User talk:Tooironic

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NOTE: If you leave a message, I always reply on my own talk page. Cheers. Tooironic 15:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin entries[edit]

Thank you for all of your hard work on the Mandarin entries. Here are some reference pages that may be of use:

If you have any questions about formatting please don't hesitate to post a note on my talk page or at Wiktionary:Beer Parlour. -- A-cai 14:57, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese Mandarin translations[edit]

G'day mate,

There was a heated discussion and a vote about the translations into Chinese. The compromise is to use nested translations. I know it's awkward. I usually used assisted translations with zh template, which creates * Mandarin, then I edit and insert under * Chinese and add : after the *. This is the solution that seems to satisfy the opponents of using "Chinese". With fantizi/jiantizi I follow the advise and use fantizi first without pinyin, then jiantizi with pinyin, see divorce, for example. There are no objections to this method. A couple of templates I have created/enhanced could be used for etymology sections. Anatoli 13:01, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

晕~~ All this talk about all the different formatting and templates confuses me. I prefer to use these two:
{{zh-tsp|中國|中国|Zhōngguó}} & {{zh-zh-p|北京|Běijīng}}
I think they look quite neat and it's never hard to distinguish where one translation ends and another begins (if there are more than one). However I also want to be able to link to the Chinese wiktionary for each term - is there a template that does that too? I tried to follow the discussion about this but it went on and on and by the end of it I was still confused. What did they actually decide on as the template one is suppose to use? Also, are we supposed to add a nesting for "Mandarin" even if no other translations of other dialects have been added? Lastly, what do you mean by 'etymology sections'? Are you talking about etymologies Chinese entries? Tooironic 00:34, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's it. you can't link to the Chinese wiktionary with these templates. As A-cai said, the loose compromise was to use nested, even if there is only Mandarin. The arguments that people usually use Chinese in the sense of Mandarin, didn't work.
In English etymology sections, where it is important to show what's traditional and what's simplified, rather than showing them in order trad., simpl., pinyin. I like the templates too but there are too many entries to add in translations and as you noticed, you can't link to the Chinese wiki. Anatoli 01:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please direct me then to the template that has been decided? I will use that from now on.
I still don't understand what you mean by "English etymology sections" and what that has to do with simp/trad. Are you talking about Chinese entries in the English wiktionary?? There was no verb in that sentence so I got confused sorry. Tooironic 01:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for being confusing :). There was no discussion about the templates, so I think you can still use it if you wish. The discussion was about Chinese vs Mandarin in translations. I can't find an example etymology section now but I mean, when you explain an English word of Chinese origin, you might be more specific about which one is traditional and which is simplified, if they are different. In my opinion, the templates would be ideal there: trad. 中國中国 (Zhōngguó), simpl. 中国 (Zhōngguó) (pinyin: Zhōngguó) & Template:zh-zh-p but for translations, adding extra words (e.g. trad., simp.) makes entries too long sometimes and there are no links to Chinese wiki (you can't combine these with template:t template). There are no strict rules, if I am not mistaken, don't worry if you're still confused. :) I use: 叩頭叩头 (kòutóu), 叩头 (kòutóu) and you can do it using the JavaScript (assisted) rather than typing the codes. Anatoli 02:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, gotcha now. I suppose I'll use that template that references the Chinese wiktionary from now on. I really think there should be a consensus on templates, however I feel I'm too much of a newbie to start such a discussion with votes, etc. Maybe yourself or Ai-cai could. Having a standard template for all this would certainly make new users feel a lot less scared when they start out.
Also, what is this JavaScript assisted thing you speak of? I myself just copy and paste the codes from notepad (yeah I'm old school!), but anything to fasten the editing process would be sweet. Cheers mate. Tooironic 03:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you knew. Here it is with the explanations: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/WT:EDIT. When you get it to work, if you use zh for the language code, you only need to add the Chinese word and pinyin (optional) for Chinese translations. It doesn't work with nested translations, so I have to copy *: Mandarin under * Chinese. Contact user Conrad.Irwin for help. I am quite a newbie myself, don't be shy to raise questions in beer parlour, etc. but I found these discussions too time-consuming and frustrating at times. Anatoli 03:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

tx4ur entries!![edit]

skype: sven0921 --史凡 13:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I added you. :) Tooironic 13:41, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

pinyinconverternowork-[edit]

help?--史凡/ʂɚ˨˩fan˧˥/shi3fan2 (歡迎光臨/Welcome! 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 07:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

fromEPs talk-p,fyi[topic:how2hide longlist]

"下,mandarin

dun!only,rel-terms>compounds--mind havalook?ok likethat?:)--史凡/ʂɚ˨˩fan˧˥/shi3fan2 (歡迎光臨/Welcome! 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 23:06, 14 July 2009 (UTC) Yes, what you have done with those templates is correct. However, the editor who inserted the list of compounds did not format the list correctly. Right now, it is formatted as a Translations section, with "Mandarin:" in fornt of every entry and with the {{t}} template. A compounds section should not use either of those features.

I also do not know whether "Compounds" is an acceptable section header. We try to limit them to only a few standard headers so they can be checked by bots and to keep entries consistent. "Compounds" is not a header used in the languages I normally edit. --EncycloPetey 23:55, 14 July 2009 (UTC) "--史凡/ʂɚ˨˩fan˧˥/shi3fan2 (歡迎光臨/Welcome! 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 00:58, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I was only halfway through finishing and then got distracted by some other work. As for whether or not "Compounds" is an acceptable section header, I was merely following the style that A-cai recommended to me (see for example). I think they add a lot of useful information to the entries, and don't see any reason for not including them. Tooironic 07:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

iadmire urwork,itshuuge'n'ilike:p!-wasjust longklikin'slog,eryi[like w/tr-lat. be4]-praps fmt changd,lets waitc wot acai says--jiayou!!:)--史凡/ʂɚ˨˩fan˧˥/shi3fan2 (歡迎光臨/Welcome! 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 09:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

myLongman-sauce=ruderemarks[edit]

+dito fanyi--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 15:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great job[edit]

Hi Carl,

You are doing a great job, mate!

Are you also checking that the blue links have Mandarin definitions (not Japanese) and are not just translingual characters?

I don't set myself specific targets but making sure all basic, most common and useful English words and expressions have Chinese (and a few more languages) translations. I've gone through lists of basic adjectives, nouns and verbs to make sure they have a Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, German and French translations. Occasionally I add Spanish, Polish, Czech, Swedish, etc. For proper names I also often add Korean, Hebrew, Greek and Hindu, often without transliteration. I am planning to at least learn or relearn how to read these scripts. I learned some Korean but abandoned too early.

I see you are reading a text and add words as you come across missing words. Good tactics, I use this to add translations in English entries.

Tbot started producing some entries from translations, which then are marked for human attention, unfortunately, it doesn't happen with Chinese, perhaps because of the complexity. It's not fair!

Another thing. Some Mandarin categories use pinyin for sorting. Maybe we should consider this? It's easier, more natural for English speakers and too common in bilingual dictionaries. Need to check with A-cai about this. What do you think?

Another idea I want to share with you. In assisted translations, I use page name to make sure that the page becomes blue eventually, I mean that there wiil be a page for but not necessarily for 假的. If a translation must contain a suffix 的 or something, I remove it from the "page name".

I remember you were interested in Russian, if you become interested again, please let me know. :) Anatoli 00:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Anatoli,
Thanks for the encouragement! Let me break this down into bite-sized pieces...
Checking that the blue links have Mandarin definitions. Yes I am adding Mandarian to both red and blue links (e.g. 山脈).
The need for more basic expressions. I know exactly what you mean. At the moment, I'd say wiktionary has a fairly decent Mandarin "word-dictionary (詞典)" but a pretty shithouse "character-dictionary (字典)". Even common characters like , and lack detailed entries. I would improve them myself, but I find that kind of thing extremely boring. Though I have been editing the occasional one-syllable word, usually when it's a little more interesting than the average character (e.g. , or ).
Mandarin categories that use pinyin for sorting. Not sure what you mean by this. Currently, all traditional and simplified entries that are formatted correctly are sorted by pinyin and stroke order respectively.
What is Tbot?
About Russian. Yes I am always up learning the odd extra language, just for fun! Maybe we could meet up over the holidays and do some language exchange over some vodka or something!
The dreaded 的. Yes, I'm aware of the problem with 的 in adjective definitions. Not sure how to fix this though, when the "standard" template (so to speak) for Eng>Chi translations does not allow you to break up a translation into different entries.
Cheers, Tooironic 02:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A quick reference to what I meant by 的 issue, a good work around is to link to 假 but display 假的, like this: 假的 (jiǎ-de). I'll get back to you on other questions. Anatoli 02:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tbot entries, automatically made from translations: [1], a sample Japanese entry: カメラ. We should request and see if Mandarin can be given the same treatment. I am not 100% about the status but some people are unhappy about Tbot (translation (ro)bot). Anatoli 02:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sort order. 化妆 uses rs=人02 (by radical), not by huàzhuāng or hua4zhuang1 for sorting (by pinyin). Some categories, like Category:zh-cn:Capital cities|bei3jing1 and Category:zh-tw:Capital cities|匕03北京 use a different approach for sorting see 北京. The former uses pinyin, the latter radicals. That means pinyin is accepted, especially in zh-cn. If you open each category: [2], [3], you will see that mainland Chinese are sorted by Roman letters and Taiwanese by radicals. Does it make sense? Yeah, let's catch up. I only I don't drink vodka at the moment, I had a nose surgery recently and I don't feel quite well after alcohol. :) Anatoli 04:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Haha, yes I think I know what you mean about the pinyin sorting, but what is the problem here do you think? This whole thing confuses me a bit. As far as I know, simp does one thing, trad does another thing, and everyone's happy. Although I'm not sure if I should capitalise proper nouns. I asked A-cai but he hasn't got back to me yet. Tooironic 04:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah but entries seem to follow radical sorting only, not pinyin, that's why I referred you to 化妆. I am not too happy, since radical sorting is more complex, takes more effort, adding a sort by pinyin is way simpler, like many categories do. Besides, as I said modern Chinese-English dictionaries are mainly sorted by A, B, C. Hmm, if you open Category:zh-cn:Nouns, they are all just Roman letters, why do we need "rs" at all?
Pinyin with tone marks is capitalised for place names, it's following the rules of capitalisation and word breakup as per Wikipedia. Anatoli 05:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I'm not sure what you mean. If you check out [[4]] and scroll down, 化妆 (both simp and trad) is listed alphabetically according to pinyin. As for the RS, it is there for the sorting of words in the tw categories. It's a bit of extra work, admittedly, but I guess it means people from Taiwan (and other people who don't know pinyin) can search for entries too.
And regarding proper nouns, it seems they are only capitalised in the entry pinyin itself, not in the sorting header (or whatever it's called). e.g. pin=Běijīng|pint=bei3jing1. Tooironic 05:21, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, let's drop it about sorting order, 算了. Do you think it's a good idea to create entries from translations (using Tbot)? Without human intervention and knowing that the bot is very basic, the entries may become very basic and will require heavy editing but to me having ==Mandarin== ===Noun=== 种族主义 (zhǒngzúzhǔyì) racism is better than no entry at all. The Chinese word can only be found from the English entry's translation or via search. The differences between jiantizi/fantizi and other tags can be added later. Anatoli 05:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Carl. If you think it's a good idea, please support this request. User:Robert Ullmann is the person who created or looks after Tbot. Although the quality may suffer, your target of 10,000 Mandarin entries may be achieved easier. On the other hand, it would be harder to overtake other languages if their entries are created from translations but it doesn't happen with Chinese. Anatoli 06:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah you're right, more entries (albeit non-standard and less informative ones) is better than nothing. I'll leave a message on there. Tooironic 02:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

I have just created these two entries, 援助交際 is also in Japanese. I created the Category:zh:Japanese derivations. Could you check the "rs=" portion of it. I don't know what it should be! The radicals used are 扌 but what is the number after it (total number of strokes - strokes in 扌 doesn't work? Anatoli 02:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the radical (in its full form, so to speak) is 手 not 扌. For every character, all you have to do is go to its page (), scroll down to "Han character", find the line: 援 (radical 64 手+9..., copy the 手+9 part and delete the plus sign. You will also have to put a zero before the number if it's under 10. So you end up with 手09. I have amended those entries for you. Cheers. Tooironic 02:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, mate. I'll use it as a guide. Before I was just finding words starting with the same character and copied the rs= part. I added 卡拉OK to the list of Japanese derivations by adding "zh". If you remember any Chinese entries of Japanese origin, please use "ja" and "zh" in the etyl tag - Japanese->Mandarin. Anatoli 02:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

=remainin'stroks;) ps便當《=bento ja--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 06:21, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Remaining strokes? Thanks, Sven. 援 has 12 strokes (Wenlin software). 扌 has 3. 12-3=9. You're right. Should we be using 扌 (3 strokes) or 手 (4 strokes)? I may not be able to understand your answer, sorry. --Anatoli 06:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

umean deduct3/4?-dep. on cidian[if trad.tw1=13str. here,as it may always count str.s o'ful frm' rad.,regardles of display[fe waist腰then=15 insted of13as actual/long rad=肉,not月moon[which=a.short4meat:/--sure way:爪4+一1+友4=9 imaginin' brush strokes[=arbitrary2tho+somtims a.difrent re order/count,fe i/wot makes up1str.>ex.(left) ear as i/險 canbe counted2or3];) [9=rest ofcomponents w/o rad.[here=hand>if using w.lin>substract rad.(hand)strks displayd[as udid here;) [carl/acai's way v.gudtho as sure-fire;fe icant input althe rad.[sftware limitatn--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 08:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

腰Han char|rn=130|rad=肉|as=09|sn=13|four=71244|canj=月一田女 (BMWV<says as, ah>aditnl str!:),but str.nr=13,evrywhere difr:/--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 11:17, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

trreq[edit]

Hi Carl,

If you don't mind. Please add {{trreq|Greek}}, {{trreq|Hebrew}}, {{trreq|Hindi}}, {{trreq|Italian}}, {{trreq|Korean}}, {{trreq|Thai}}, {{trreq|Vietnamese}} to your translation requests/templates. Not that I know these. :) --Anatoli 01:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Anatoli. I don't add translation requests for languages that don't have contributors who respond to them. All of thoese languages, bar Greek and Thai, have over 100 translation requests - Vietnamese has 266! So I don't see the point in putting them in my rounds if the requests just pile up, although perhaps now I will add Greek and Thai to my auto-list. If they pile up to over 100 though I'll stop requesting them. Cheers. Tooironic 01:38, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, by that criteria I should probably stop requesting French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Sigh. I don't pay attention to these languages as much as I should. Tooironic 01:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point, perhaps, it will attract more contributors in the future. I do add French, German, Japanese and sometimes Portuguese and Spanish translations when I can (certainly Russian). For languages with non-Roman scripts, I sometimes seek the spelling for proper names, even if the language is not my area of interest or expertise (Greek, Korean, Hindi, Hebrew and Thai), I think it's useful or interesting to know how a city is spelled in a different script. For the languages you listed last we do have contributors. Anatoli 02:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When you add trreqs, please leave a space between * and trreq-template. If the space is not there, the system creates two translation lines for languages that have more than one tranlation to the requested term. --Hekaheka 15:31, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You mean like this: * {{trreq|Finnish}}? I always do that. :P Tooironic 19:26, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's the way. Sorry, maybe I messed up my notes, maybe you forgot it once. --Hekaheka 04:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I had this experience when the JavaScript created two lines per language, not sure where there was space or not. Also, somehow, when Mandarin is added,, I often can't add others - especially Japanese, have to save and restart, complains about gloss format. For this reason, I often add Chinese as the last. Hekaheka, I think I add a space too.
Carl, for nested translations, please use *:, not **, seems to be the convention, not sure if it makes any difference for the assisted translations. Anatoli 22:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I thought ** was the convention, and I was making sure all Chinese translations followed it! Can someone check if this is right? Tooironic 07:47, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, mate. I am not sure where to find the info any more. Maybe, we can ask A-cai, as this was a compromise to have * Chinese: *: Mandarin: he agreed to or suggested. The nesting applies to Serbian or Serbo-Croatian where they use *: Cyrillic: and *: Roman: I also observed bot fixing :* to *: in nested translations. Ivan Štambuk will know as well, if it's important. Anatoli 22:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's cool. I just left a note on A-cai's user page, so we should know soon enough, hehe. Cheers, Tooironic 23:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Found it, I remembered A-cai mentioning difficulties in translations to dialects (the discussion about * Chinese: vs * Mandarin:) and he used a word as an example. I was right. Please check child's translation. That's A-cai's work. To add another level - *:: (another colon).Anatoli 23:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

You asked about this proverb (Confucian saying) in Tea room. I have added the basic entry with translations. The English section needs some attention but not sure yet what to add. Anatoli 03:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually it was said by Laozi. I've added an entry for him, as well as etymology section for the proverb and some translation requests. Cheers! Tooironic 07:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that! --Anatoli 22:32, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No need to delete a talk page when the content is relevant to the article. You're free to mark done and remove the template, but I see no reason to delete this. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Hiya[edit]

Hello! What would you like to know about Esperanto? --Shibo77 00:33, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to learn it actually. Hehe. But I don't know where to start. Do you have MSN? Send me an email if you can (click Toolbox -> Email this user), I'd love to have a chat. Cheers. Tooironic 00:38, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese meetup[edit]

Hi Carl,

Please check your email, it's urgent! Sorry for the short notice. If you can't make it or miss my messages, please join in two weeks. --Anatoli 05:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Translations to be checked[edit]

When you create "Translations to be checked" -tables, please remember to add ttbc-tags to the languages that need checking. Otherwise no one will be able to find the articles with "translations to be checked" sections. See e.g. no way. --Hekaheka 04:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh shit, I forgot. Thanks for picking up on that!! Tooironic 05:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Carl, please check my Chinese translations in no way, when you have a chance! Although I think they are right, they may not be as strong or appropriate or the most useful.--Anatoli 05:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I think you were a little off with your translation there mate. I don't think 荒诞不经 can be used as an interjection. I replaced it with 不會吧. I also added another sense (for indicating rejection). Cheers. Tooironic 05:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for checking, mate. I think you meant CAN'T be used as an interjection. I will probably get back to these translations for Japanese. --Anatoli 05:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I said I "don't think" it can be used as an interjection haha sorry for the confusion. :) Tooironic 06:15, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's me who should be sorry for being inattentive! LOL --Anatoli 00:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

new Chinese contributor[edit]

达伟 (talkcontribs), probably needs to be taught formatting and templates and whatnot. L☺g☺maniac 16:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the welcome. Are there any bots that can kind of clean up to make sure categories are added to entries, etc.? Thanks for your help --达伟 23:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so no, not for Mandarin anyway. You wouldn't happen to know how to program one would you? Hehe. :) Tooironic 23:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Considering the importance of the Chinese language on a world-wide scale, and considering the relative ease for someone who is a programmer, it REALLY should be created. But unfortunately I know nothing about bots.
On another note, can we start adding (systematically or not) the GIF/PNG graphics of the hanzi/kanji keystrokes for Chinese and Japanese, like the French and Japanese Wiktionaries use? --达伟 16:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
By all means... perhaps if you take it up with the community at large someone with some expertise might be able to answer your call. Tooironic 19:19, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

no way[edit]

I guess my addition was a misunderstanding of the interjection categorization of "No way" in English. 没门 could be used to reply to an inquiry such as, "What if we try to get money from mom and dad?" (that might not be the best example but I'm just thinking at random). In English one might conceivably reply "No way. That wouldn't work."

