燃萁" came from the first sentence of the poem meaning that people that are close fighting each other.

Example:

"你和他是好朋友，何必為了一個女孩「煮豆燃萁」呢?"

Absolutely practice in all of them if you want to master a language you've learned. A language is never completely learned if you only know one or two combinations of writing, reading, and speaking.

Isn't it a little rude to speak in a different language in front of another person? I understand if you don't want people to know the contents of your conversation but only if you say it softly. Speaking it out loud does seem disrespectful to other people. I don't mind people do it to me but I'll definitely not do it on other people.

Learning the grammar of a language is the part that most frustrates me. It's so complicated sometimes like when to use a certain word, adjective, and etc. Basically, to construct a grammatically correct sentence be it spoken or written is always frustrating to me.

I think it's quite cool to know words that no many people know anymore. Feels sophisticated when you use words that no one understands. Great way to impress your friends I think. Too bad, I don't really know of such words or maybe I do but I don't know it.

望梅止渴 (Wàngméizhǐkě) - Satiate with imaginations.

Literal meaning - Expect plums, quench thirst.

During the end of the Han Dynasty, Cao Cao led an army across a desert. Because it was too hot and the army didn't have any water left, the army had no motivation to continue. Everyone was too thirsty to even lift a finger. No matter what Cao Cao said be it awards or punishments, the soldiers just couldn't walk any further. After hearing one of his men talked about the plums back at home, Cao Cao came up with an idea. He lied to the soldiers saying that there was a huge plum garden at the end of the desert. Since they were in a desert, the soldiers started having hallucinations and mirages of a giant plum farm so they marched and marched until finally leaving the desert.

望梅止渴 (Wàngméizhǐkě) means to fulfill ones wishes with similar things or self imagination.

Example:

"迪士尼樂園就去不到了，看這些迪士尼樂園的雜誌「望梅止渴」吧."

That's horrible. I would be heartbroken if I lost an entire ebook like that. From now on, make sure that you use the cloud or something to back it up. Then, if something happens to your computer, you'll still be able to access your ebook!

Yes, it felt devastating. All the efforts and time I put on it were all gone. I've used up all my creative juice to finish it and all of it gone because the harddrive broke. This is the reason why I couldn't bring myself to do another e-book again.

I've heard people speak German before and I kind of agree that it sounds aggressive. Maybe I'm just not used to the language. I believe every language sounds aggressive when we do not understand it. Once we got used to it, it will sound normal.

恭喜發財，祝大家馬年行大運, 龍馬精神, 馬到成功!

First you learn the radicals and the common words that are used. Then you learn how to form sentences using those basic words. Finally, you learn advanced vocabularies. Unlike English, the problem with Chinese isn't with syntax but with vocabularies.

Very insightful and accurate explanation. I might also like to add that everyone that wants to learn Chinese has to learn to write his/her own name in Chinese first. The number one rule if we want to learn Chinese.

坐井觀天 (Zuòjǐngguāntiān) - Never seen the world.

Literal meaning - seating in a well and look at the sky.

Once upon a time, there was a frog that lived in a well. He was very content with his life because there were a lot of mosquitoes to feed on. One day, a crow flew in asking for a shelter because the weather was too hot. The frog welcomed the crow but the crow started complaining about mosquitoes and that the well was too small and narrow. The frog got annoyed and started arguing that his well was the best. The crow then iterated that outside the well there were ponds, elephants, mountains, and a limitless sky. The frog said that the crow lied because the sky is only the size of the well's entrance. The crow laughed and offered to fly the frog out so that he could see for himself. Once the frog was out, he was shocked and immediately fell back into the well.

坐井觀天 (Zuòjǐngguāntiān) is used to describe someone that has never seen the world. It has the same meaning as 井底之蛙 (Jǐngdǐzhīwā).

Example:

"做人要看遠世界，不要只會躲在這裡「坐井觀天」. 會給別人笑你沒見過世面的."

A couple of days can net you some basic words if you are really into learning the language. If you want to learn the language in more detail, it can take from a few weeks to a few months depending on your intelligence. If you're talking about being an expert and really fluent at it, my guess is about a year with a lot of practice.

In the small town I live in, it's populated by people who speak three different languages. I don't know how it worked but most people [in the town] speak all three languages [maybe they pick them up in the playground in school] so it's quite natural to speak a mix of any of the three languages [don't ask which ones] but it doesn't feel like any of them is a foreign language. . .

Sounds very similar to my country as well, we speak and mix three different languages here when we talk to each other. We also have borrowed words from each other due to living in the same country for so long. Sometimes there are words that are not available in my native language, we use borrowed words instead.

My sister resides in Philippines now. I bet she understands the words too. I'm going to ask her a bit about some of the basic words when she gets back the next time.

This is like a really good idea. I didn't know that there are such services available. I wrote an e-book a few years ago but had nowhere to publish it. After changing computers, my copy of it is lost. Too bad I didn't know about these sites before, I'll be sure to check them out if I ever do another e-book.

熟能生巧 (Shúnéngshēngqiǎo) - Practice makes perfect.

Literal meaning - Familiarity brings skill.

Once upon a time there was one archer that boasted about how good he was with the bow. He could shoot down a twig 100 feet away. A passer by who was an oil merchant saw this and said that it was nothing special, what was needed was practice. The archer got angry and challenged the oil merchant but was denied because the oil merchant said that he didn't know archery. Instead, he asked the archer if he could pour oil from one bottle to the next if the archer was indeed as sharp eyed as he claimed. The oil merchant took a coin and placed it on top of the bottle's opening and asked the archer to pour oil through the tiny hole. The archer failed miserably but the oil merchant did flawlessly so the archer asked the oil merchant how he did it and the oil merchant answered, "practice makes perfect, just like your archery skill."

Example:

"做一件事, 只要你不斷的練習. 自然就會「熟能生巧」越來越精."

I never thought about using video games to learn a new language but after playing a lot of Japanese games I'm actually able to read some Japanese words like Options, Stereo, Mono, Save and Load, Continue, and other in words in cutscenes.

Of course, anyone can learn a language if one is really interested. One doesn't necessarily need to speak with other people to know when to use certain words. Watching other people use it is already sufficient. I know for certain because I'm an introvert myself and I learned Chinese no problem. I was never forced or anything. It's a different story though if you're referring to people with autism.

四面楚歌 (Sìmiànchǔgē) - Perils everywhere.

Literal meaning - Chu song from all sides.

During the infamous "出爾反爾" (Chū'ěrfǎn'ěr) event. Liu Bang ambushed Xiang Yu from the rear after signing the peace treaty between the two factions that ended the five year ChuHan Contention. Xiang Yu's army was severely defeated and had to retreat to a mountain. Because Xiang Yu's army still had high morale, so Han Xin asked his men to surround the area and started singing Chu songs to weaken Xiang Yu's army's morale. The songs made them miss their home very much and caused all of them to abandon camp and ran away. Xiang Yu faced with the songs and Han Xin's army felt that there was no hope left made it out with his last ounce of strength.

四面楚歌 (Sìmiànchǔgē) is used to describe a situation where everything bad happens around you.

Example:

"我被裁員， 老婆又進醫院，弟弟也欠人債。簡直是「四面楚歌」沒有出路."

It's kind of hard to believe that story. I mean there has been numerous prove that people originated from different regions. Not to deny anything from the Bible but it just seems highly unlikely even though there is chance of it being true.

Unfortunately this common error has become so prevalent that I see it on a daily basis. The internet is the place where I encounter this error the most. I blame it on grammar nazism fobia, people do not correct the error when they see one because they are afraid to be called a grammar nazi.