I teach these lexically by saying that “Jiu” means “then” and “caI” means “then and ONLY then.” Same meanings but you can sort of translate it into an English sentence structure.
[quote=“ironlady”][quote]
‘Jiu’ means that something happened sooner than the speaker expected it too.
‘Cai’ means that something happened later than the speaker expected it.
[/quote]
I teach these lexically by saying that “Jiu” means “then” and “caI” means “then and ONLY then.” Same meanings but you can sort of translate it into an English sentence structure.[/quote]
Yes, and in logical rather than temporal propositions, you can read the difference as:
…jiu… = if…then… (condition sufficient)
…cai… = if and only if…then… (condition necessary)
One can also think of cai2 as ‘not until’: wo3 jiu3dian3 cai2 hui2 jia1le – I did not get home until 9 o’clock.
Nah. it’s ranhou all right.
Na and Ne are interchangeable in pronounciation, it’s in there in the Shida standard textbooks from the first couple of chapters. So there is nothing technically wrong with saying na ge shi hou or ne ge shi hou. The na choice is obviously from influence of Taiwanese, Taiwan guo yu as people said.
Actually there is nothing particularly wrong with Taiwan guo yu, it’s just many people are not used to it. The same thing happened to me when I went to Beijing recently, found I had to relearn tonnes and tonnes of vocab, even for the simplest phrases or terms. I actually had to listen very carefully to filter the R sound out. The same thing happens to people the other way round. It’s just like the difference between Irish English, English English, American English etc. Taiwanese like to use ‘you’ and ‘gei’ aswell, classic Taiwan guo yu. You won’t find it in any textbooks but I find they are very easy to construct sentences with, doesn’t sound too good to some classical putonghua Chinese speakers I guess.
[quote=“ironlady”][quote]
‘Jiu’ means that something happened sooner than the speaker expected it too.
‘Cai’ means that something happened later than the speaker expected it.
[/quote]
I teach these lexically by saying that “Jiu” means “then” and “caI” means “then and ONLY then.” Same meanings but you can sort of translate it into an English sentence structure.[/quote]
Yes, I think Ironlady’s explanation is the clearest. When using Cai you shoud use ‘must have the first condition’ setups in front for instance
Ni xian yao zuo zhege/qu na bian cai ke yi zuo nege
Wo zuo tian cai ting dao zhe ge xiao xi
Jiu can also be used in similar fashion…
Wo yi faxian zhege wenti jiu qu na bian
But jiu has a more flexible usage, for instance ‘na jiu zuo ba’ …just do it…more slangy
I’m having trouble figuring out the meaning of this pair of characters–漂丿(piào piě)–as they appear together. The pair apparently forms a word or phrase.
It seems that 漂丿has been associated with bread or a bakery/bakeries at least once. But it also appears in the name of a restaurant and in the name of a drama club.
Google Translate seems to translate it as “drift,” but if that’s the actual meaning, then I pretty much don’t get it (drift bread/bakery, drift roast pork canteen, drift drama club?).
Maybe this is my punishment for excessive Googling. 
漂丿is the Mandarin phonetic “spelling” of a Taiwanese term that’s the equivalent of 瀟灑.
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Ah! Thank you very much, sir! 
At least right now, Google Translate translates 三重區 as Mie District.
As one might guess, mie can mean all kinds of things in Mandarin:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mie#Mandarin
Assuming it’s not a glitch, does anyone have any idea(s) about what mie might mean in the context of Sanchong, or in some other context, e. g., triple weight?
三重 is also a place in Japan, i.e. Mie Prefecture.
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Ah, like the way Google Translate currently translates 板橋 as Itabashi.
Thank you very much, @Dr_Milker!
This means the third plain. Taipei County was settled from Xinzhuang (the first plain) to the second plain and then the third plain, referring to the topography of the land. (from Wiki)
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Thanks for that information, @the_bear. Earlier I was thinking, “‘Three Weight District’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Apologies if this isn’t the right topic for this question, but here goes:
I can’t figure out this character:
I guess the upper-right-hand component character in the character in question is 口 (kǒu, mouth), but that’s all I can get (boldly assuming I get even that much).
I’ve tried stuff like looking up possible couplings with another character that goes with it (no dice, for me at least), using the IME input and hoping it would make a suggestion (again, no luck), and I even tried plugging guesses into an online app that shows various writing styles (once again, bupkis).
Anyone know or care to guess? Thanks in advance.
瑋
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How would you translate ‘certification’ to Chinese?
As in say, an AWS certification, or a translating certification? Essentially something that a reputable organisation gives you after passing a test to prove your expertise in a field like engineering or accounting.
I am thinking 執照 zhizhao or is that more like license?
認證
Chinese word meaning certification
4 Likes
If you’re talking about the physical printed certificate: 證書