However, I have no objections to your changes.

Regarding Northern Mandarin "没门儿" may be used by speakers from many geographical regions but its origins seem to be the Beijing area...so perhaps the label is inappropriate, but etymologically it's northern, I believe. --达伟 06:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, now I'm not so sure. I just did a survey of a dozen native speakers on MSN to see if 沒門 can indeed express disbelief (citing the "You failed your exam again? No way!" as an example) and I've got a whole range of answers, from those thinking it's fine, to others stating it's strange, unnatural or simply incorrect. My 現代漢語詞典 lists impossibility as a possible usage of 沒門, but it would seem this usage only sounds natural in certain contexts. I guess it would be best just to leave it out - 不會吧 seems good enough, plus 怎麼會呢 and 不可能, which a friend of mine just suggested. Thanks for your speedy reply! Cheers :) Tooironic 07:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and I also added some more translations of Sense #3, in line with more suggestions from native speakers. Tooironic 07:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. My argument would be that 没门/沒門 would not be an appropriate reply to the "You failed your exam again?" remark. As I mentioned, my confusion was due to failing to distinguish the two English meanings of "No way" (i.e. the interjection of surprise, and the affirmative statement of impossibility when one is asked a question or presented a proposal). Interestingly, I noted that 没门/沒門 is listed as a synonym of 沒戲.
On a totally different subject, I've been noticing a lot of Mandarin words linked in blue that, after you follow the link, actually have no Chinese entry but merely a Japanese kanji entry. This can be problematic b/c people who want to create Chinese entries won't realize that one is missing, since superficially it is blue...I wish there was a way to correct this. . . --达伟 21:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi 达伟, there is no way to fix it and no need to, in my opinion. If both entries exist, the blue link will go to ja or zh/cmn, otherwise with what's available. It is the same situation with all the languages where words are spelled the same way. Also, the single character entries may no have lexical info, only the character, very generic info. It's the job of the editor to check this - also for the redirects and the accuracy/completeness of the actual entries (with care!). It's only a click away to check.--Anatoli 23:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the reply. I agree it's only a click away to check, but I wish there were a way to do this more efficiently (i.e. time saved checking is more type creating entries). If the link shows up blue on a list of HSK Mandarin words (for example), but in actuality only has a Japanese entry, that is confusing.--达伟 14:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you don't mind one last piece of trivia regarding 没门儿...it's interesting that the Japanese entry on wiktionary clearly indicates that it's a dialect, Beijing form --> "方言、北京". --达伟 14:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have an opinion on the above discussion, but I just wanted to say how encouraged I have been in recent months to finally have the help of a few contributors who are knowledgeable in Mandarin. I was beginning to think that the day might never come, as I had been toiling away for nearly two and half years already. However, when I see the above discussion taking place, it makes me think maybe Wiktionary has a place for Asian languages after all :) 加油! -- A-cai 15:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's our pleasure. And of course it does make it easier when we have wise people like you to seek help from. :) Tooironic 19:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget to vote[edit]

Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Chinese categories. -- A-cai 14:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

15,000 nouns appeal[edit]

I am working on Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Arabic. 24.29.228.33 19:26, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good! Tooironic 22:58, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Carl, Does your count include both simplified and traditional nouns - two entries per word if they differ? --Anatoli 05:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Tooironic 08:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I moved it based on the apparent frequency in Google Books. Undo it if you don't like what I did. 86.161.153.122 09:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Entries[edit]

Seeing as I don't speak Chinese, I am not sure about the usefulness of the "drug" entries made by User:Psoup. I would love to hear your opinion on the matter, though :) Razorflame 13:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I get what you mean about some of them (or all of them?) being encyclopedic, but at least he formats them correctly! You have no idea how much extra work and stress is created by anons and other users creating dodgy, ill-formatted, unattested entries. Anyway, TCM has complex, specialised terminology; such entries could be useful for people studying that discipline. Though I'm no doctor, scrolling through the entries he's created, I don't see how any of them could be SoP. Tooironic 15:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'm kind of on the ropes about them as well. Oh well. Thanks for the help :) Razorflame 15:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On the ropes huh? Hmm... seems Wiktionary doesn't cover your particular usage. :P Tooironic 22:56, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't this get deleted as well then? Mglovesfun (talk) 18:21, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Probably. God, the user even created a "Mandarin words suffixed with -qi" category *shudders*. I'll RFD it. Tooironic 19:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I fully recognize everyone's right to his or her own opinion, but etymologically or pedagogically speaking, I would think that such a category (and others like it, e.g. -zhuyi, -jia, -yu, -guo, -li, etc.) would be the height of usefulness....My vote is not to delete....Of course I'm open to hearing debate--达伟 02:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An administrator should do its business objectively. 91.104.36.116 03:03, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For the hundredth time, I've already answered this question. You were blocked because you vandalised Wiktionary with repeated bad and incorrectly formatted edits. You were given multiple warnings by myself and other admins, but continued to do so. ---> Tooironic 11:15, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What is wrong of its contributions? 91.106.7.245 11:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Roman–hanzi compounds[edit]

I suggest you RfV (rather than RfD) these en masse. This will slow down 123abc from adding them, because he’ll need to attest each of them per the CFI. I’m sure there’ll be willingness to apply strictly the letter of the RfV process (i.e., each term gets exactly one month) in their cases. Those that survive can then be considered in a policy and/or an RfD discussion. Those that are found to be idiomatic are likely to be kept, though I’m sure this format:

  • Einstein相对论 = {{form of|Non-standard form|爱因斯坦广义相对论|lang=zh}}

would be acceptable to all involved.  (u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you going to be the one to change the formatting for the hundreds of entries 123abc has and will create in the future? They shouldn't be there in the first place; that's why I RfD'd them (though I understand now that, bizarrely, RfV is a more ruthless process). If we keep even just one of 123abc's entries then we must keep them all, which will ultimately mean that almost any combination of SoP/Chinglish words can be kept as entries. Tooironic 19:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The slippery-slope argument doesn’t apply if we require that they be attested. Once consensus has been established regarding the way to deal with this class of terms, if 123abc adds them in contravention of that, his contributions will be considered vandalistic or POV-pushing. I’m just telling you the easiest and most effective way of going about this.  (u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

admin[edit]

hello Carl. I'd like to nominate you for adminship. If you accept, I'll start a vote for you. Are you interested?--Rising Sun talk? 03:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What kind of things can I do with admin powers? Tooironic 03:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can block, delete, protect and unprotect pages, and probably some other things--Rising Sun talk? 05:36, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please accept the nomination at Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2010-02/User:Tooironic for admin --Rising Sun talk? 05:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Thanks. I guess I might need those powers one day. Nomination accepted. :) Tooironic 06:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Carl, I have also been nominated. You can vote here, if you wish. --Anatoli 02:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gladly! I wonder why they're buttering us up all the sudden. :P Hehe. Tooironic 03:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, no idea. :)--Anatoli 03:52, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is been a discussion about the lack of admins on this website. I can't remember where I saw it now. So this is probably why. JamesjiaoT C 03:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

good job[edit]

good job on 异类. by the way, do you use zhongwen.com (the "zipu"). I love that website beause of the wiki-like link features between different radicals and character elements. I wish we could set up a similar feature on the 字 entries for CJKV (i.e. the entry for the character itself not polysyllabic compounds, 词). right now we have radicals and Kangxi,but not links to characters with similar or related elements...ah well--"if wishes were horses" [*] :) --67.159.85.60 16:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
*PS how do you say that in Chinese? just kidding, you're not a dictionary :)
PSS I am user 达伟. sorry for the bad handwriting--in the middle of class.

by the way, it seems like User:Nbarth started doing what I mentioned...--达伟 17:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, our 字典 is lagging behind in that regard. But it's a huge amount of work, and I myself much prefer editing and creating polysyllabic compounds. I use Wenlin. Tooironic 21:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Without launching an all out search, here's what I found for "wishes were horses": see *link removed as it was stuffing up the discussion page*. Re. 字典, I agree I wouldn't prefer to do that work myself. But if an unknown stranger magically did all of it for us, of course, that would be great. Perhaps we can ask Nbarth :) --152.3.128.178 14:04, 17 February 2010 (UTC) (达伟)[reply]
On an unrelated note, did you see that another overzealous person is going around creating toneless pinyin entries that conflict with the character entries and the toned-pinyin entries -- see, e.g., zuoyong/作用 and my recent harmonizing attempts. Yikes. --152.3.128.178 14:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)(达伟)[reply]
I don't mind anyone creating Pinyin entries - they're useful for newbie learners - as long as they're formatted correctly. Tooironic 23:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, no argument here, but from a policy standpoint, the with-tone pinyin, without-tone pinyin, and character (simplified and traditional) versions all need to be coordinated...--71.111.229.19 01:25, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't see much value in separate pinyin entries. If they do exist, the word senses and examples should be in Hanzi entries, otherwise it's very error-prone. 71.111.229.19, don't you want to register? --Anatoli 01:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In an ideal world we would have a bot that automatically coordinates/synchs all definitional content between the four versions of the word (pinyin-tone, pinyin-no tone, trad. char., simplif. char.). I'm agnostic whether we should have toneless pinyin entries -- I strongly believe we should set consistent policy. Though if we abolish toneless pinyin we should create a redirect system so someone types in Zhongguo gets redirected to the proper pinyin version with tones. However, maybe Chinese entries on wiktionary are in their infancy so it would be counterproductive to be too harsh on people...--达伟 17:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)(I am 71.111 above)[reply]

亞美尼亞[edit]

Misclick, sorry. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, er, are you adding Cantonese now? If so you might wanna add both simp and trad forms. Cheers. Tooironic 10:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No I reverted your edit by clicking on 'rollback' when I was trying to click into empty space. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

Could you please have a look at - the particle/interjection/phrase suffix with many meanings and pronunciations. I am not sure how to make this entry. I don't quite like Wenlin's dictionary entry on this either. --Anatoli 22:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do I have to? I avoid hanzi definitions for this very reason. If I have time later this week I'll look at it. Tooironic 05:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, you don't have to if you have no interest in it, of course. Sorry, if I sounded like I am giving orders. :) I was only asking for help because you are good at it and I thought you might be interested. I was thinking of making a few particle definitions but wanted a better example. Anyway, if you decide to do it, I will follow. --Anatoli 05:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is one of 123abc's incarnations. I am considering blocking him. I have left a note on 123abc talkpage advising him of the vote re: making toneless pinyin entries nonstandard.. however he has ignored it and continued with his quest to make others' lives a living hell. Just want your take on this. JamesjiaoT C 05:18, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • The vote is for Pinyin syllables only. ---91.106.59.218
It's pretty obvious it's the same user. I would push for a block for both the registered account and the IP. The amount of extra work this user is creating for us just keeps piling up. It's ridiculous and something has to be done about it. Tooironic 00:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
take a look at this Category:Requests_for_deletion He's been tagging your entries. JamesjiaoT C 02:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. He also keeps recreating A Q after God knows how many times it's been deleted due to the space between the letters. Where are we supposed to discuss this kind of stuff? I don't think my admin powers have been granted yet. Otherwise I would block him completely. It's a complete and utter waste of our time as editors to have to deal with this vandalism. Tooironic 03:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
see this edit JamesjiaoT C 01:15, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh God. This is ridiculous. I'll block this IP too. Thanks. ---> Tooironic 01:50, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Should that second definition be Verb rather than Noun? SemperBlotto 10:24, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh whoops. Thanks! I'll fix that now. Tooironic 10:25, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sysophood[edit]

Welcome to sysophood. Please add an entry at Wiktionary:Administrators.

May I ask that you always have a second session open on Recent Changes whenever you are editing Wiktionary. You may mark good edits as "patrolled", revert vandalism and stupidity by either deleting new entries or by using the "rollback" function. You may block vandals at your own discretion.

Note: As there are times when no sysop is active, it would be useful if you start your patrolling from the time you last left the system. Cheers. SemperBlotto 19:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, no worries. Cheers! Tooironic 07:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin suffixes[edit]

Why do we allow suffixes like bi instead of -bi, or is this more 123abc madness? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Heaven knows. I'm very hesitant to define any Mandarin word as a "suffix" as they're not really that common. Even in cases where a word might act like a suffix, defining it as a noun is usually more useful. Moreover, I very rarely do any editing for pinyin entries. For anyone above a beginner's level they are almost useless (I say almost because the only way they could be useful is if they were a) correctly formatted and b) every entry had a pinyin counter-entry to assist users in finding definitions. As for 123abc, I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it. ---> Tooironic 12:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To rephrase, any reason for me to not just delete/move them to standard titles? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think any Mandarin speaker - native or not - would even think about adding a hyphen to a pinyin syllable. To my knowledge we don't add hyphens to hanzi entries either, although I could be wrong. ---> Tooironic 12:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, could you please sign your name (by typing ~~~~)? It's extremely rude not to. Or better yet, register an account. Secondly, you're probably right, hyphens are a good idea, although I would still want to see non-hyphenated entries as alternative spellings to aid in user searches. ---> Tooironic 12:54, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The point is about adding a hyphen but not about signature. ---91.106.59.218
Wait, looks like we do both. Cf -主义 and 主义. ---> Tooironic 12:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Are we going to delete Marx主义, Darwin主义 and all that nonsense?--达伟 14:57, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You said that Daluren is "incorrect capitalisation", could you prove it? ---91.106.59.218

Have replied on the page. ---> Tooironic 00:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Re: formatting issues[edit]

Hi, thank you for your messages. I know the formatting issue. I do this just because of the tool, which don't know the formatting convention, and my laziness. Sorry for inconvenience.--Dingar 03:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's OK, no worries. If you have any more issues feel free to leave a message any time. ---> Tooironic 03:55, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I also thought the auto-translation box tool was producing incorrect results...--达伟 09:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of pinyin[edit]

Do we really need to block a user for arguing that a "proper" noun like luomahua, which is often un-capitalized in English, should be uncapitalized in pinyin? In any case we should set and promulgate a consistent policy for capitalization of pinyin (with or without tone)--达伟 14:53, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a proper noun, but a countable process. We don't even have it capitalised in the English entry. A policy for pinyin capitalisation does sound good though. As for that user, s/he was blocked for his/her history of bad edits after multiple warnings. ---> Tooironic 05:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish translations[edit]

Terve,

I see you're interested in Finnish. Finnish translations are easy to find. Add a language option to Google. You can also add words you know are Finnish, e.g. Intia (India). --Anatoli 05:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, I just always add Finnish translation requests to help out the Finnish editors (they always finish them in a couple of hours, it's quite amazing). ---> Tooironic 05:20, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Kiitos. How do you help? By encouragement? It's true that the Finnish content is very good here. --Anatoli 05:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, I add translation requests. But I don't actually speak any Finnish, hehe. Anyway, it's the only language on Wiktionary that actually does more than two translation requests a week. ---> Tooironic 05:35, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see you are having fun with Finnish trreq. :) Actually, most Chinese city names you ask the translations for are spelled in toneless Pinyin in Finnish, so Shijiazhuang and Yunnan is the Finnish name for Shijiazhuang and Yunnan, even if the Finnish Wikipedia were missing the names. --Anatoli 22:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Carl, FYI, about your Finnish trreq's for foreign place names, see this edit. --Anatoli 06:38, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I noticed. I assumed "City" might be different in Finnish, but apparently not. ---> Tooironic 07:28, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

peeping tom, voyeur in Chinese[edit]

Hi Carl,

Consider these 窥淫狂病人, 偷看下流场面的人, 观淫者, 瓦耶尔 (phonetic transcription) as translations (from nciku.com). --Anatoli 02:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

储藏室 ‎[edit]

Thanks for the reponse on 储藏室. We'll see if anyone else weighs in. However, perhaps this is starting to sound like a consistent theme from me, but shouldn't we have a standard policy--what is PoS, what isn't? Perhaps your standard is whether it's in Wenlin. I don't have access to that at the moment. But some standard should be set...I guess arguably some line could be drawn between occupation (音乐家, etc.) nationality (中国人) vs. other suffixes (e.g.室), but either way, some consistent line should be drawn, I'd think--达伟 09:04, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't use Wenlin as a standard for PoS as it contains many many PoS entries (that's why it's so bloody complete, as it were). There are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes PoS, especially for a language like Chinese which has a quite different idea of what constitutes a word than European languages (thus making it more complex and confusing). Let's just judge each entry on its own merit; IMO it's great having entries like 音乐家, 中国人, 储藏室, etc, because they could really be helpful to the average user, and are not long enough to be easily decoded as separate words. ---> Tooironic 10:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I meant SoP, sorry. I just go back to my common theme of establishing consistent standards, but your reasoning is strong. Let's see how this place out over time.
However, I also meant to ask a quick question. I wouldn't know if your interests include non-Mandarin 'lects such as Cantonese and Minnan/Hokkien/Taiwanese, but I was just struck by the fact that despite the important (in numerical terms of Minnan/Taiwanese and Wu/Shanghainese), the pure character/hanzi entries do not contain either of those 'lects. if you had to predict, do you think there's anyway these are likely to get included in the future? Thanks!--达伟 15:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the random chatter but I just wanted to point out one of the strangest things I've seen: has an entry and says it's from the "Shanghai dialect", yet there is no Shanghainese/Wu on the page...--达伟 11:34, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't speak any other dialect but Mandarin. As you probably know, A-cai is a big (or only?) contributor of Min Nan and has done some great work in that area. Honestly, it's hard enough to get decent editors for Mandarin, let alone other dialects with less speakers, but never say never. :) ---> Tooironic 11:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the reply. I'll speak to A-cai. In any case, here's something unrelated: do you think the professed Mandarin definition in the following entry should be deleted -- 阿山? I think it probably should be...--达伟 23:50, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Probably. 阿, after all, can be followed by an 姓名, not just 山. Maybe consult A-cai first though, as he was the one who created it. ---> Tooironic 00:22, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Han variants[edit]

Thanks for your advice at the Tea Room. Hopefully we can collaborate some on improving Han entries here. I've done some more research into how Unicode determines variants, some are legitimate and properly sourced within the Unicode files themselves (with references to specific dictionaries). But others are questionable, but I don't know how to fix them without performing original research, particularly the rarer characters. It seems that a lot of variants cropped up in Unicode based on a belief that the characters are actually the same, with "minor sylistic" differences that don't warrant separate characters. See w:Z-variant. But because one of the major language systems (Chinese, Japanese, or Korean) treat them as distinct characters, they included both in Unicode (dis-unified Han characters) for backward compatibility to one of those other encoding standards. But there's no way to check how they came to the determination that the characters are the same. Check out the discussions I found here, here, and ]http://tclab.kaist.ac.kr/~otfried/Mule/unihan.html here]

Other variants that it gives have a little more basis in fact. In addition to the regular Traditiona/Simplified forms, they also have the following

  • Semantic variant - characters with the same meaning and pronunciation, but different shapes. and (cat)
  • Special semantic variant - characters with the same meaning and pronunciation, but different shapes, but that also have a separate meaning in some instances. (well) and (well; bowl of food)
  • Z-variants (mentioned above) - same meaning, pronunciation, but only minor differences in shape. and (speak) or and (black) for instance. That are obviously minor sylistic differences. But for (lonely) and (suspend) or (meaning unkown) and (divination), I think the differences are more than minor. CEDICT lists them as Z-variants having "the same etymology" which comes straight from the Unihan database. Jim Breen with JEDICT has stated he treats characters as variants if 2 of 3 factors are identical (form, reading, meaning).

