Try if you know the meaning of these Chinese words

Language Learning Chinese
#1

Hello, this is a survey made by a student of Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, NKNU.
In this link below, there are questions containing some Chinese words which have special meanings in Taiwan and usually misunderstood by foreigners. We would like to know if you know the meaning of these words, how you think about these words and if these word should become part of teaching materils. Thanks for your help!:slight_smile:

親愛的同學，您好，我是高師大華語文教學研究所的學生，提出這份問卷的主要目的是，希望能夠了解您對於華語文中某些特殊詞彙的了解與使用情況，藉以提供教材上的補充與教學方法的修正。相信您的熱心協助與建議對於外籍生學習華語文將會有更多助益。再次致上十二萬分的感謝。

my3q.com/home2/136/celiali/52713.phtml

#2

[quote=“celiali”]Hello, this is a survey made by a student of Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, NKNU.
In this link below, there are questions containing some Chinese words which have special meanings in Taiwan and usually misunderstood by foreigners. We would like to know if you know the meaning of these words, how you think about these words and if these word should become part of teaching materils. Thanks for your help!:slight_smile:

親愛的同學，您好，我是高師大華語文教學研究所的學生，提出這份問卷的主要目的是，希望能夠了解您對於華語文中某些特殊詞彙的了解與使用情況，藉以提供教材上的補充與教學方法的修正。相信您的熱心協助與建議對於外籍生學習華語文將會有更多助益。再次致上十二萬分的感謝。

my3q.com/home2/136/celiali/52713.phtml[/quote]

Most of these “words which have special meanings” are slang.

#3

celiali, if you’re targeting foreign students of Chinese for such a survey, remember that even after learning a significant number of characters, not all of them want to invest the energy in reading through an all-Chinese introduction, registration, etc. to answer the questions. If you really want foreigners to answer, you might be better off translating everything except the terms in question into English to make it easier for them to answer. You’ll get a higher response rate that way.

#4

What an incredibly lame test. For a lot of the questions, they gave a bunch of slang words and whether they had the literal meaning. The equivalent in English would be asking, “He really is a ‘brown-noser.’ Does this sentence describe the color of his nose?”

Then when you finish, it doesn’t actually tell you the correct answers. If you’re going to use up 10 minutes of my life, I at least want to get something out of it. It looks like I’m the first fool to complete the test (record 1 is all blanks). You can see my answers here. Feel free to laugh at my mistakes, as I couldn’t be bothered towards the end.

my3q.com/home2/136/celiali/5 … l?record=2

#5

Itook it and then sent my answers to my man so he can make sure to fix my chinese problems.

#6

Celia,
If you are really serious about giving this survey and using it for research, please PM me or e-mail me so that I can talk to you about research design. You need to learn some things about designing your survey so that you can get good results that will be usable in an academic paper. The survey as it currently stands has a lot of problems. I’ll be glad to help you if you like. (Just FYI, my Ph.D. is in Foreign Language Education with a specialization in teaching Chinese, and I have a second MA from Fujen in Interpreting.)

Terry

#7

[quote=“alidarbac”]
Then when you finish, it doesn’t actually tell you the correct answers. If you’re going to use up 10 minutes of my life, I at least want to get something out of it. It looks like I’m the first fool to complete the test (record 1 is all blanks). You can see my answers here. Feel free to laugh at my mistakes, as I couldn’t be bothered towards the end.

my3q.com/home2/136/celiali/5 … l?record=2[/quote]
Actually, You did a quite good job, alidarbac :wink:
Here are some answers if you’d spend another 10 minutes to check them out.
Q7 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 27 33 35 are all correct. Excellent! :slight_smile:

Q13她從小就是個「藥罐子」It’s the correct usage. 藥罐子=gallipot, describing people who take medicine all the time.

Q15「三隻手」是個錯誤的行為It’s the correct usage. 三隻手=extra hand, describing the behavior of picking pocket.

Q24晴朗的天氣突然下起雨來，真是令人「掃興」It’s the correct usage. 掃興= to spoil the pleasure, a bringdown.

Q25她個性活潑開朗，笑口常開，簡直就像「悶葫蘆」; 悶葫蘆=people of few words, gloomy person. Another explanation (according to the context) of 悶葫蘆 is a puzzle, to keep people guessing; it’s more often used in mainland china than in taiwan.

Q26吃過飯要記得把「桌面」整理乾淨It’s actually the correct usage, it means to clean up the dinning table.

Q28馬路如「虎口」，行人要當心It’s the correct usage. 虎口=tiger’s mouth, it’s a figure of speech to describe a dangerous pass as walking into tiger’s mouth. Another explanation of 虎口 is the area where the thumb meets the index finger.

Q29這個職務薪水少、工作又重，真是個「肥缺」;肥缺=gravy train
Q31這個人做事很認真，就像是一隻「老狐狸」;老狐狸=sly old fox, chinese believe that fox is sly and cunning. Another idiom about fox is 狐狸尾巴(fox’s brush), which means somebody’s real intention of doing bad things.

Q32「金光黨」是台灣最富有的政治團體;金光黨=scammers, con men. Early days in Taiwan, there used to be a bunch of scammers cheating by losing their valuables, usually some bracelets or gold bullion, by the roadside and then waiting for some victim to pick them up. They would show up in front of the victim and suggest to halve the valuables, or to “pay for” the scammers’ half, so the victim could have them all without actually “halving” bullion. Of course the valuables were all junk, and the scammers got the money. These bunch of scammers are afterwards labelled 金光黨. I guess it’s an idiom used just in Taiwan?

Q34公車上人好多，這種「擠沙丁魚」的感覺真討厭; 擠沙丁魚=packed like sardines, a figure of speech of describing a crowded place.

Q36他眼睛不好，常常出現「眼中釘」;眼中釘=a thorn in one’s flesh; pain in the ass!

#8

The point is not whether the answers are correct or not.
The point is that your survey is written so poorly that the results are not valid for research.
Your data is not showing what you believe it is showing.

#9

Aii, bostin’ innit ?

#10

[quote=“ironlady”]The point is not whether the answers are correct or not.
The point is that your survey is written so poorly that the results are not valid for research.
Your data is not showing what you believe it is showing.[/quote]

well… first of all, it’s NOT my survey. I was just trying to help.
second, it’s NOT my data, nor my website links.
sorry if you couldn’t see anything.

#11

Bit of a lost cause to get through to these institutes in Taiwan which give their students vanilla coursework for 2 years, require no independent thought during that time, and then suddenly declare, “You must now do research to graduate!” Most students have never even written a paper independently before being dumped into the thesis thanks to the Group Mentality and Group Work (which makes less work for teachers “correcting” the product). Least of all do the schools mention that it might be a good idea to monitor threads when you post about your survey…

#12

indeed, I can’t agree with you anymore on this. TW graduate school sucks.
BUT, this does NOT have anything to do with my first post here! It is Learning Chinese forum here, and I saw someone saying he’s got a little confused with some chinese slangs, so I just want to do something to help, that’s all. Please, check alidarbac’s post as well as mine; I didn’t put any links or Surveys, and I was talking to alidarbac. And you can tell that I feel a bit offended when others garble my words. Hope you don’t mind.