I'm all for providing as much information to readers, but we should probably limit Unicode zVariants in articles if it is 1. obviously similar (to someone conversant in Han/Kanji characters) or 2. Can be backed up by a source other than Unicode. If it is a well known or commonly-used variant, one major dicationary probably will include it. As far as displaying, Japanese wiktionary has a "variants" line right in the translingual section (黑 (black) and 鉄 (iron)) that lists every possible traditional, simplified, shinjitai, shortand, synonym variant out there, properly idenfitying each as to how it relates to the main character. I also like that they make the fonts bigger than what we currently have in the standard Han entry. I think something like this would be much better than simply burying a "see also" tophat (currently illegible in some instances) in the article. I just don't know how to go about proposing such a change. What do you think?Dcmacnut 22:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest I don't really do many hanzi entries. Among the hundreds of entries I create for Wiktionary each week, only a couple would be hanzi. I find them laborious. So much bloody work needs to go into each one just to put it at any level comparable to other dictionaries. Moreover, I'm a perfectionist, so I can't stop editing an entry until I've included every piece of information I can. Creating entries for Mandarin words is time-consuming enough; in hanzi entries it's tenfold. Lastly, I think cataloguing variants for these kind of characters - of which many are quite rare - is not really a priority when you have hundreds of simple words yet to be defined. So, yeah, that's my stance on the whole thing. Good luck! ---> Tooironic 22:25, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

Please check if I categorised correctly 中东 and 中東. --Anatoli 04:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me. Added etymology. Cheers. ---> Tooironic 07:50, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Carl. I don't know if I agree with that it is from English. The literal meaning is the same in many other languages, might as well be of Arabic origin: الشرق الأوسط (al-sharq al-'áwsaT) - literally: "East of centre". What I meant is, do you categorise these words like Place names, or something, e.g. Japanese has "Category:ja:Place names". I didn't know where to put 巴勒斯坦 either, which is not a country.
Also, you probably missed my message above on peeping tom and voyeur. You added "trreq" for Chinese. --Anatoli 00:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See the Wikipedia page. It appears as if it is indeed of British English origin. Evidently, other translations like that of Arabic are probably back-translations/calques. As for 巴勒斯坦... "Place names" is too generic IMO. The English entry lists it as a country, so we could always follow their suit. I understand their criteria for "country" on Wiktionary (and probably Wikipedia too) is quite open.
As for peeping tom et al I wasn't confident with those translations, and they are copyrighted anyway. If I have time later I might ask a native speaker. ---> Tooironic 00:30, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks for the article. I might add 巴勒斯坦 as a country then. --Anatoli 02:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Guanhua in toneless pinyin[edit]

Hi Carl, could you check for legitimacy, please? Are we still working in toneless pinyin? I voted against it but not sure what was decided. May leave just English, if it's not allowed. --Anatoli 02:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't they vote that toneless pinyin should be soft-redirected as misspellings? However there must be hundreds or even thousands of these toneless pinyins, so without a bot it will be hard to change them all. ---> Tooironic 04:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of hits for this in English language sentences on Google. SemperBlotto 11:21, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. I would add an entry for it but I'm not sure I really understand it fully. If I get time later I will look at it. ---> Tooironic 11:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to self: fix this formatting. ---> Tooironic 00:05, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jyutping syllable[edit]

Admittedly Cantonese isn't Mandarin, but AutoFormat is tagging ===Jyutping syllable=== as a noun standard header. Should this header be added to the list of accepted ones? I'd ask A-cai, but he's on longterm wikibreak. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't speak Cantonese, but I'd guess: no. AFAIK we don't include ===Pinyin syllable===... do we? ---> Tooironic 07:09, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think we do accept that, Tooironic, but I'm not fully sure. 50 Xylophone Players talk 20:04, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

boomerang in Chinese[edit]

Hi Carl,

Again, I have a problem of choosing among so many synonyms, some have alternative spellings too:

I will pick one or two after checking the frequency but your pick will be appreciated. --Anatoli 23:21, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Toneless pinyin entries are not helpful to anyone"[edit]

I think that's somewhat inaccurate. Say someone is reading a transcription of some song in Chinese, and they keep seeing the same couple of words. They're not going to know the tones, and if we have 4 entries with the same pronunciation sans tones... they're just going to have to look through all 4. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein13:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users can still search using misspellings toneless pinyin, for instance [5], [6] and even without proper apostrophes [7]. Moreover, toneless pinyin entries create a huge amount of unnecessary work for words which have dubious attestations as it is. Focusing on, at the very least, pinyin entries with tones, or even better, actual hanzi entries (gasp!) should be our priority. ---> Tooironic 13:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think pinyin toneless or otherwise is a priority for anyone. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein13:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're kidding right? ---> Tooironic 13:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you clarify this? --Yair rand 18:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could this not be considered sum of parts (and toneless to boot) as heping seems to mean peaceful, this sort of means peacefulpeaceful to mean "very peaceful". Mglovesfun (talk) 15:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I would call this SoP. It is an example of emphasis created through four-character duplication which can be done with many verbs/adjectives. I just did a quick check and none of the major online dictionaries include this as a word. I don't think we've discussed the inclusion of these kinds of Mandarin phrases on Wiktionary before. I guess the only way to know for sure is to put it up for deletion. Whether we get enough Mandarin experts in the discussion is another matter. ---> Tooironic 22:08, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a lot of these kinds of entries on Wenlin dictionary such as pingping'an'an. 91.106.30.119 03:03, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wenlin has a different criteria for inclusion than Wiktionary and includes many SoPs. Anyway, 和和平平 isn't included in my version. ---> Tooironic 06:49, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
However, this is your personal opinion. And what is the SoPs of 和和平平? 和和+平平? 91.106.30.119 09:55, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No shit Sherlock, whose else's would it be? I never said we should delete these kind of entries on sight, but rather that they should be held to CFI scrutiny like any other entry. ---> Tooironic 10:03, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, 和平 and 和平. But like I said we should get community consensus on this first before deferring to my opinion. ---> Tooironic 11:48, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But the word is 和和平平 (hehepingping), not 和平和平 (hepingheping). 91.106.30.119 12:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Duh. But that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be included. This needs to go the community. ---> Tooironic 12:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, all words need to "go the community". However, you deleted some entries before "go the community" such as ren-diming and rendiming. 91.106.30.119 13:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because they were complete shite. ---> Tooironic 22:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I had 1000 years (and as much patience) I would learn Mandarin. Right now I'm working on Romance languages - sticking to what I know. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mandarin ain't that bad, really. Once you get past your first decade, it's all smooth sailing for then on. ---> Tooironic 22:14, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Toneless pinyin[edit]

Can you explain to all us Mandarin novices/newbies why toneless pinyin is so bad? There's a lot of debate on this but I think a very high percentage of editors don't get it, because of lack of exposure to Mandarin. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:38, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I already explained it thorougly. Look above. ---> Tooironic 23:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Or, better yet, I'll give an example. The toneless pinyin combination of shi and shi (shishi) has anywhere from 39 (according to Wenlin) to 47 (according to Sogou, my input software) possible word-meanings (shìshí, shīshī, shǐshí, etc, etc, etc). And this is just one word! We could say the same for many other toneless combinations (jishi has 35-41, yiji has 12-28, etc). We already have to deal with complicated formatting for all Mandarin entries, plus create duplicates for trad/simp equivalents; I don't think we should have to put up with having to define useless toneless pinyin entries which, because all Mandarin entries can already be searched for without tones, are of no use to anyone. ---> Tooironic 00:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh and, by the way, for every toned pinyin entry, many have more than one meaning anyway (e.g. shǐshí means both 史实 and 矢石; shīshí could mean 失实, 失时 or 施食, etc)! So shishi might have up to 50 meanings once we take those into account too! ---> Tooironic 00:23, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is indeed a good reason. BTW when 123abc creates entries in the Latin script, but lists a pinyin spelling, what are these entries, then? If he (or she) is giving a toned pinyin variant, why not just move them there? Mglovesfun (talk) 21:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you mean. Can you give me an example? ---> Tooironic 00:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think Mglovesfun means the move of the entry: shishi -> shìshí as an example. The move would require some changes to the entry. I personally don't see much value in toned pinyin entries either. The hanzi based entried have pinyin provided, which is searchable (with or without tones). No good Chinese dictionaries have entries in pinyin, they are only provided as phonetic guide and for sorting (one of the ways to sort Mandarin dictionaries, especially common in mainland China). I would only keep pinyin entries if they have become part of English or another language, even if they are jargon words, like qigong, Putonghua, guanxi, taiji, Han, jiantizi, etc. but they would have the heading of the other language, not Mandarin. --Anatoli 01:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Baby steps, Anatoli. Somehow I don't think we're going to see a ban on pinyin entries anytime this century, so we may as well be content with making sure that they are actually toned. You're right though, they really shouldn't be included, but I do remember reading some convincing arguments as to their attestation in Mandarin songs, signs, etc. ---> Tooironic 09:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per the current WT:RFD debate (last one on page, as of this time and date) if 123abc's entries are not pinyin, what are they? That is, he specifies pinyin, tra and sim, so what does that leave out? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Question[edit]

Are we allowing toneless Pinyin entries now, or are we just allowing this one IP to create toneless Pinyin entries? Just wondering... Razorflame 16:51, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anatoli and I are trying to figure out the best way to draft a proposal to effectively prevent anymore toneless pinyin entries from being created. However we've never undertaken such a thing before - maybe you can help? FYI there is more than one =IP creating toneless pinyin entries, however we're almost 99.9 per cent certain it's 123abc editing anonymously. ---> Tooironic 23:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
it is definitely him/her editing anonymously. Here is my 0.01% which should give you 100%. JamesjiaoTC 00:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was fairly certain that it was 123abc editing, and if that is the case, then he is evading his block and the IPs should be blocked as they are seen editing. Unfortunately, I hold no sway in the community, so I would probably not be the best person to ask for help in drafting a proposal, especially when it is for a language that I don't speak. Razorflame 02:16, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks[edit]

Hi there, a belated thanks for your advice here. I've found the site you recommended extremely useful.

No worries. If you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask. ---> Tooironic 23:29, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:Tooironic protection and editing babel[edit]

I wish to edit the babel template to add the <noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude> string and create the instructions subpage (now in talk) but it seems protected as included in your page. regards--Pierpao 12:23, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? ---> Tooironic 12:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, i explain:

  1. I want to move the instructions of template:babel from its talk page to the standard Template:Babel/doc page (see Template:t/doc).
  2. To do it I have to add in template:babel the string <noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude> (see Template:t)
  3. But I cant't. It's editing protected because is included in your page. This tell the message that appears if I can try to edit the Template:babel if you want to read it try to edit it as unlogged user. Thanks--Pierpao 12:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I have no idea what you just said but you seem trustworthy enough. I'll unprotect it temporarily; let me know when you are finished doing whatever it is you are doing. ---> Tooironic 09:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that he wants Template:Babel to be unprotected (temporarily). SemperBlotto 09:36, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No I think he wants me to unprotect my user page. Why would he ask me to unprotect Template:Babel? I have nothing to do with that page. ---> Tooironic 09:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because you protected whith a cascade effect so you protect template:Babel too. That tells the server if i try to edit the template babel. thanks for unprotection--Pierpao 11:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to understand this phenomena try to edit the image of the day in Commons. It's protected because it's protected the main page.--Pierpao 11:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks someone else edited template:babel. Now you can protect your page if you desire--Pierpao 12:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

91.106.8.77[edit]

It seems that your friend 123abc is back under a new IP, which is block evasion...Razorflame 03:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finally I found it[edit]

w:Protection_policy#Cascading_protection. That's what you did with your page. Thanks again template babel has been upgraded now you can protect your page if you like it--Pierpao 04:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

tra&sim[edit]

Am I the only one that finds this unneccesarily recondite? I think it would be pretty easy using MglovesfunBot to replace tra&sim with traditional and simplified. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:50, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly are you talking about? Which line in which template? There are many... ---> Tooironic 11:05, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
123abc, usually such as {{infl|cmn|noun|tra&sim|something}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:16, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They are not the standard template anyway. See How to Create a Basic Chinese Entry. ---> Tooironic 00:11, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you sort this out please? I don't whether it's Mandarin or what but I doubt that it should even exist. >.> I mean if it is Mandarin then shouldn't it be spelled in proper pinyin? 50 Xylophone Players talk 20:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is Mandarin and we also have other words in mandarin as entry without the accents for example bangzhu. Kinamand 21:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is wrong to edit this entry (beige)? Why did Tooironic block my IP?

123abc moved his talk to BP[edit]

Check this Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#block_list --Anatoli 05:59, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I know. I have nothing to say on the matter. I've already explained myself about six times over the past 6 months. ---> Tooironic 06:10, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble is - some users say pinyin is attestable, so it should be allowed. There are not many users who would care about the quality of Chinese entries and they too, don't agree 100% on how to treat pinyin with or without tones. --Anatoli 06:15, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would argue that only toned Pinyin could possibly be attestable. Toneless pinyin just makes for a lot of duplicate definitions, like TI stated above. Razorflame 02:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking[edit]

As for blocking, just use Special:Blockip. It will ask you for something to block, so enter the range in there and write something in the reason field, then click on the Block button. -- Prince Kassad 08:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

我瞎了 - I'm blind[edit]

Hi Carl, one thing I don't like about this way of saying it, is that it may imply "I turned blind", rather than simply stating - I'm blind from birth or something but I may be wrong. What do you think? --Anatoli 00:39, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently not. I consulted a number of native speakers when drawing up those translations. It indeed means "I'm blind". Just like 我餓了 means "I'm hungry" and not "I've turned hungry". ---> Tooironic 00:41, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Range Blocks[edit]

You actually can't (and don't want to) block that range. You are trying to block a /8 (114.X.X.X) but the Mediawiki software won't allow a block wider than /16. A /8 block actually blocks 2^24 (16 million) addresses. It looks like the IPs vandalizing the page you linked were all in the 114.233.X.X range, which is a /16, but better than that they are in the ranges 114.233.128.X-143.X. That can be blocked using a /20. I did a quick CU on the range and there would be no collateral damage for that range block, there is only one person editing from that range. That isn't terribly surprising since the ISP is China Telecom and they barely let people look at Wikis. The block you actually made there 114.0.0.0/24 is not blocking the person you hoped to, it is blocking 114.0.0.0-114.0.0.255. The block you really want for that range is 114.233.128.0/20. I will update your current block. - [The]DaveRoss 02:25, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks heaps, you're a legend! ---> Tooironic 02:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

hyphen toned pinyin[edit]

Hey there Tooironic. You recently reverted an IP adding hyphenated toned pinyin...may I ask why? Is it because the hyphen should not have been there? Anyways, people are talking on IRC about it, so I just thought that I'd ask. Razorflame 03:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you're referring to the Range Blocks (above), the person in question was adding pinyin with hyphens which is against pinyin formatting standards, not to mention confusing. Hyphens are only used in pinyin under very specific circumstances e.g. for proper noun abbreviations like Lā-Měi 拉美. ---> Tooironic 03:09, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks for the help. Cheers, Razorflame 03:11, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just FYI, we're also having the same problem with him en.wikipedia. See for example wikipedia:User talk:114.233.128.193. Cheers, CaliforniaAliBaba 11:24, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reply[edit]

Sure. I suck at Chinese Thanks for correcting these =) --Diego Grez 22:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Default Chinese font - Hani template[edit]

Hi Carl,

I have just found out that we don't have a default font setting for Chinese entries {{template|Hani}}. Japanese and Korean don't have either. It's controlled here: MediaWiki talk:Common.css. Many scripts increase the default by 25%. I have successfully increased fonts for Tamil, Sinhalese and Malayalam scripts. Not sure if different fonts should be set for simp. and trad. but it's worth increasing the default size a bit. --Anatoli 05:18, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried this. The size has increased but not sure if the font is right.
    /* Chinese [[Template:Hani]] */
    .Hani {
        font-family: Song, Ming, Arial Unicode MS, Code2000, sans-serif;
        font-size: 125%;
        }

--Anatoli 05:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you provide examples for senses #3 and 4. The current gloss allows a multitude of interpretations and translations. --Hekaheka 15:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The nouns became understandable through the verb glosses, and I added the translations already. A few nice examples would not do any harm, however. --Hekaheka 15:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I'm not convinced some of these senses actually exist. Rfving. Cheers. ---> Tooironic 23:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Simplified + Traditional[edit]

Thanks, Carl. I will pay more attention to harmonizing (no pun intended) the two respective entries for any changes I make.

Also, a question...has there been any resolution on the toned pinyin and toneless pinyin issues? Thanks--达伟 13:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See Proposal for (toned) pinyin words at Wiktionary:Beer_parlour_archive/2010/May. ---> Tooironic 12:00, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Autoquote[edit]

Hi Carl, for lack of a better term, have you see the new "autoquote" function which creates a drop-down box for example sentences? I think it is not intended for non-English entries, to the extend that when applied to a non-English entry it eviscerates the "main" (i.e., foreign language) sentence behind the drop-down, leaving only a bare English translation that makes no sense out of context...one example can be found at (notice my recent change to remedy it; i think i did it as an IP before logging in just now). Just curious if this new feature is irking you as well. --达伟 17:26, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya. Well it was only like that because the editor didn't use the proper formatting. See 俱樂部 and 考試 for examples of standard real-life citations and example sentences respectively. ---> Tooironic 01:21, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect. Thanks--达伟 01:45, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I have been making Sino-Vietnamese entries and the one for menu in Vietnamese seems to come from the Chinese 食单. Could you create an entry for 食单? This term doesn't appear in some Chinese dictionaries. 71.66.97.228 04:42, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, done. ---> Tooironic 04:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To anon. For Sino-Vietnamese words you can use the optional parameter Hán tự (漢字) to show it's Chinese spelling. It makes sense to show the pinyin spelling and the traditional variant. I have modified thực đơn entry - etymology and definition to a more standard way.
==Vietnamese==

===Etymology===
[[Sino-Vietnamese]], from {{uder|vi|zh|-}} ''[[Traditional Chinese|trad.]]'' {{l|cmn|sc=Hant|食單}}, ''[[Simplified Chinese|simpl.]]'' {{l|cmn|sc=Hans|食单}} (''[[pinyin]]:'' {{lang|cmn|sc=Latn|shídān}})

===Noun===
{{infl|vi|noun|head=[[thực]] [[đơn]]|Hán tự|食單}}

# [[menu]]

--Anatoli 05:45, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This entry has started Category:vi:Mandarin derivations but there thousands of Sino-Vietnamese words. --Anatoli 05:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but be careful: it isn't always known when, or from which dialect Sino-Vietnamese words come. They are not all from Mandarin; some came into Vietnamese in the Song Dynasty or earlier (1000 years ago or more), others came via Cantonese migration in the last 100-200 years, and still others (such as the names of recently created provinces) may be back-formations that indeed have Chinese derivations but may never have been used during the time Vietnam used Chinese characters to record its official histories. So I don't think it's always possible to know whether a Sino-Vietnamese word came to Vietnamese from Mandarin or Cantonese (some terms of Cantonese origin being essentially Vietnamized "corruptions" of Cantonese terms rather than scholarly versions of Mandarin terms), or whether it's a term that does have Sinitic roots but has no exact equivalent in use in any Chinese dialect. 71.66.97.228 06:01, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the "Hán tự" template parameter, again this is tricky because, as in the case of some recently created Vietnamese provinces (created after the period when Chinese characters were used to record Vietnamese history and official documents), Hán tự may never have actually been used to write such terms, although they can authentically be traced back to Chinese root words. 71.66.97.228 06:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]


I see you've got some knowledge about the topic. Well, unfortunately, zh stands here for Mandarin but it should be Chinese. Changing the template back will is unsafe now. {{etyl|zh|vi}} should simply mean of Chinese origin (my intention) but it shows Mandarin. I leave to you to decide. You can simply write Chinese as a word but it won't add to the category (Chinese or Mandarin derivations) automatically, you have to do it yourself. As for the "Hán tự" parameter, it is safe to show what the Hanzi version of the Vietnamese word would be even if it was never written so (e.g. it's a new word) because that way you can link to related Chinese (also Japanese or Korean) words. It is optional too. --Anatoli 06:10, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good ideas. sâm bổ lượng is an example of a probable recent Vietnamese "corruption" of a Cantonese term. These can be confusing because they often don't adhere to normal Hán tự readings. In this case, nobody can explain where "sâm" comes from, as that is not a normal reading of . 71.66.97.228 06:29, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, can you please help add an etymology at 洋洋? I can't figure out how what seems to be "foreign foreign" from the definition at the entry gets this meaning. Thank you, 71.66.97.228 23:02, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just wondering if you could help here. If not, I don't know who to ask, as there are very few people working on Chinese entries at the moment. Thank you, 71.66.97.228 19:02, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just wondering if you could help with this. There are very few Wiktionarians working on Chinese-language entries so it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, 71.66.97.228 04:30, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly have no idea why it is composed of and . It seems very strange. ---> Tooironic 13:03, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I spoke to a Chinese professor about this yesterday and he may have the answer. He said that this is a term that used to be spelled with a different character, but over time was substituted for the original character. I'm going to ask him which character he things was originally used. Do you have the CD-ROMs for the Hanyu Da Cidian, and might the etymology be in there? 71.66.97.228 23:51, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No I don't have the Hanyu Da Cidian unfortunately. However Wenlin gives 扬扬 as an alternative form. ---> Tooironic 23:53, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This website seems to indicate that this is one of many words that have two different spellings. What do you make of this? 71.66.97.228 01:47, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously it has two different forms but I'm not sure about the meaning of them in any case. ---> Tooironic 01:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh and by the way can you please start using proper formatting from now on? You're creating a lot of extra work for the rest of us. See How to Create a Basic Chinese Entry. ---> Tooironic 01:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple pronunciations[edit]

Perhaps my tentative format could be a useful precedent to follow to characters w/ multiple pronunciations...just a first attempt. I only did it on the simplified character since it's merely an attempt (please see History): --达伟 01:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that looks OK, feel free to do that to the traditional form too. I don't really edit hanzi entries myself, but for Mandarin words we add a Variant Pronunciations category. See 蜗牛 for example. You should probably do that for this one too. ---> Tooironic 03:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Done--达伟 14:39, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see what I missed--will include that in the future. Thanks--达伟 14:53, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Err, not quite. Note my changes. ---> Tooironic 14:45, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to bug you about hanzi entries if that's not your thing, but if I'm not mistaken, the and entries only contain the guā pronunciation, which is surprising...--达伟 14:50, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. As you know our hanzi entries are barely there as it is. Plus it's very rare you come across dictionaries which list variant pronunciations (one of the reasons why I started that category - it's extremely useful). ---> Tooironic 15:00, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On the whole I agree that hanzi entries are deficient, but as regards pronunciation you might be pleasantly surprised--I routinely come across characters with 3 or more pronunciations listed, many of which I never even suspected existed, and indeed many of which I would venture to guess even the average native speaker doesn't know. --71.111.229.19 09:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC) (me as IP)[reply]
I would take those with a grain of salt. We have come across quite a few mistakes with the hanzi pronunciations in the past, i.e., sometimes they show readings that simply don't exist. ---> Tooironic 09:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well enough. Tnx for the heads up. Someday it would be great to make a bot that could cross-check such pronunciations against some well-reputed reliable database...but (i) I don't know what database that might be, and (ii) we'd have to find someone to program it...--达伟 19:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. The English entry for Alejandro seems needless to me. Transliterations could be just listed as ====Descendants==== in the Spanish section, like in Ἀλέξανδρος. Alejandro is not an English name in the sense explained in Wiktionary:About given names and surnames#The language statement of a name while, for example, Carlos and Juanita are genuinely given to English-speaking persons. There is no consensus whether English entries should be made for Spanish names in order to have a translation table, but it does bother me. This is the first time it happens in a given name entry. I wish you would list transliterations as descendants in the original language. Nobody ever objects to that.

By the way, did you read our discussion in WT:BP#Categories for transliterated names? You had made topic categories like that half a year ago. I think it's a good idea. --Makaokalani 14:46, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest I know very little about the policy surrounding this kind of stuff as I mostly do Mandarin and pure English entries here, so I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree. AFAIK though the name Alejandro is occasionally given to babies in English-speaking countries - e.g. Alejandro Salazar - which IMO is quite relevant. ---> Tooironic 02:10, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Automatic translation request, e.g. vice versa[edit]

Hiya,

Carl. To add a translation request for Mandarin, please paste {{trreq}} into the translation field with the language code zh.

It will generate:

* Chinese:
*: {{trreq|Mandarin}}

rather than:

* {{trreq|Chinese}}

The former is better because adding a translation won't require any manual editing. --Anatoli 01:13, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ta, I have been meaning to fix that bad habit. ---> Tooironic 02:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is Conrad's new addition - to add a translation request. I wasn't sure you knew. --Anatoli 02:33, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

123abc mess[edit]

I've noticed that there is this category, which I thought that I'd ask you if it is correct: Category:Mandarin words suffixed with -guo. Based upon some previous deletions that I've seen you make, it makes me think that this is incorrect, but I'll let you decide. Anyways, just thought that I'd bring this up. Razorflame 00:15, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Like most of 123abc's contributions, these will also need to be converted to hanzi entries (or toned pinyin). There are a huge number though; are you willing to help? ---> Tooironic 01:49, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't help...I can only edit the languages listed on my currently template of my userpage. Maybe Atitarev can help? Razorflame 02:16, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Debate on the RFV page over what part of speech this is. Clearly, being British, I know f--- all about cricket. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Australian and I don't know anything about cricket either. ---> Tooironic 23:13, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

apple does not fall far from the tree[edit]

Hi Tooironic. It seems that apple does not fall far from the tree is a copy of the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Should we redirect one of them to the other, or keep both? In the latter case probably use {{trans-see}} on one of them. I don't know which is the most "basic" form.--Leo Laursen – (talk · contribs) 09:21, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers for the heaps up. I've made the one with the least number of Google hits an alternative form (soft-redirect). Cheers. ---> Tooironic 09:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

週刊 - traditional variant of 周刊[edit]

Hi Carl,

How do you handle variants like this? Do you link 週刊 to 周刊? I've seen an example but don't remember now. --Anatoli 06:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See my changes and let me know what you think. ---> Tooironic 06:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was think that somehow the traditional part could have two versions but simplified only one. The templates won't allow this. What I don't like is that 週刊 used in the simplified script would not be considered standard, even if it may appear occasionally - I noticed ABC news in Chinese sometimes uses non-standard characters but the articles are often written by Chinese who grew up in Australia. --Anatoli 22:34, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah it's the same with , e.g. in 旅遊. Bloody annoying. ---> Tooironic 01:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
...which technically is an alternative and not a traditional form but oh well. ---> Tooironic 01:55, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Found it! The best sample solution is 台湾, which has 臺灣 and 台灣. Here's my suggestion (simplified):
{{cmn-noun|s|pin=zhōukān|pint=zhou1kan1|mw=本|tra=周刊 or [[週刊]]|sim=周刊|rs=口05}}
週刊 will need to become a traditional entry with the same "alternative" comment.

--Anatoli 03:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Um, I thought 週刊 was just a variant, not a traditional script version. ---> Tooironic 04:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is a traditional script version (Wenlin is another confirmation). I don't know if any simplified hanzi have variants, they are much better standardised. A number of dictionaries won't even find 週 but my Cantonese classmates always wrote 周一 as 週一 --Anatoli 05:03, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, it's safe to assume all standard simplified hanzi have no variants. Not sure if cases like / are variants or completely different characters. What do you think? --Anatoli 05:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me. For now let's just deal with 遊 and 週 as traditional variants in word-entries, and take other variants on a case by case basis. As for 毋, surely it is just a different character which happens to express the same meaning as 無? There isn't much point dealing with that possible variant in all word entries I think. ---> Tooironic 05:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

luomahua, page protection[edit]

Hi! I'm fixing the protection on this page. Note that you could have semi-protected, as the problem was an IP user; and it is always good to set expiration, as other users will need to edit. Specifically, Interwicket will want to update iwikis at some point, it is fine if the page has to be full-protected for a while, it is patient, but eventually should resolve itself. Cheers, Robert Ullmann 10:40, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

dep tsi (Middle Chinese)[edit]

Hello there. I'm looking for the Mid. Chinese character dep tsi ("tray"). Perhaps you could help? Eipnvn 05:19, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's 碟子 (diézi) (Mandarin), (pronounced "dip6 zi2" in Cantonese). I was able to find thanks to "tieh-tzu" - corrupt Wade-Giles Mandarin romanisation of diézi (standard pinyin). Modern meaning: small plate, dish. --Anatoli 05:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can see this word had quite an impact on many languages! --Anatoli 05:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. But is that the character that was used in Middle Chinese? Eipnvn 05:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the character hasn't changed and there is no variant. See also and . --Anatoli 05:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Thanks again. Eipnvn 05:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, can you tell me if 愛死 is an idiom, as found in the lyric 实实爱死人 (or 实实爱死个人, or 实实的爱死个人)? The English translation I found doesn't have anything about a dead person, which seems to indicate. 71.66.97.228 11:09, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also 死活. 71.66.97.228 11:55, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

愛死 is arguable SOP. Conventional construction. 死活 is completely unrelated to 愛死 and parallel usages of the former construction. --71.111.229.19 13:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, can you check the new entry 說媒? 71.66.97.228 13:33, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to answer your questions until you start using the proper formatting, like I've said a hundred times. Sorry, but it's the only way you'll learn. ---> Tooironic 22:36, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Carl,

I have also updated my language_resources page - I have just discovered that Word Reference dictionary provides word stress for Russian words - very important for Russian learners but stress may fluctuate in inflected words. Most of the Russian entries here have also declension and conjugation sections. --Anatoli 03:49, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

talkback[edit]

You have new messages Hello, Tooironic. You have new messages at Kayau's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{talkback}} template.

客人 & 人客[edit]

My teacher says the latter is bad grammar and discourages its usage. Kayau 10:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it probably isn't what you'd call "standard Mandarin". Still, it exists and should be added when someone gets around to it (and Usage Notes). ---> Tooironic 10:36, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, Analgin is a trademark for metamizole. Do you think that we should translate the word with the generic term, even though the Chinese word seems to have been derived from the trademark? Equinox 17:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You mean in the Chinese entry? I'll put both. Trademarks are included here AFAIK. ---> Tooironic 22:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

About your comments on my talk page[edit]

I made a typo and meant to say "your statement that they are NOT the same is not demonstrating it to me." My previous message will make more sense with that in mind. I have been as friendly and respectful as I can but you are sounding more and more pushy, now saying "like you did it again" and "not helping". So let me state clearly:

  1. I don't agre with your opinion, so I am not planning to duplicate entries when alternate spelling would do just fine IMHO.
  2. Using your own tone: If you are going to duplicate Mandarin entries, make sure you do it yourself, you don't need me for that.
  3. About your accusation that I am "not helping": I am here to help Wiktionary by adding information when I can. I am not here to help you duplicate entries.
  4. Timeout: I request we stop communicating for a while, as I find we are wasting time on a VERY MINOR technicality and our exchange is unpleasant.

GiuseppeMassimo 15:53, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it is such a minor "technicality" then you won't find it difficult to simply make sure both script forms are updated with the same information - like Anatoli said, it is not an unreasonable request. Instead of trying to make out that I was being "pushy" - which I wasn't - take my comments on board and move on. Getting into a defensive position is not going to help your reputation on here at all. ---> Tooironic 22:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please use the following formatting for translations with 的: * Chinese: *: Mandarin: {{t|cmn|假|alt=假的|sc=Hani}}, {{t|cmn|假|tr=jiǎ de|alt=假的|sc=Hani}} Thanks. ---> Tooironic 04:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for fixing it on the comprehensible page. How come your edits to it are not showing up on my watchlist? GiuseppeMassimo 14:21, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No idea. ---> Tooironic 23:18, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

官司[edit]

If I did something that is not constructive, please revert. I removed that line because it appeared to be a duplicate of the line proceding the "archaic" definition. My reasoning was that the duplicative line could be deleted and the two definitions (one "archaic" and one "colloquial", i.e. modern) could be consolidated under a single pronunciation line. If that is erroneous please feel free to revert. Thanks--达伟 21:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. I'm reverting it now because the pronunciation is different and that should be marked, but I'm also going to add another PoS header to make it clearer. Cheers. ---> Tooironic 08:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you reply to my comment at WT:RFV#孔孔. I'm always worried about languages with few contributors that an entry can fail RFV if nobody checks. That said, that would be virtually every language here. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:09, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Done. ---> Tooironic 00:32, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback[edit]

Please see User_talk:Chzz#your_Chinese_entries. Chzz 04:20, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese entries[edit]

Please see User_talk:Chzz#your Chinese entries, thanks. Chzz 23:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

...and please see my last response there. I wanted to try to help contribute, but I have to give up. Chzz 19:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Replied Chzz 03:55, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Page Name Errors[edit]

Hey, from time to time, I'll make a Chinese entry but then notice that the name of the page itself is incorrect. For example, I've accidentally mixed simplified and traditional, or I've used 试 instead of 式. Is there a simple/easy way to correct it, or how should I submit these pages for deletion? Wierdw123 00:51, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Put a delete tag at the top telling us that you misspelt the entry and we'll delete it for you (you'll need to recreate the entry using the correct entry title). The other option is to MOVE the contents to a new entry under a different name. ---> Tooironic 14:01, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish trans requests, e.g. Sapporo[edit]

Hi Carl,

I think Hekaheka is annoyed when she is requested to translate foreign city names into Finnish. 99% are spelled the same way as in English and there's no other linguistic info (e.g. gender). --Anatoli 00:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is she? Did she say anything? What a strange conversation we are having. ---> Tooironic 01:23, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I remember her removing a couple of requests with edit summaries. I don't mean anything bad, BTW. --Anatoli 02:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

频道[edit]

Could you look at this page? Pamputt 21:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

flunky, flunkee and flunkey[edit]

I'm not certain. They seemed particularly confusable, but by all means remove those links if you think they are wrong. Equinox 18:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Toneless pinyin vote[edit]

I forget, did it only refer to toneless pinyin syllable, or to all pinyin? Mglovesfun (talk) 23:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Toneless pinyin syllables (e.g. san, ri, cheng, etc) are fine because they are limited in number, however toneless pinyin "words" should not be included because there is an unlimited number of possible entries. Currently we have to add entries for both simplified, traditional and pinyin scripts - we should not have to multiply our work a fourth time. ---> Tooironic 23:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree, but I was looking for the specific wording of the vote, and I'm not sure how to find it. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-12/Treatment of toneless pinyin syllables looks like you're right. How about a vote to outlaw toneless pinyin terms (i.e. words, idioms, phrases). Also, shouldn't Wiktionary:About Mandarin be a full page, not a redirect? I'd imagine there's plenty to say. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Butting in on 'toneless pinyin "words" should not be included because there is an unlimited number of possible entries': there is no vote that says that, right? --Dan Polansky 11:37, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not that I know of. Hence, I'm proposing to create such a vote. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please do. I tried to initiate one in the past but could not figure out how to get it started. ---> Tooironic 21:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-10/Treatment of toneless pinyin other than syllables. Needs review before posting to the Beer Parlor, either by you, James Jiao or Atitarev. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:33, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that looks fine to me. ---> Tooironic 21:37, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine to me too. The attestable words in toneless pinyin, if they are used in the English context, could be made English entries, like we have Putonghua, Pinyin, Hanzi, etc. For the reasons Tooironic mentioned, Mandarin entries in toneless pinyin should be discouraged, proper Mandarin entries in Hanzi should be encouraged and toned Pinyin should be synchronised with Hanzi entries as a minimum. Pinyin lovers could have the examples in both Hanzi and toned Pinyin, as in 普通话. Putonghua has similar examples but doesn't have tones. --Anatoli 22:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have asked yet another incarnation of 123abc to vote on this initiative and give his reasoning once the vote is started: User_talk:91.104.62.166 JamesjiaoTC 09:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can anon IPs vote though? ---> Tooironic 10:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well he'd better create an account then. He should at least be able to comment on the talk page, I think. JamesjiaoTC 23:40, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In Hong Kong, it's used the same way as the Australian slang, but it's not slang. How can I add that? Kayau 12:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Check the entry now. How about morning tea? ---> Tooironic 12:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please add more to this entry? My friend was trying to teach me some Mandarin and he couldn't explain why sometimes you need to use this word (ta1 hen3 ben4 "He is stupid") but sometimes not (ta1 bu4 ben4 "He is not stupid"). —Internoob (DiscCont) 04:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't typically work on single character words (字) but I'll answer your question. In Chinese 很 doesn't always mean "very" - in many contexts it just performs the function "is" does in English. In spoken Mandarin, whenever you use an adjective it must be used in conjunction with an adverb such as , 非常, 相当, 十分, etc. If you need more help and you use MSN let me know, I'd be happy to answer any more questions you have on there. ---> Tooironic 12:13, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. :) —Internoob (DiscCont) 03:33, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Multisyllabic toneless pinyin entries.[edit]

We still delete these, right? Like [[yingyangshi]], [[zhuanjia]], [[yingyang]], [[fukuan]], [[huoji]], [[caiyouqu]], [[chanliangqu]], [[chanmianqu]], etc.? —RuakhTALK 19:48, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I see there's a vote. :-)   —RuakhTALK 19:49, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Passed. JamesjiaoTC 22:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC

Good, finally! :) ---> Tooironic 05:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tone of Chinese names[edit]

Hi Tooironic, what is the best way to find out the tone of Chinese names? E.g. Cui, Zhu, Huang, He, Hu, etc. I can read pinyin but without the tones I have a hard time to pronounce names correctly. Thanks. --Panda10 22:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You need the character - toneless pinyin doesn't tell you much, although you can try typing the pinyin and searching for it in the input box. Failing that you can search through name lists, e.g. at Chinese name. ---> Tooironic 22:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can also see w:List of common Chinese surnames. 71.66.97.228 22:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, this is helpful. --Panda10 22:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you perhaps, if such a term exists, add the Mandarin translation of "folk etymology" at folk etymology? Thank you very much, 71.66.97.228 08:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, done. ---> Tooironic 10:46, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!

Hello, I have figured out how to use the templates but in the cases of these two new entries I am not sure about the second tone; should it be 3rd tone or no tone, or either way? I have seen it both ways in sources. Thank you, 71.66.97.228 00:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's third tone. ---> Tooironic 01:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note also the changes I have made re "noun" and the template itself. Cheers. ---> Tooironic 01:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you; http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/ indicates it can also mean "wife"; should we add that? 71.66.97.228 01:17, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have never seen pinyin put inside the etymology. Is that standard? 71.66.97.228 01:18, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Talk:家里. 71.66.97.228 01:29, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, could you add the Mandarin for futon at the futon entry? I assume this item exists in Chinese-speaking countries. 71.66.97.228 01:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If Tooironic doesn't do it, I'll try to find later. My quick search hasn't found a direct equivalent, there could be a descriptive term, same with the Korean. I will add the Arabic later, which is فوتون m (futuun) (also photon) or فوتون ياباني m (futuun yabaaniy). --Anatoli 01:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He just added 床墊, but a Google Images search shows thousands of images of regular mattresses--not a single futon. Is there really no Chinese term for this common type of bed/couch? They are very common and popular in North America and one would think there would be a term referring to this specific item in Chinese. I'm sure this thing is even made in China (in fact, I believe mine is made there). 71.66.97.228 08:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adjectives[edit]

I think all of the ones you've singled out so far should be speedy-created. For example google books:"very thrilled" gets over 4000 hits. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:06, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good - how do we implement such a plan? ---> Tooironic 12:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Erm, just create them by hand.
===Adjective===
{{en-adj}}

# [[]]

That's about as speedy as it gets IMO. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. I see. Touche. ---> Tooironic 12:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, do you know what 巨无霸 means? 71.66.97.228 07:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Poll on formatting of etymologies[edit]

I would like to know your preference as regards the use of "<" vs "from" in the formatting of etymologies in Wiktionary, whatever that preference is. Even explicit statement of indifference would be nice. You can state your preference in the currently running poll: WT:BP#Poll: Etymology and the use of less-than symbol. I am sending you this notification, as you took part on some of the recent votes, so chances are you could be interested in the poll. The poll benefits from having as many participants as possible, to be as representative as possible. Feel free to ignore this notification. --Dan Polansky 10:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vote on formatting of etymologies[edit]

There is the vote Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-02/Deprecating less-than symbol in etymologies, which would benefit from your participation, even if only in the role of an abstainer. Right now, the results of the vote do not quite mirror the results of the poll that has preceded the vote. There is a chance that the vote will not pass. The vote, which I thought would be a mere formality, has turned out to be a real issue. You have taken part on the poll that preceded the vote, which is why I have sent you this notification. --Dan Polansky 08:28, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Derv[edit]

There is WT:RFDO#Template:derv. (As a follow-up on User talk:Ddpy.) --Dan Polansky 10:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It does indeed seem SoP. I guess shark attack means 'on a human' unless otherwise specified. If it were a dog, you'd probably say 'shark attack on a dog'. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:14, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I dunno about this one either. Feel free to RfD it if you like. ---> Tooironic 12:22, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pinyin for Mandarin proper nouns[edit]

Sun#Mandarin show the pinyin as Sūn, but both the trad. and sim. show sūn or sun1. Do Mandarin pinyin proper nouns take capital letters? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:58, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes they do. ---> Tooironic 22:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See also: w:Pinyin#Capitalization_and_word_formation --Anatoli 23:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not really Wiktionary related, more like curiosity. I met someone last night who had their pet's name Bruno tattoo on their forearm in Chinese. Out of interest, how would someone do this? Phonetically? So Bru-no? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:14, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Western names in Chinese are usually transliterated. The common transliteration for "Bruno" is "布鲁诺" Bùlǔnuò. Check out [8] for some tattoo horror stories. ---> Tooironic 12:20, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Transliteration" is not the correct word. Transliteration is transcribing a text using one-to-one or near one-to-one correspondence between two scripts. There is no one-to-one or near one-to-one correspondence between Hanzi and the Latin alphabet. "Transcription" should be used instead (here and in all entries you created with "transliteration of" written where "transcription" should be used [9]). 60.240.101.246 03:16, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Transliteration is fine. There are plenty of hits on Google Books for "transliteration of English". ---> Tooironic 12:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

thanks[edit]

thanks for the kindhearted message. I am happy to help with these new entries! --Porelmundo 16:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

20,000 Nouns Appeal[edit]

Hi. Will the 20,000 Nouns Appeal thing be updated? It feels as if it was frozen in time. Thanks. --Lo Ximiendo 00:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reminder, I had totally forgotten about the thing. Looks like Mandarin and Japanese are doing very well indeed. ---> Tooironic 00:22, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to just use {{PAGESINCAT:English nouns}}, etc instead of updating the list manually. --Yair rand 00:30, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now it looks weird with all the languages listed as zero. Is it fixed? --Lo Ximiendo 00:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It should be OK now. ---> Tooironic 00:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you mean that the list numbers on the left are labeled "0" as opposed to "1/2/3...", then the solution is to stop using a horribly buggy browser like IE9. --Yair rand 01:06, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Today's my birthday (August 13, I mean), and the 20,000 Nouns Appeal didn't have an update. However, I went to the River Raisin Jazz Festival in its tenth anniversary, and I'm 18 years of age now. --Lo Ximiendo 01:56, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin References[edit]

Hi, Tooironic. I updated the entry 决明子 and I wish to make its traditional script counterpart 決明子, but do I have to copy the references and add them to the traditional script entry? Thanks. --Lo Ximiendo 19:58, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's best to be consistent. ---> Tooironic 13:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do the references in the simplified hanzi entry include traditional hanzi? --Lo Ximiendo 21:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno. It's not a big deal. ---> Tooironic 00:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

About categories with Mandarin words spelled with # (character).[edit]

Hi,

FYI, see discussion. Do you think it's worth having categories of words having a specific hanzi in them? --Anatoli 13:04, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. There are just too many hanzi. ---> Tooironic 13:10, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request to rename script subcategories[edit]

There is currently a request to rename Chinese subcategories for scripts in WT:RFM. Your input would be valued. :) —CodeCat 21:29, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads-up. :) ---> Tooironic 22:36, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FYI. —RuakhTALK 12:51, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Toned pinyin & patrolling.[edit]

Hi Tooironic,

What should I do when I come across toned pinyin entries while patrolling? A large proportion of unpatrolled new pages are toned pinyin entries.

Thanks in advance,
RuakhTALK
12:30, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you talking about 123Abc's entries, or anon IPs? ---> Tooironic 12:33, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Patrolling only applies to the last thirty days, and 123abc (talkcontribs) has been blocked longer than that; so if you mean literally entries created by that account, then no. If you mean entries created by the same person, then I have no idea. Take a look at http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&dir=prev&limit=500&hidepatrolled=1, judge for yourself. —RuakhTALK 13:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno about that. At any rate a range block should apply to users who repeatedly create unattestable entries. I've asked different admins to help me but no one has been successful in blocking him fully yet. ---> Tooironic 02:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And no one will. Clearly he's capable of circumventing any range block. What we need to do is make the best use of tools we have. Which is why I'm asking you — when I'm patrolling new entries, what should I do about these? I'm offering to help, here. Just tell me what needs to be done. —RuakhTALK 11:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think he's only editing under User:Engirst at the moment. Unless there's a way to automatically delete every pinyin entry that gets created, I don't see how we can protect against him. ---> Tooironic 12:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can certainly delete (almost) every pinyin entry that gets created, if that's what should be done. What should the edit summary be? —RuakhTALK 12:44, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • As above for your reference: "Wordproject is an open, royalty free web page, online and on CD, which aims to make the Word of God - the Bible - available to as many people as possible, through a means that is simple, up-to-date and cheap to reproduce and use." CD is durably archived. Engirst 17:53, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is indeed so. The quotation has to be using the term in the language and sense that the entry says it is; otherwise, the quotation isn't exactly supporting the entry, now is it? —RuakhTALK 02:27, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you can delete almost every pinyin entry that gets created, that would be great and maybe User:123abc would finally get the idea. You would be justified seeing as you are getting rid of a mass amount of material that is completely unattestable. If you have time, ideally, the pinyin entries should be searched for on Google Books to see if they can possibly be attested. But in my experience, most can't; even simple words like nǐhǎo are hard to attest in running Mandarin text. ---> Tooironic 13:03, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So, what edit summary should I use? —RuakhTALK 13:37, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How about, "cleaning up 123abc's mess - unattestable entry"? ---> Tooironic 13:40, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a bit too personal . . . I've gone with "Unattested Pinyin". So far I've deleted between twenty and twenty-five entries. I'll catch up over time. Notes:
  • I can only do entries created after May 30th or so, since the patrolled edits feature only covers the last thirty days.
  • I'm only deleting entries with page-names that have zero or one b.g.c. hits. If the page-name has two or more b.g.c. hits, I've left it, even if the hits don't look like uses, or if they're actually in a different language.
RuakhTALK 14:38, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I support the total ban of Engirst and deletion of all entries he/she creates, right or wrong. We have spent too much time trying to reason him. --Anatoli 03:55, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We should follow rules.

'“Attested” means verified through

  1. Clearly widespread use,
  2. Usage in a well-known work, or
  3. Usage in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year.'

Such as shíyóu. Engirst 14:06, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're just forgetting one very important thing - it has to be in a Mandarin work, not an English one, and it has to be USED not just MENTIONED! ---> Tooironic 22:23, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it normal to use the spelling "d" for "de" in Hanyu pinyin, as in this edit? 71.66.97.228 23:41, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. It's 123abc bullshit again. JamesjiaoTC 23:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the word "" to be spelled "de" or "di" in pinyin, not "d." I don't believe pinyin has consonants without final vowels, as Zhou Youguang formulated this system. 71.66.97.228 23:58, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, the example sentence is from the original work (Dàshuǐ Guòhòu (After the Flood)). Secondly, the usage of "d" is written in the national standard of the People's Republic of China.
For your reference:
* Dàshuǐ Guòhòu (After the Flood)
* Basic Rules of Hanyu Pinyin Orthography (Summary)
* Basic Rules of Hanyu Pinyin Orthography (The national standard of the People's Republic of China)
* Wenlin Pinyin dictionary Engirst 02:04, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, is this a real Chinese word? An anonymous IP address (which was probably from China, I guess) added it with no content. If it is real, is it Mandarin or something else? What part of speech is it? --Lo Ximiendo 02:06, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it's a type of food. I'll add it now. ---> Tooironic 02:08, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder[edit]

Hiya, just to say that English topical categories now use en:, such as Category:en:Fruits. Cheers, Mglovesfun (talk) 09:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ta. ---> Tooironic 23:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Pinyin word"[edit]

Is "Pinyin word" a correct part of speech header, as in this edit? 71.66.97.228 21:28, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course not. But it's User:123abc, apparently he can vandalise Wiktionary however he wants and get away with it. ---> Tooironic 21:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All proposals to accommodate 123abc's (and all his other aka's) edits will not work because he is a vandal by nature. He is back to working on toneless pinyin. He creates new headers and categories. He just doesn't care about the rest of editors. His whole activity seems like a revenge for blocking him. Rather than trying to please him, we should find a way to permanently block him. Unfortunately, I don't know what to do with the myriad anons he is creating. We should not sympathise with a person creating frustration and additional work. --Anatoli 22:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Ruakh/Wiktionary:About_Sinitic_languages?diff=13547116&oldid=13547063 look good? If so, I'll set up a vote. —RuakhTALK 23:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Legendary. You have my thanks. JamesjiaoTC 23:15, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. But I can't see a reference as to whether we should add brief definitions or not. ---> Tooironic 20:56, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The new version says of pinyin entries, “their definition lines simply link to characters with that reading”, and gives [[yánlì]] (which does not have brief definitions) as a model entry. Should this be made more explicit? Perhaps this sentence:
Instead, they have a “Romanization” L3 heading, and their definition lines simply link to characters with that reading.
should be changed to this:
Instead, they have a “Romanization” L3 heading, and their definition lines, rather than giving English glosses, simply use {{pinyin reading of}} to link to characters with that reading.
 ?
RuakhTALK 22:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So should I go ahead and set up a vote now, or are you still thinking about this? (Please take your time, if you need it. I just want to make sure you're not expecting me to be doing something right now. :-P ) —RuakhTALK 14:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, sorry, I've been distracted with work lately. I support adding brief definitions next to the character readings, I just hope that users like 123Abc don't take that as meaning they can add lots of extra information and, before you know it, it's just as it was before, with pinyin and hanzi entries being totally out of sync. ---> Tooironic 07:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Then we can probably include an additional parameter to the {{pinyin reading of}} template to give a brief def. That should implicitly limit the amount of info one can put in it. No redundant extra headings or issues with defs being out of sync. JamesjiaoTC 22:16, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have just added an optional def= parameter. The formatting looks screwed. Someone might want to improve it for me. JamesjiaoTC 22:29, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like the formatting at gōutōng, though it would be better if you could debold the definition glosses and get rid of the double brackets. ---> Tooironic 23:43, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re: zh translations[edit]

Thanks. But what's the function of zh-tsp. --Dingar 07:25, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's no longer in use. ---> Tooironic 07:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But IT'S THERE. In the example of hatemonger, there are other template of Hans and Hant. Sorry, I am confused. the rules are very complex. --Dingar 07:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should have explained it better. That template is not used that way. Please follow the directions I gave you on your talk page. ---> Tooironic 07:58, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gimme a hand...[edit]

...rollin back this bullshit. I've been at it for a while, but I need a break. I extended the block from last night til tomorrow morning. I'm not disinclined from making it permanent, based on this. — [Ric Laurent]14:33, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, his refusal to use {{cmn-noun}} irks the fucking piss out of me, so now I'm definitely with you on getting rid of this kreeaaature. I think I disagree with you on pinyin, but I haven't really paid enough attention to be sure. But as far as engrist's future here is concerned, I think we're in total agreement.[Ric Laurent]14:37, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to roll these back indidivually Dick. I've been holding back on the destruction he's been wreaking on Mandarin entries. Now he's doing the same on English entries. Unacceptable. JamesjiaoTC 04:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's been done on all the English entries post-changes to Harbin. JamesjiaoTC 04:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
He's editing anonymously again. 00:59, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Can I list these as synonyms for each other, or is there a subtle distinction that should be made through nifty-ass =Usage notes=? — [Ric Laurent]03:09, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They are synonyms, but 刺杀 also means "to stab to death". Fixing it now. ---> Tooironic 03:53, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Feichang ganxie — [Ric Laurent]05:40, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vote[edit]

Thought you'd be interested in this: Wiktionary:Votes/2011-07/Pinyin entries JamesjiaoTC 04:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

request for 腹語術[edit]

Hi, sorry to bother you but I was wondering if I could ask your help with writing an article, or rather converting it into Mandarin--a suspicious IP user recently created 腹語術, which as far as I can tell is not Japanese as they claim it is. They created 腹話術 at the same time with almost identical content, seemly assuming that they were the same word, along with 口技, claiming they all meant ventriloquism in Japanese, but actually only one does, namely 腹話術. The other two seem to be Mandarin, however, so rather than deleting 腹語術 I think the Japanese part should be erased and replaced with a Mandarin section. 口技 was already there. Since I've seen you add a lot of Mandarin articles I was wondering if you could add it to your queue. Thanks! Haplology 15:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No worries I've updated the Mandarin entries now. Coincidentally I dealt with translating this word on my blog a long time ago. [10] ---> Tooironic 10:41, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. That's a challenging list of words! I don't think I could do all of them for Japanese. Maybe hang out is ごろごろする, but I don't know the others. Haplology 11:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

cmn-noun[edit]

In this edit, why does it list the entry in Category:Chinese terms needing attention. It has the pinyin, simplified and traditional. What more does the template require? Thank you, Mglovesfun (talk) 10:20, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

God knows. That category is an absolute mess. AFAIK that template was designed for hanzi entries, not pinyin ones. ---> Tooironic 10:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently the template requires rs and pint. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:25, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, yes. rs is for hanzi entries, e.g. 手杖, which lists its rs as rs=手00. ---> Tooironic 10:27, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ʃmata --84.10.140.247 14:31, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

I added (yīn) back to the translation of "cigarette". It's used on its own as well, I've seen it many times. I added a short example in the comments. --Anatoli 23:34, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, yes, thanks for that. ---> Tooironic 13:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

Thanks for your input. I have set up the vote. The wording is not final before the vote starts. Please have a look and make comments in the talk page if you have any. --Anatoli 00:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

Are you happy for this entry to stay in Mandarin space as slang? --Anatoli 06:29, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to get rid of more and more toneless pinyin. This entry is listed as a noun, but it's toneless pinyin entry Anquan Lishihui is a proper noun. Can you fix it, please? Mglovesfun (talk) 15:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup list, if you're interested[edit]

I've come up with User:Mglovesfun/to do/cmn verb toneless pinyin and User:Mglovesfun/to do/cmn noun toneless pinyin, how I've done it is explained at the top of the page. If you want to rename/delete some, be my guest. Not actually as time-consuming as it appears; may entries already have toned pinyin, so the toneless ones are duplicates. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can I extent this invitation to any editors who wish to join in, such as A-Cai, Atitarev and Jamesjiao (I'm too lazy to copy this across). Mglovesfun (talk) 14:34, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A few are valid, like A片, A股, BB機/BB机, etc. --Anatoli 21:05, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Remove 'em, I found a valid one earlier too. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:13, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just blocked an ip who was making suspiciously abc entries which should be looked at. There weren't many, but still. — [Ric Laurent]21:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

soft redirects for mixed-script entries[edit]

Hi Tooironic! You've argued in favour of deleting mixed-script entries because they're not used or understood by monolingual Chinese speakers. Amidst lots of discussion, Dan or Lmaltier (or possibly someone else first) suggested an alternative, "soft redirects" — bare-bones entries like the one I made here that would qualify mixed-script forms as "Nonstandard, mixed-script rendition of 普朗克常数 (Pǔlǎngkè chángshù)." (or of whatever term), explain in usage notes that the mixed-script forms are proscribed (regarded as incorrect, not recognised by other Chinese dictionaries) and unlikely to be understood by monolingual speakers of Chinese, and point to the all-Hanzi entries as the standard forms. I understand that you, James, Anatoli and native speaker 60.240.101.246 don't want people to think mixed-script terms are standard in Chinese, but Dan, Lmaltier and Prosfilaes don't want to exclude attestable terms. (Which makes sense — as I said in my first comment in the RFD debate over Thames河, ‘If it "will not be understood by any monolingual Chinese speaker", that speaker might want to look it up in a dictionary’!) Would soft redirects like that be acceptable to you as a compromise, rather than banning the terms? That way, we cover the terms, but we make clear that they aren't standard (indeed, aren't intelligible), so no one is mislead. What do you think? - -sche (discuss) 04:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PS, bear in mind, as I note on the page I linked to, that we would only have soft redirects for attestable mixed-script terms. Any mixed-script terms Engirst couldn't cite we would delete as RFV-failed, and any whole English words (like "国外大学了解你专业上的qualifications,几乎完全是靠审查各种申请文件来实现的。") we would delete from Chinese sections per the not unanimous but nevertheless overwhelming consensus of the RFD and BP discussions. - -sche (discuss) 04:52, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a good compromise. Thanks for keeping me informed. ---> Tooironic 07:37, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we should allow soft redirects if there is no entry to redirect them to, e.g. no "Banach空间" soft redirect before "巴拿赫空间" is created. Please view Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-10/Mixed script Mandarin entries. --Anatoli 22:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mixed script Mandarin entries[edit]

Please join Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-10/Mixed script Mandarin entries. Your opinion is important. --Anatoli 01:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, work has been hectic of late. I support the proposal. Cheers. ---> Tooironic 01:24, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at User:Mglovesfun/cmn parts of speech toneless pinyin‎, the only ones that seem to be toneless are salad and Lao. The others on that list weren't filtered out either because they're acronyms, or don't contain any vowels! Mglovesfun (talk) 12:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at your page, Mglovesfun, as you know, and cleaned up some. The rest may need some attention as there could be some valid Mandarin words or they may be turned into soft redirects as per Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-10/Mixed script Mandarin entries. We should envolve more Chinese speaking editors to sort them out. --Anatoli 00:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heya,

The number of Category:Mandarin_nouns is overblown with pinyin entries. There may be hundreds of them. Perhaps we should ask someone to generate lists of nouns, verbs, etc, in pinyin. BTW, toneless pinyin are entries are gone. We should also be checking Category:Mandarin_terms_written_in_multiple_scripts as well. Some are valid, some may need to be turned into soft-redirects or deleted. --Anatoli 22:35, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but who can help with generating such lists? ---> Tooironic 22:37, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Conrad.Irwin (talkcontribs) — [Ric Laurent]22:43, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks, Ric. User:Mglovesfun also had a way of finding toneless pinyin, which helped to clean up. I also just look at various pages of Category:Mandarin_nouns under various letters (click next, next) and see large groups. Look at this page or this. Aren't they beautiful? :/ --Anatoli 00:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
User:MglovesfunBot/cmn-parts-of-speech-Latn. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A big list. Thanks very much! --Anatoli 11:21, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

About Me Update?[edit]

Hi, did you join in 2009 or earlier? I'm concerned that your About Me section could have an out-of-date description, especially of the number of years. --Lo Ximiendo 22:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this correct (that is, Qi0/Qi5)? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. It should be deleted. We cover the toneless pinyin syllable at qi. ---> Tooironic 11:15, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It looked like tosh to me. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:17, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Tis. ---> Tooironic 11:19, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin topic categories[edit]

Hiya,

I'm lost with Mandarin categories. Have they all been renamed, moved? Mglovesfun's bots must have done something weird. Look at 牛奶 (niúnǎi), 汉堡包 (hànbǎobāo). I was just going to add 牛排 (niúpái) but not sure if there is a point in adding them to Category:cmn:Foods in simplified script or Category:cmn:Foods in traditional script. see also: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#Chinese_topic_cat._question. --Anatoli (обсудить) 00:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly... I have no idea. The whole thing is a bloody mess. I have no way of resolving this issue since I am totally lost when it comes to these kind of technical things. I was hoping one of the other admins would be able to fix it, but so far, nothing has transpired. Though the old categories of zh-cn and zh-tw weren't PC, they got the job done just fine. Who do you think can help us with this? ---> Tooironic 09:17, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
An IP user complained about this a lot. Some categories were quite big. I think Mglovesfun's bots have done it, so he may be the one who can also fix this. --Anatoli (обсудить) 10:19, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bot[edit]

Hello. Currently it is impossible - my bot only reads what is given in the audio file and there is only simplified script: File:Zh-shuofú.ogg. You can ask some other bot owner to copy audio files from simplified entries to their traditional counterparts by navigating through English Wiktionary - currently I don't have time to do this. --Derbeth talk 11:22, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where are you?[edit]

Where are you, mate? Are you on leave or quit? --Anatoli (обсудить) 21:44, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Social Hiring Network[edit]

Hello Tooironic. Regarding the article 'social hiring network' - I have added a couple of citations where this concept is mentioned and refers to the definition given. Kind Regards, BR

Where? ---> Tooironic 13:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is up-to-date and to the best of my knowledge the only Mandarin pinyin which needs reformatting (excluding prefixes, suffixes and morphemes, I will finish them before the end of tomorrow). I would really appreciate your help with this, including removing done items from the list; if you have the patience to do it. Obviously formatting the entries is more important than removing them from the list. Cheers, Mglovesfun (talk) 10:41, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya, Carl,

How're you going?

User:Matthias Buchmeier has kindly generated a database dump of translations into Mandarin (and other languages) from English, the other way around seems to be complicated because of some unstandard headings. You might want to take a look at it sometimes. I find it very useful in terms of seeing, which translations need to be fixed. Anyway, it's perhaps the best Mandarin index we have so far. Would be good to generate an index of Mandarin entries at some stage and keep the English-Mandarin updated. I'm sure we can ask him again but need to address the formatting issues that might exist and keep to the standards in entries and translations. --Anatoli (обсудить) 23:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

Thanks for fixing the translations. I'm back from a short holiday in Queensland, sorry for not replying earlier. --Anatoli (обсудить) 23:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the collective noun for baboons. It came up in en:wp as having no reliable source. The baboon article there says it was only a joke.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:57, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya,

You have removed 期限. It seems to be used as "deadline" as well, e.g. 偿还贷款的期限,明天就到了。 --Anatoli (обсудить) 08:13, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My sources told me it's not common. But feel free to add it back in I don't mind. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

format of synonyms, antonyms, see also's[edit]

Hiya,

How are you? I was wondering if you could change the format. It looks a bit weird and confusing. Mglovesfun recently removed pinyin in some examples, as it may have looked as pinyin is a separate word, not transliteration of the synonym. Rather than using this format: [[liánzi]] [[簾子]] (producing liánzi 簾子) perhaps you could start using this one: {{l|cmn|簾子|tr=liánzi}} (producing 簾子帘子 (liánzi)) with pinyin unwikified? --Anatoli (обсудить) 00:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the reason I put the pinyin first is to make it easier to alphabetise the list. This is even more important when you large lists of synonyms, see also's, etc. If you put the pinyin after the character you can't do this. :| ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:47, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I did realize they were the same word, it just seemed counterintuitive to put the pinyin first in a non-pinyin entry. Still seems counterintuitive as when you click on the pinyin, it just tells you to see the hanzi form anyway, so it more or less adds an extra step with not much benefit involved. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:03, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New template for requested entries[edit]

I have prepared {{REEHelp}} for used at WT:REE. (It may need a better name.)

{{REEHelp|cohesive device}}

yields:

cohesive device - OneLook - Google (BooksGroupsScholar) - WP Library

This is intended to speed look-up of relevant facts about candidate terms. {{R:OneLook}} and {{googles}} can by used alone, of course. We could either put them in by default or just when actually working to respond to the requests. There are probably enhancements to add and kinks to worked out., such as making following text look acceptable. (For now, following next needs "*:".) DCDuring TALK 12:57, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, do Aussies say zee or zed? Thanks --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 05:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zed. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:56, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Would you know what South Africans say, by any chance? --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 15:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No idea sorry. ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:29, 30 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for butting in on the conversation, but South Africans say 'zed'. JamesjiaoTC 04:17, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Zee is typical for Americans, even neighbouring Canadians say zed, as far as I know but zee is occasionally used in all countries due to the media coming from the US, popular games, songs, computer programs, textbooks published in the US, also depends on policies of school. I heard recently New Zealand stopped trying to stop Americanisation of the spelling. --Anatoli (обсудить) 00:02, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's pretty educational for an American like myself, who only uses zed for humorous effect. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:26, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Starting with Chinese[edit]

Hi. I'm starting to learn Mandarin, but I don't know many characters yet (maybe 100 or so?) and I want to improve by reading a text and looking up the characters that I'm unfamiliar with as I go along. So, can you recommend a text that is relatively basic in terms of grammar and vocabulary, easily available online, and at least somewhat interesting? Thanks --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 09:56, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hate to burst your bubble, but Chinese is not like Japanese and has very little in the way of what you described. Most Chinese texts require at least an intermediate level before they can be read with any kind of ease. That includes material aimed to children. I recommend you enrol in a course to improve your Chinese before you move on to that kind of stuff. Or you can try purchasing a decent text book and getting a tutor to help you. Sorry for the belated reply. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:19, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, I thought every major language had w:Dick and Jane or its equivalent. The problem is that I'm only currently aiming for an understanding around cmn-1 or cmn-2, not real literacy. I do have access to Chinese textbooks, so I might be able to borrow one for a while (they're called Integrated Chinese - do you know that series?). Thanks anyway --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 02:28, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, many major languages do not. Cultures which have been historically resistant to foreigners have a dearth of interactive and engaging material for learners. This is the case for Chinese, and may well be the case for similar languages like Hindi and Russian. Luckily though with the advent of the Internet resources have improved dramatically. Have a look on YouTube you may find something interesting there. I'm familiar with Integrated Chinese but have no idea about its quality. I haven't used beginner's textbooks for many years. I remember we used to have an old one back in high school in which everyone used to call each other 同志, was quite fun. Chinese is an incredibly challenging language to learn, but it can also be immensely fun and rewarding, not to mention very practical given the sheer number of speakers and rise of China in the modern world. Good luck! ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I possess Integrated Chinese but New Practical Chinese Reader (very similar in approach, structure, etc.) is much better. This was voted on www.chinese-forums.com. The latter is used in Universities more often. I have stopped enjoying it (that much) after volume 4 but at this level you can use any other textbook. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:49, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Self-study is possible, of course. Graded Chinese readers is a good start after finishing some decent textbooks. "New Practical Chinese Reader" - (3 volumes, at least, with audio). From Graded readers, I recommend "Chinese Breeze" and "Graded Chinese Readers". They come with pinyin and audio making it easier for complete beginners. You need to have some vocabulary and grammar. 100 characters is too few. You need about 800-1000 to start reading Graded Readers. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
[Moving conversation to User talk:Metaknowledge#Chinese self-study] --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

How are you? I wonder where you found the etymology for 木乃伊. Is it really a transliteration? I don't know myself, just asking. The Japanese traditional spelling of the word is the same but I don't understand its etymology either. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:51, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think I read somewhere that it supposedly is a transliteration, though from English or Persian is hard to say. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:16, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll try to search more on the subject. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya,

It seems a bit illogical but 政治避难者 or 避难者 is also used to mean asylum seeker, although it also fits a "political refugee" (with granted asylum). 政治 is added to 避难者 to separate them from people looking for any refuge (e.g. from natural disaster). --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 06:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They are sometimes confused but the accurate and commonly used translation is in fact 寻求庇护者. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:48, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

zh->cmn[edit]

Hi,

I have moved from using "zh" to "cmn" in Mandarin translation, whcih matches the language code in the entries. The old issue with missing links to zh:wiki is resolved (You may need to have a hard refresh to clear the cache in the browser to see the effect). --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK. So what's the code that I should use now? ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:19, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"cmn", if you don't mind :) Please test if it works for you first. As I said above you need to do something. I noticed cmn uses Hans, not Hani, will have to change it. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Is this correct then?
* Chinese: ::: *: Mandarin: {{t|cmn|協助|sc=Hani}}, {{t|cmn|协助|tr=xiézhù|sc=Hani}}
---> Tooironic (talk) 02:03, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's right. Only "sc=Hani" for both (default). --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:31, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

I'd like to hear your opinion on this. Please join! I'm against the inclusion but will agree if proven wrong. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tooironic, I've read your "How to Add a Chinese Translation" and realized I will never be an expert for Mandarin ;) Can you do me a favor and take a look at 康利? I have "translated" 康利 from Mike Conley, Jr. (小迈克·康利), the NBA player. 康利 also stands for Canly (a commune in northern France), Conly (Shanghai Conly Industrial CO.,LTD.), and Conli (Roy Conli, a film producer). --Unified login system (talk) 17:44, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at 史密斯. That's an English surname in Chinese with a standard template. Try to make changes based on that entry. Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:27, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! That's what I was looking for. --Unified login system (talk) 01:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re: your edit summary: "偶爾發生的 is not a word, correcting"[edit]

Hi,

Yes, I know but it's hard just to do everything right and I've put spaces between pinyin words. :) --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 13:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I meant that this translation of sporadic wasn't a mistake to be corrected but a formatting issue. BTW, it was the only translation of "sporadic" in my Oxford dictionary. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 13:28, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, it's no big deal. I just happened to see the edit so I thought I'd standardise it. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:09, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I know, just "correcting" is not the right word, methinks. No worries, keep up the good work! --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:26, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

短语集[edit]

嗨,

你要投票吗?^_^ --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:25, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

嗯嗯,我去投票,謝謝你提醒我。---> Tooironic (talk) 05:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
谢谢啊!你还用繁体字吗?我惊讶了。--Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:57, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
何必驚訝,漂亮多啦:)---> Tooironic (talk) 05:41, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
我觉得缅甸文字也很票漂亮,可是在中国用简体字。:) --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:14, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick entry creation[edit]

Hi,

User:Ruakh has created a script for a quick entry creation. It's only for a few languages at the moment. I wonder if you interested in exploring this option for Mandarin. Unfortunately, it won't be able to determine the stroke count value, add pinyin with number and tell if it's both simp. and trad. or only one of them. Parts of speech, translation into English, transliteration (toned pinyin) could be take from the English entry:

==Mandarin==
<!-- USE THIS IF TRADITIONAL AND SIMPLIFIED ARE THE SAME {{zh-hanzi|[[..]]}} -->
<!-- USE THIS IF TRADITIONAL AND SIMPLIFIED ARE THE DIFFERENT {{Hani-forms|[[...]]|[[...]]}} -->

===Noun===
<!-- SIMPLIFIED AND TRADITIONAL 
{{cmn-noun|ts|pin=zuòbān|pint=PLEASE ADD PINYIN WITH NUMBERS|rs=PLEASE ADD RADICAL SORT VALUE}}
<!-- SIMPLIFIED
{{Hani-forms|[[...]]|[[...]]}} -->{{cmn-noun|s|sim=PLEASE ADD SIMPLIFIED CHINESE|tra=PLEASE ADD TRADITIONAL CHINESE|pin=zuòtán|pint=PLEASE ADD PINYIN WITH NUMBERS|rs=PLEASE ADD RADICAL SORT VALUE}}
-->
<!-- TRADITIONAL
{{Hani-forms|[[...]]|[[...]]}} -->{{cmn-noun|t|sim=PLEASE ADD SIMPLIFIED CHINESE|tra=PLEASE ADD TRADITIONAL CHINESE|pin=zuòtán|pint=PLEASE ADD PINYIN WITH NUMBERS|rs=PLEASE ADD RADICAL SORT VALUE}}
-->

# definition (from the translation from English)

Would you prefer a different template or no template at all? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if the above was confusing. I meant - do you want a tool that automatically generates a Chinese entry from a translation into Mandarin? If yes, do you think there could be a generic template for it? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sure it sounds good, but I'm hopeless at formatting and all that stuff. I still do everything by hand, including creating new entries. Perhaps someone with more IT chops could give you more input? ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:59, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I just blocked this IP for replacing the L2 headers for into "Chinese". I had checked their talk page, and Mglovesfun had warned them against doing this a year ago. I'm really not sure if I blocked them for too long, or not long enough, so I thought I'd get a second opinion from someone who deals with the language(s) in question. I also just reverted a deletion of most of the Mandarin section of the same entry by another user shortly afterward. This may have been justified, depending on the quality of the edits added by an IP a day or two ago, so I'd like your opinion on that as well. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 04:17, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At least I thought I blocked them. I'm not at my home computer, and I seem to be having problems with actions disappearing or applying to the wrong target. Maybe I'm just tired. At any rate, I blocked them for sure, this time. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:42, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I support your blocking. If he has problems with the way Mandarin entries are formatted on Wiktionary he should discuss it with the community and open a vote first before any major overhauls are done. ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:57, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

BD2412 has made a mess of this, by creating it as Mandarin then changing the header to Cantonese without changing anything else. I changed it back to Mandarin, but am starting to think maybe I was wrong to do so, can you help at all? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:37, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted it. It's not Mandarin. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:41, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template:zh-hanzi[edit]

 Fixed. JamesjiaoTC 22:34, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:57, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin pinyin format[edit]

Hiya, Carl,

Long time no see.

Do you mind if we introduce any of "See" + (japanese kana) (as in Japanese romaji entries) or "Romanization of" + word in Gothic script (Gothic), so that we have similar format? E.g. jīròu would have "# See 肌肉" instead of nothing (just # 肌肉)?

Also, the vote specifically disallowed definitions, only links to hanzi. This point has created a stir in discussions about Japanese romaji. Any new pinyin entries I make don't have English translations. What's your opinion on this? I can give you links to the new development. Your comment on "The 20,000 Nouns Appeal" (including Romanised forms, cheaters!) may not be valid soon! :) --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 06:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have much of an opinion on this. But presumably putting simple definitions in pinyin entries (next to the soft redirect) is useful for users. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed my opinion on this. Without defs people will always look for the main entry, not relying on the pinyin at all once they found the entry in hanzi. Pinyin entries can be generated by bots, done once and forgotten. It's still an issue with many homophones but commercial dictionaries use pinyin only to provide reference to the main entry, without any definitions. This vote Wiktionary:Votes/2011-07/Pinyin entries was based on yánlì, which has no definitions, only links.
Also, the fact that that rule (no definition) wasn't strictly followed, was used big time against our work on Japanese romaji. It is quite different, though. See tsuku -> つく and many links to Japanese kanji (disambiguation happens). So, Japanese has three levels, not two. If you look at tsuku in edit mode, there is no visible definition line. # is generated by the template. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 12:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

Please don't hate me for this but please say your opinion on the topic. :) --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK no worries I've left a comment there. I support getting rid of the rs field requirement. It would save me so much time to not have to worry about it for every new entry. But I do think trad and simp entries should be maintain separately for the simple fact that there is not always 100% overlap between them. ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have modified your 屌絲 and created 屌丝. With my suggested way of categorising - # {{slang|vulgar|lang=cmn|skey=chai1kai1}}. Now both entries appear in Category:Mandarin slang and Category:Mandarin vulgarities sorted by chai1kai1 (under letter "C").
They are still in Category:Mandarin nouns in traditional script and Category:Mandarin nouns in simplified script - not suggesting to change that but we could changing the sorting of the traditional term to be the same as simplified, if we are in agreement.
Will duplicate this in BP--Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:23, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine but how about the IPA problem? ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:32, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't raise the IPA issue, sorry, you have to check it with Wyang. I'm defintiely interested in accelerated entry creation for Mandarin but that wasn't what the topic was about. I'm sure Wyang can fix that. IPA is my weak point, since I don't usually add IPA in any language (I dislike IPA for no particular reason). So, back to my topic, dropping "traditional"/"simplified" from category names (not SoP categories - nouns, verbs, etc. but only topical categories - plants, animals, derivations, etc.) is fine by you? Sorting by pinyin, not rs is also OK? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh sorry, yes I do support only sorting by pinyin. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:47, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

erhua[edit]

Hiya,

Don't forget what we agreed on re: 没事儿 (Alternative form of). :) I've changed your 浪花儿. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:59, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I'm going to start a new page listing erhuayin as I'd like to catalogue them better on Wiktionary. I can use my latest blog entries as references. :) ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:57, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What's your blog? You can start by looking at pages that link to "儿", filtering out Japanese and entries like 儿童. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 10:18, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is my blog. I've compiled the erhuayin words here. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:20, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

HSk categories sort order[edit]

Hiya,

Do you mind, as discussed, changing the sort order (skey) to be based on number pinyin for HSK and other cats, rather than rs value? E.g. "chuan4men2r", not "丨06串門兒" for 串門兒 --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:45, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Old transwiki[edit]

Care to take a look at Transwiki:Ye wei? Perhaps this stuff can be organised appropriately into the mainspace. User: PalkiaX50 talk to meh 22:17, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I've created this category for quite a few languages (translations from English into foreign languages) but then I changed the code in {{t}} not to add translations into Mandarin any more, which lack the transliteration. The problem is as follows: I can easily populate this category with translations into Mandarin where there is no tr but our practice is to transliterate only the simplified version, if the spelling is different, so all traditional will be added to this category as well. It could be helpful if someone watched this category and added transliteration where it's required and ignore where it's not needed. Would you like me to add Mandarin to the template that loads entries to this category? Otherwise, I'll just drop it. The problem is similar to Korean, where hanja translations don't get transliteration using tr.

If I make a change to {{t}}, in diagnosis, 诊断 (zhěnduàn) is fine, it has tr but 診斷诊断 (zhěnduàn) will add diagnosis to Category:Mandarin_translations_lacking_transliteration, since it has no tr. In this particular case, no action is required and can be ignored but if the translations don't have tr, then someone would need to add transliteration.

* Chinese:
*: Mandarin: {{t|cmn|診斷|sc=Hani}}, {{t|cmn|诊断|tr=zhěnduàn|sc=Hani}}

What do you think? Does it make sense? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:49, 13 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fine to me. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:30, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Will you add Category:Mandarin_translations_lacking_transliteration to your regular checking then? Note that they are English entries and will contain a bunch of false positives - translations into traditional Chinese where tr= is not expected. This may be confusing to other users, I have doubts myself now! There may be no efficient method of checking that all Chinese translations are transliterated. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 03:07, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Probably not. I'd rather focus on translations than transliterations TBH. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The sg= parameter has been deprecated, could you please use head= instead? Thank you. —CodeCat 22:28, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okie doke. ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:17, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

beige[edit]

Hello, can you record the word beige please ? 198.105.124.127 00:29, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin Articles[edit]

I apologise in advance if this question seems obvious, but I've noticed in several of your articles you have used superscript numbers in the IPA pronunciations. Do these mark tone? Porokello (talk) 01:49, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. I know nothing about IPA. I just use the automatic template that is being used for Mandarin entries at the moment. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:56, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, my knowledge of IPA is superficial, but I think that these symbols are used to mark tones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_%28linguistics%29 . You can look there for proper usage, I cannot really explain but I'm sure you'll figure it out. If you see my profile page I'm not as aged as the rest of the people here. Porokello (talk) 02:00, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You can try User:Wyang who has become less active (and unhappy) at Wiktionary. He's the creator of the tool and knows about the superscript numbers in IPA. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:04, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I'm only asking in the pursuit of knowledge really. Porokello (talk) 02:06, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is quite simply that superscript 1 2 3 4 5 correspond to ˩ ˨ ˧ ˦ ˥ respectively. It is not exactly standard IPA, but it's a system widely used in linguistic literature. It is much more accurate than the traditional numbered tones 1 to 4 that you may be used to in Mandarin, because (for example) the traditional 3rd tone is in reality a series of different tones (going down, coming back up) and even 'pure' tones like the traditional 1st tone don't show for how long the tone is held. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:41, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying, Metaknowledge. I got the idea when I read Wyang's explanation first but I find toned pinyin sufficient after familiarising with the Mandarin phonology and reading rules. The tool can't handle w:Erhua at the moment, otherwise, it's very good. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:01, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

closing RFDO[edit]

Hi there. Could you please look at, and if possible close, the first couple of debates at WT:RFDO? --ElisaVan (talk) 10:34, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid this is not really my expertise. Perhaps try User_talk:Atitarev? ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:23, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, {{t-}} is obsolete: it's just a redirect to {{t}}, and Rukhabot (talkcontribs) now replaces it with {{t}}. (There's no particular harm in continuing to use it, but it will probably eventually be deleted.) —RuakhTALK 06:03, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does that mean something like this:
* Chinese:
*: Mandarin: {{t-|cmn|無處不在|alt=無處不在的|sc=Hani}}, {{t-|cmn|无处不在|alt=无处不在的|tr=wúchùbùzài de|sc=Hani}}

Should now be:

* Chinese:
*: Mandarin: {{t|cmn|無處不在|alt=無處不在的|sc=Hani}}, {{t-|cmn|无处不在|alt=无处不在的|tr=wúchùbùzài de|sc=Hani}}
---> Tooironic (talk) 01:19, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's right. I wouldn't worry about signs, if you add it with a translation adder, "+" will be added automatically if zh:wikt entry exists (e.g. "無處不在") or will be added later by a bot. In this case, the Chinese entry exists, so it should be {{t+}}. BTW, the SoP translations also use {{t}}, like this{{t|cmn|sum of parts}}. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:26, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Anatoli. Could you give me an example of that? I'm not very good at this technical coding stuff. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:15, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With pleasure. Do you mean SoP translations? One or all of your translations at [[youth detention centre]] could be done this way: 少年拘留所 (shàonián jūliúsuǒ). You can add translations via the tool first and then add [ [ ] ] manually. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:18, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hiya, Carl. There is no need to add translations manually. Why are you not using the translation adder - User:Conrad.Irwin/editor.js? It's easy to use and it automatically adds {{t+}} (with a "+") if a Chinese entry exists. For "alt=", you just need to type the form into "Raw page name:". Tell me if you need help with this. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 06:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Anatoli. Because I don't know how to use it. Hehe. Is there a step-by-step user guide somwhere? ---> Tooironic (talk) 21:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You can try User_talk:Conrad.Irwin/editor.js#Editing_translations. If you open [[expound]], do you see a form with "Add translation", "Preview translation" button, etc.? The first box is for the language code, e.g. "cmn", then your translation, "Raw page name:" is for the display form when different from lemma. First, you need to make sure that you see the form (interface). It's quite easy to use. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 21:47, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I should show you how it's done. It's really easy and saves a lot of time and keystrokes. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I think I've figured how out to use it now. Check out my changes to impetigo, did I use the tool correctly? I "added" pinyin only to the simplified terms, I guess that's how it's supposed to be done. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:51, 20 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well done. You can add trreq's the same way, just type {{trreq}} with a language code. "Raw page name:" is your friend to display forms different from lemma. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"measure word", "counter" and "classifier" - headers[edit]

Hi,

You might be interested in this topic: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2013/November#Measure_word. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:42, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya Carl,

I found your Mandarin translations a bit strange, they are not transitive, anyway - in the sense "to pay somebody too much or not enough". --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To underpay an employee = 苛扣員工工資. To overpay an employee = 給員工的工資過高. But I have no idea how to work those into the translations themselves as the structure is different in Chinese. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:48, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see, thanks. Without checking these terms, I can suggest something like (the traditional forms): ……工資……工资 and ……的工資過高……的工资过高. What do you think? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In Nciku …… (fùgěi ... guò dī de qián) - to underpay, (duōfù), 支付 (zhīfù de tài duō) - to overpay. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Perhaps you could put them all in there. Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:21, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Creating pinyin forms (Accelerated)[edit]

Hiya,

I have added acceleration to your User:Tooironic/common.js but not sure if your skin in preferences is "Common". Could you check Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? Also, do you see any Pinyin in green on Mandarin entries? If not, then your skin must be different, please let me know what is selected and what file you get in preview (in my preferences: "Vector (default | Preview | Custom CSS | Custom JavaScript)"). --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:46, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be working fine. Thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:53, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"common" is what it says, it's not specific to any skin. Scripts should normally be put there, not in any of the skin-specific files, unless they're actually related to the skin. —CodeCat 04:08, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@CodeCat. Thanks and sorry for the confusion. @Tooironic. So, are you able to automatically generate pinyin? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:16, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi[edit]

New template - Template:cmn-new. Might be useful... :) Wyang (talk) 01:13, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Much thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:23, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any way to put in two different definitions of the same PoS e.g. at 贓物? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:32, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
{{subst:cmn-new||[[booty]]
# [[stolen]] [[property]]}}

Use the above code. There is generally no need to put in the Pinyin with this template. Wyang (talk) 01:36, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I see. Thanks for the tip. I'm hopeless with all these coding things. By the way, there was a problem with the code recognising certain characters (perhaps one in ten), do you know if this was fixed? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:37, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which characters for example? Are they one-to-many simp-trad conversion characters? Wyang (talk) 02:55, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not just conversion issues but the script being unable to process characters, especially lesser known or uncommonly used ones. No examples off the top of my head but I'll let you know if I run into any more issues with this new script. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:15, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here's an example. The script always renders as which is a rarely used variant and not the correct trad form in most cases (see my edits at 回流 for example). ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:40, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Corrected. Please report when you find more of them, Cheers, Wyang (talk) 03:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here's one more: 蝲蛄. The script couldn't recognise 蝲 this character. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another: 布谷鸟. When converting to traditional it used the variant 佈 which I believe is non-standard. (See [11] for reference.) ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another: 鵪鶉. First character not recognised by script. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:32, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.

  1. 蝲 was not in the character-Pinyin list, which included 9894 characters occurring most frequently in the Standard Modern Chinese corpus. I have added 蝲 to that list. I thought a list of this length was probably adequate, since a list of greater length would include many rarely used (and often polyphonic) characters, which probably would not be very actively compound-forming.
  2. Simplified 布 is a conflation of traditional 布 ("cloth, fabric") and 佈/布 ("to spread, to arrange"). In compounds the latter sense is more common. Traditionally in Traditional Chinese the sense "to spread" is almost always written with 佈 (hence simplified 布 corresponds to 佈 by default), although it seems some dictionaries are disfavouring that usage. I am not sure what is the best thing to do (probably keeping the status quo for now). Wyang (talk) 02:31, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. The rs value is probably going to be deprecated in the future (Category:Mandarin nouns and other categories are sorted by pinyin), so I wouldn't worry about it. Wyang (talk) 02:31, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find conversion problems a big issue. One has to watch carefully and not rely on the tool conversion 100%, as there is no 100% correspondence. BTW, Carl, please comment on "Automatic Bopomofo on Mandarin entries" below, please don't ignore me. :) --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:27, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"i" in 总裁‎[edit]

What is the "i" there? Shouldn't it be "context"? —CodeCat 01:23, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Out of laziness TBH. I can't be bothered adding proper context tags. I'm happy as long as the user understands them. But if someone wants to standardise then be my guest. (I'm really not the best at all that coding stuff, though I contribute a lot to this project.) ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:25, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd still appreciate it if you used context instead of i. Bots should also understand entries, and they don't expect "i" to be used where there should be "context", which will lead to errors in the future. It will also confuse editors, like if we want to change the appearance of "i" and it inadvertently changes the formatting of those entries too. Templates should only be used for what they're intended, to avoid surprises and breakage. —CodeCat 01:28, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But then I have to start dealing with sorting and categories... it's a whole lot of bother for Mandarin editors, and few are willing to reform the system. If it's such a big deal I'll just put it in brackets instead. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:42, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, as discussed and agreed previously, contexts will only need "...|sortkey=yi1qi3 } }" and categories will only need "[ [...|yi1qi3] ]" (numbered pinyin), as in "一起". No need for "rs=" values like "一00" or suffixes like "in simplified script‎"/"in traditional script". Somebody might eventually move them as I requested here a while ago. It's still a bother but less of a problem than before, when traditional and simplified had to be sorted/categorised differently. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:50, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
[Edit conflict] But what you're doing now is a bother all the same, and putting it in brackets wouldn't be an improvement either. It kind of misses the point. It's not about how the page appears, but about the (expected) underlying meaning of the code. By using "i" or raw brackets, it effectively "hides" part of our content from the system we use to manage it, which reduces its effectiveness. Categories are only added by some labels, not by all of them, so things like "of a ..." should be fine without sorting. And we may decide to implement automatic sorting for Chinese in the future, anyway. —CodeCat 01:52, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re: ... and we may decide to implement automatic sorting for Chinese in the future. Yes, please! For Japanese and Korean hanja as well. Adding sortkey in a different script (different from the entry) is always difficult, error-prone and time-consuming. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:02, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please take a look at 白血球 (leukocyte), which uses specific sorting for each CJKV language (including Vietnamese, which I failed to mention). sortkey for CJKV languages at 白血球 ja - はっけっきゅう (Katakana entries also need to be converted to Hiragana) , ko - 백혈구, cmn - bai2xue4qiu2, vi - bạch huyết cầu --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:07, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have replaced {{i}} with {{cx}} (short for context) as follows: {{cx|of a political party|lang=cmn|sortkey=zong3cai2}}. "sortkey=zong3cai2" is really unnecessary, as there are no related categories. Ideally, we won't need to add "sortkey" in any case. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:17, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Creating multi-component words[edit]

Hi, with Template:cmn-new there is a parameter for multi-component words: |type=... , eg. |type=21 for 畜牧业. You can also specify meanings of individual components, eg.

{{subst:cmn-new||the [[livestock]] [[industry]]|type=21|e1=animal husbandry|e2=industry}}

(PoS left empty is 'noun' by default). Cheers, Wyang (talk) 11:02, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice, appreciate it. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:14, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Automatic Bopomofo on Mandarin entries[edit]

Hiya,

I remember you were interested, please join Wiktionary:Grease_pit/2014/January#Converting_numbers_to_some_other_symbols_in_Lua. I have a small technical issue, which, I'm sure can be solved. CC: Jamesjiao. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:28, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A new part of speech for Mandarin[edit]

FYI - Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2014/January#A_new_part_of_speech_for_Mandarin. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 12:41, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Carl, do you have a list of some more attributive nouns? Wenlin marks them but it's not easy to generate lists for parts of speech. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:50, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've been asking around and Googling but so far only been able to find 中美, 大型, 小型, 非法. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:40, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks. They are good examples. "no-fly zone" is an example in English, where no-fly can't be used as a separate noun. I've answered re: 第二手. Did you see it? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:45, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, got it. BTW, what do you think the name of this PoS is in Chinese? Apparently it's 定語, or more specifically, 修飾語. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:53, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's 归属名词. 定语 is any "attribute" (verb, phrase, adjective) and 修饰语 is "epithet". --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:59, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya,

FYI. Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion#.E9.A9.AC.E8.82.89. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 20:00, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi[edit]

Hi, you can use

* {{Pinyin-IPA|xiǎojiě|a=Zh-xiǎojie.ogg|tl=y}}

at 小姐 ('tl' is toneless). There are more examples at Template:Pinyin-IPA. Cheers, Wyang (talk) 12:09, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, thanks. By the way is there a way to remove the white space between the "Pronunciation" header and "Mandarin (Standard Chinese, Beijing)? And centre the "Mandarin (Standard Chinese, Beijing)" header? It looks a bit off. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:12, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry not centre I mean move to the left, like every other line on the page. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:13, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I sort of intentionally made it into a table and increased the line spacings and indentation, since I found the whole entry a bit crowded with the default line spacing... Do you prefer the previous non-tabular version? The format is not an issue since it is now all centralised. Wyang (talk) 03:18, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I like everything about the new version except the big white space and the centering because it's inconsistent with the formatting of all other Wiktionary entries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see. I applied for AWB rights at Wiktionary:BP, and will be removing the bullet point before the template once I get permission to run it. Wyang (talk) 03:50, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl. On an unrelated matter, you might find this interesting: [12] :). Cheers, Wyang (talk) 22:56, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. That's an oldie. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:35, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

HSK vocab list part 1: Erroneous tones[edit]

Greetings. I was looking through the characters list and pinyin for HSK part 1 (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:HSK_list_of_Mandarin_words/Beginning_Mandarin) for use in a course I will be teaching. Wanted to know why there are so many tonal errors, particularly in the fourth tone for several words (), (), etc. is this an encoding problem with the tonal markers or what? Wanted to ask before editing the entry.

I don't understand. Which mistakes are you pointing to? and are correctly indicated in that list as hòu and huò respectively. ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:35, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@anonymous user. Yes, we would like to know any errors. Note, there's no guarantee that there won't be any errors and errors are fixed when they occur and when they are noticed by someone. I don't think that "there are so many tonal errors" on Appendix:HSK list of Mandarin words/Beginning Mandarin is true, though. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 03:33, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is caused by the Template:Hani script template, which renders the diacritics letter 'ò' incorrectly as 'ó' on some computers. Now fixed. Wyang (talk) 03:56, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes, that's right. I shouldn't have used the script template on Pinyin. It was just easier to replace all [ [ ] ] instances with the template. Thanks. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:24, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"keep up with the Joneses" is too culturally specific to the Anglophone world, IMHO. Any translation would be a description of the sense, not a translation. That's why I removed the request earlier. Do you insist on having the request? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:02, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is definitely a translation for it in Chinese, though it could be a paraphrase. All terms should be translated, regardless of whether one-to-one equivalence exists, we can't just give up because it's tricky IMO. I've followed this practice with all E-C translations, e.g. peer pressure, drag queen, etc. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The best translation I've come across so far is 爭相攀比鬥富. I'll add it now. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:30, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nice one! I'll split the SoP. Oh you did it already! --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:38, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, I think we should translate everything, a good paraphrase translation - as a last resort - is still very useful for students and translators alike. BTW I dropped the 鬥富, one my colleagues recommended I do so. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:45, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unified Chinese[edit]

Hi Carl,

Please join us here: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2014-04/Unified_Chinese --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:00, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I know I saw it, thanks for keeping me in the loop. I'm going to follow the discussion first before I cast my vote. ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hiya, Carl. Just a friendly reminder that you haven't voted yet. Also, I think it's time to do something with Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2014/April#Numbered_monosyllabic_pinyin_entries_again. The numbered pinyin is getting increasingly out of sync with standard pinyin entries - I'm currently working on single character Mandarin terms and Pinyin. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:18, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A Few Mandarin Nouns to Fix[edit]

Hi, T.I. You could take a look at my contributions for some Mandarin nouns that I fixed from here. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 14:38, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:55, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
While adding some Pinyin readings, I had to create 優化 and 优化 for yōuhuà, hereby contributing to your 50K Mandarin nouns project. Could you add the Pinyin reading of 專屬/专属? Are you going to consider making a goal for Mandarin adjectives? (BTW, what does an abstain vote do?) --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 04:03, 17 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here's how, if you know what you're doing:
{{subst:cmn-new|adj|[[exclusive]]}}
. Need to check interwiki, pinyin, senses, PoS, of course. Sorry for jumping ahead. Tooironic may demonstrate you with another entry. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:08, 17 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pinyin reading is easy to add, just click on the green link in the given hanzi entry and it will automatically generate it for you. Don't know if I will make a goal for Mandarin adjectives, probably couldn't be bothered. I don't know what an abstain does, probably nothing. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:00, 17 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
For autocreation to work for "greenified" objects, you need something like this: "importScript('User:Conrad.Irwin/creation.js');" on User:Lo Ximiendo/common.js, AFAIK. I have just made it, need a hard-refresh in the browser to make it work. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 06:05, 17 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalisation of demonyms and language names[edit]

Hi Carl,

What's your opinion on capitalisation of demonyms and language names, it was sidetracked in Template_talk:cmn-new#Module_error. We need to decide if they are common or proper nouns in Chinese, then they are transliterated automatically as lower or upper case by {{cmn-new}}. (I saw you moved miáozú->Miáozú).

I think we've gotten caught up with the capitalisation of demonyms in English. In addition, demonyms are considered common nouns in English as it's not unique. The same should apply to Mandarin. JamesjiaoTC 03:43, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's usually the case. However, month and week names are never capitalised in romanised Chinese or Japanese. Pleco uses Zhōnggúorén (no space) but zhōngguóhuà. Other respectable dictionaries, like Wenlin also capitalise a lot. There's less consistency there. We need to decide this among ourselves, IMHO. My preference now is to use lower case and common nouns for demonyms and languages, and no space or hyphen. What does everybody think? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 03:55, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, please support Wyang for admin, if you can. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 03:31, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, have you considered making entries related to the aforementioned Chinese noun? Don't forget to update your 50k/20k list. (I'm on vacation in Twin Falls, Idaho and will be going to Redfish Lake, and then to home after that.) --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 11:00, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, have you heard of Wyang's list of orange link Chinese terms? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 11:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Done, and also added 燭架. And yes I have seen that list, very interesting. Have a good holiday! ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:55, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Translation requests[edit]

When you add a translation request, please use {{trreq|fi}} instead of {{t-needed|fi}} because trreq supports assisted entering of the translation. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, noted. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:55, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm it doesn't seem to be working. See phytoncide. :( ---> Tooironic (talk) 15:20, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Plus hyperlipidemia. ---> Tooironic (talk) 15:42, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And also hydrotherapy. ---> Tooironic (talk) 16:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another one: supply chain. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Plus opinionated. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:42, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And transistor radio. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Carl, are you actually reading the suggestions? ;) --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:40, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry! You know I suck at this formatting thing. I saw your edit. I've copied the formatting so it won't be a problem in the future. Thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:42, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's OK. You don't need to do it manually. You can still type {{trreq}} with the language code "fi" and get the same. Adding translations manually is a waste of time too and you don't get interwikis when they exist. :) --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:45, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK cool, I'll try that next time. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:47, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

zh-usex expanded[edit]

Hi Carl,

I forgot to tell you, if you wish usage examples to be expanded, use |in_notes=y, as in 出生. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:45, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Will do that from now on. Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since I added the Chinese entry for that term, I just contributed to your 50K Chinese nouns side of the project. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 15:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Great to hear! ---> Tooironic (talk) 15:46, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I also have a question: is 下級下级 (xiàjí) both a noun and an adjective like 上級上级 (shàngjí)? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 08:36, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's debateable. Most nouns in Chinese can be used as attributives; the question is whether this usage is considered a separate part of speech or not. I have added the noun sense for 下级, let's just leave it there for now. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:32, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here's another Chinese noun I added: 汽船 (steamship). --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 20:35, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested entries (Chinese)[edit]

Hiya Carl,

Do you find it difficult to make new entries yourself using {{zh-new}}? I reckon if translations are known, it's pretty easy and it doesn't have to be perfect. I don't mind you adding new requests but you can fill up some yourself, so we don't get too many. Typing them out sometimes takes about the same time as making an entry. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:55, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I usually only add the request for complex entries that I'm not confident I can translate accurately. Easy ones I add by myself. And I add a lot each day. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:58, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see, no worries. You're sourcing some dictionaries, though and mention various senses. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 04:08, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What's your source on this word having any relation to a term in Chinese? 胞门 itself is a rare term, used only in TCM. ---> Tooironic (talk) 16:54, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sashimi[edit]

You added[13] alternative Chinese terms for sashimi recently. There's been disagreement on this definition and we're not really getting anywhere on this matter. I tried to verify it, but it's a bit unclear what the precise definition of "生魚片" is, especially in relation to the English term "sashimi". Since you seem quite qualified in the field of Chinese-English translation, would you mind weighing in at talk:sashimi?

Peter Isotalo 14:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The main thing is the entry 生魚片 as it stands is correct. Nothing much else needs to be discussed. Life is short, and we still have a lot of entries to create. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:27, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter Isotalo I won't unprotect [[sashimi]] and [[sushi]], until promise to stop removing valid, somebody else's translations. If you continue your practice, you'll face a long block. We don't have time to babysit wayward editors. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 02:18, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Atitarev, I haven't requested unprotection.
Tooironic, does the term have the additional sense of referring to any form of "slices of raw fish or meat"-type dish per the Chinese Wikipedia 生魚片?
Peter Isotalo 08:15, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No. And the Wikipedia page doesn't say that. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:07, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It describes a lot of different variants in different cultures, has a dablink to 刺身 and contains the sentence "日本生魚片稱為刺身". If this isn't about describing a genre of dishes, does ths mean that the definition of kuai should be about more than the ancient dish?
Peter Isotalo 15:02, 31 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carl,

In that category, a large percentage of terms may be RFD'ed in the future, this includes requests, which I have filled. Don't you think? --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 20:29, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, no worries. I just usually include requests for Finnish and Russian because I know they have active translators. ---> Tooironic (talk) 21:15, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind you adding the requests at all. I just think those entries may be less important than many solid words still missing Chinese, Russian, Finnish, etc. translations and that these SoP terms may go along with all the translations. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 22:42, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
True, but do we have any scientific way of prioritising those most common and practical entries? ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:00, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Carl. Sorry for not responding earlier. I'm back in Melbourne. You can try User:Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV/missing translations/cmn (you can ask User:Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV to refresh/tweak the page for you. It's not sorted by frequency, though, just showing random entries missing translations. I've been chasing solid words still missing but also check English common words to add translations. Let me settle a bit and let's catch up for coffee sometime. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 00:55, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not random, it’s sorted by the size of the translation tables (i.e. tables that have translations in a lot of languages, but not in the given language, will show up higher in the lists). — Ungoliant (falai) 01:02, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV Thank you for the explanation! I'd like to also request the same thing I did for missing Russian translations, if it's OK with you, for future requests - only solid words (no spaces), no proper nouns, no capitalised words and only if no translation into a language exists at all (ignoring multiple senses). That way the most useful words can be covered, IMHO. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:09, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Atitarev ru has been updated according to your criteria (I hope)
@Tooironic I have updated cmn with the usual criteria, and cmn2 with Atitarev’s criteria.
Ungoliant (falai) 15:22, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Etymologies[edit]

Thanks for all the new Chinese entries. Just a reminder to use templates in your etymologies so that they categorise right — see this diff for the changes I made to a recent entry of yours. (I make a few stupid mistakes along the way that I had to fix, so sorry about that.) Cheers! —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 02:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help with the templates. Even after all these years I still have trouble with them. But AFAIK 力比多 is a transliteration (音譯) not a phono-semantic matching, since the characters that make up 力比多 don't have any correlation with the meaning of libido itself, they are merely used because of the way they sound. What do you think? ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The choice of the characters is suggestive of the concept of libido: 力 (power, force), 多 (much). Wyang (talk) 02:47, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
好吧. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:52, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's always better to use templates, which fix categorisation and make it easier to use the complex approach. "Transliteration" is usually obvious if there are phonetic similarities. Words like "phono-semantic", "calque", etc. can be added to help distinguish the types of borrowings. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:06, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

irrigate[edit]

Could you please provide a usex or quote for "clean wound" -sense to which you asked for fi translation? It would help in making sure that the translation that I provide is a correct one. --Hekaheka (talk) 19:08, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:19, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some plurals for East Asian languages[edit]

Re this discussion at the tea room (sorry, I don't know how to make a neat link)...

I added some comments, but I seem to have pushed your comments on Chinese off to the bottom. Please have a look, and if you feel they could be better placed -- or my comment should be right at the bottom or whatever, feel free to move them around.

I don't know enough about Chinese to make a direct contribution, but I can't help wondering to what extent the (-men) [sorry, can't do Chinese input] suffix is genuinely a plural marker in any helpful sense. Is it used in any of the other ways that 達 the Japanese group suffix is, for example? Imaginatorium (talk) 14:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well Chinese does not have grammatical number, however it does have the plural marker 們 which can indicate more than one of a noun. But its usage is extremely limited - it only used for a handful of people-nouns (teachers, students, comrades, etc.) and pronouns (we/us, you-plural, they-male, they-female, they-non-gender). I can't speak for the comparison with other East Asian languages. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:15, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Imaginatorium The Chinese plurality marker (men) (pronounced "men" with a neutral tone in Mandarin) is used similarly to the Japanese (tachi) when it's attached to nouns (usually denoting humans) to mean plurality in most cases. It can also be used in impersonisations (when objects or animals are treated as humans - e.g. "the stars are looking at us"). It's also optional and only used when plurality is important. Like the Japanese suffix, it's used to form plurals of pronouns as well. It's not used to signify a group including a person's name, like the Japanese suffix. The Korean suffix (deul) is also sometimes used with some inanimate objects. Vietnamese uses special markers (prefixes) - những and các, which precede nouns or pronouns (only "các"). The former is for "some" and the latter is for "all". Thai and Lao also use duplications to make plurals, AFAIK, apart from difference in using classifiers (measure words, counters). There are other means to make plurality obvious, of course, e.g. 這些这些 (zhèxiē, “these”) can only refer to multiple objects/people/animals, e.g. 這些/这些 ("these books") vs / ("this (measure word) book"). --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 04:58, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent summary. Note also that some nouns are countable in Chinese but not in English, e.g. in Chinese we say "these news" (這些消息), "these knowledges" (這些知識), etc. I wrote a blog post on this a while back. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:01, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Carl, interesting post on your blog. :) --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:05, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One source for non-SoP Chinese entries to be created, without leaving Wiktionary[edit]

Hi Carl,

Just one for now: User:Matthias_Buchmeier/en-cmn-a (replace the last letter with a letter of the English alphabet). There are many SoP's among them but you can choose the ones you like. I can give you more links if you think you're going to use those. Paste red links into Wenlin and see what you get. Pleco and CEDICT are also helpful. Pleco can also give Canto readings. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:36, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I know about this resource and have used it before, it is very useful. :) ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:38, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Another one is this (you probably know): Appendix:Mandarin Frequency lists/5001-6000 (and higher). There are some duplications and wrong pinyin, occasional SoP's but the lists are good. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:53, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No I wasn't. Thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:56, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • On an un-related note, I'm more interested in adding common collocations (固定搭配) as these are especially useful for learners and translators alike. You wouldn't happen to know any resources would you? I have yet to come across anything that useful or comprehensive. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:59, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't know. I'd rather use collocations in example sentences than making entries for those, even if they pass CFI. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 02:08, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's what I meant, putting collocations in example sentences only, e.g. at 集團. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:25, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template:zh-tsp[edit]

Can you check the translations at [14]? The formatting needs to be fixed up (missing traditional form, missing pinyin, etc.) —suzukaze (tc) 04:18, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see what I can do. Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 14:06, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Italics in English translations[edit]

Hmm, is this really necessary? It seems like something so trivial would be automatically done by the template by now if it was needed... Template:usex/documentation doesn't have italicized English translations either. Just wondering... —suzukaze (tc) 03:01, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to be consistent across all entries. Example sentence translations should be italicised to distinguish them from real text citations, just as we do for English entries. At the moment however we have no way of doing this automatically for Chinese entries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:06, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with suzukaze-c. Usage examples are not italicised. If they needed to be, they would be by the template. Making them italicised makes them inconsistent with other examples. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:16, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yet all English example sentences are italicised to distinguish them from citations. So this would make Chinese inconsistent with the rest of Wiktionary. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:18, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If we, jointly, decide to italicise example sentences, your examples will become normal (un-italicised). There is almost a consensus not to templatise English usexes but you're italicising translations, not the examples themselves (which wouldn't make sense for Chinese examples). --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:42, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I never realised that. I will stop italicising them now. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:11, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is controlled by templates, compare 出擊出击 (chūjī, chūjí) with 出擊出击 (chūjī, chūjí). --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:45, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

{{zh-l}}[edit]

Hi mate - just a heads up: {{zh-l}} will now automatically extract the first Mandarin reading from the article linked to. Cheers! Wyang (talk) 04:53, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another is that {{zh-der}} is available for use. Please see my edit at 精神 (jīngshén). Wyang (talk) 04:55, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful! A+++! Fantastic work! As always. I will use them liberally from now on. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:01, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, can I use this template for See also terms as well? ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:10, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I've noticed that it doesn't maintain the alphabetical order of the pinyin. Could you please find a way to fix that? ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing: is there a way to put two terms on one line to show they are derived from each other, e.g. at 工程 - 工程兵 (gōngchéngbīng); 工兵 (gōngbīng). Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:38, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Last thing (I promise) - we should do something about the double brackets showing up when we display classifiers and the pinyin together. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:38, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphens in chengyu[edit]

Aren't there supposed to be hyphens in chengyu if you can split them into two segments of two characters? (See page 7 of this PDF.) — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 04:24, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's one standard - the other is to write all chengyu as one word with no spaces or hyphens. I'm in favour of the latter as it's simpler. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:29, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I'll keep that in mind in future edits. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 04:41, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It's not an exact science, but I figure we may as well be consistent. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:42, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Is there some way I could just add the hyphens as they are employed in Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, maybe with a notation that this is one possible interpretation of many? The people who made the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian probably employed the 正词法 "Basic rules of the Chinese phonetic alphabet orthography" in a semi-authoritative way when they applied the hyphens to the pinyin given for the four-character phrases etc. Here's me talking about this topic on another page: Talk:興高采烈. no hurry --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:19, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

to bestow/sense "to give in marriage"[edit]

You have asked to provide a Finnish translation to this sense. Would you mind to explain, what it means exactly, or better even, find a usex or two. Is it "to give in + marriage" or "to give + in marriage"? --Hekaheka (talk) 14:14, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine it means "to give + in marriage", since "to give in + marriage" doesn't make sense. In other words, I think it means to give a gift or money for someone getting married. I may be wrong though. The OED does not list this sense. We could RFV it. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:36, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The verb betroth has the sense "to promise to give in marriage" and it is accompanied by the usex "He betrothed his daughter to a distant relative". Thus "give in marriage" would seem to mean "to give one's son or daughter for a spouse to someone". I agree it should be rfv'ed, if other dictionaries do not recognize the sense. --Hekaheka (talk) 10:55, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I just rfv'ed it. Let's see what happens. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:20, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a spelling mistake? The second character doesn't transliterate to mu. —suzukaze (tc) 07:35, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is. Thanks for spotting it. I've deleted it. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:00, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My List of Contributions[edit]

I added Chinese simplified forms, as you can see on my list of contributions. Would you or someone else like to make a file listing all those words? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 04:05, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is there some automated way to do that? I'm not very tech-savy, sorry. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:11, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Could you provide a source for your changes to this entry? Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:24, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You could Google period sources, but the ones I saw are those at Thirteen Factories, where regardless of all the other countries "Diguo Hang" specifically meant Austria. — LlywelynII 12:15, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another source of missing Chinese entries[edit]

Hi Carl,

Here's another source of of missing Chinese lemmas: User:Wyang/ja-no-zh/filtered. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:53, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:02, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fake book[edit]

As the creator of this title, do you happen to know whether fake book and "chord book" are the same? Both get hundreds of thousands of Google hits and they appear to have similar content. In Finnish I find lots of sointukirja (chordbook) but nothing in the way of musical "fake book". --Hekaheka (talk) 04:48, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Probably much of a muchness, though I'm no musician. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:55, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a lifelong musical duffer, currently a half-hour-a-day piano learner, and my impression is that "fake book" is the term a musician would use while "chord book" is the term a music teacher might use. They could both be the same person, at different times talking to different somebody elses. A fake book, of course, shows whole pieces of music with slash chords("B/D# "), while chord books are often just pamphlets or books of chords, probably spelled out in full ("For the slash chord D/F# your right hand will be playing the top chord. Broken down a standard D Triad looks like this (D F# A.)...)", families of chords, and fingerings, often with illustrations for the beginner.
One of the fake things about fake books is the compliance with copyright and ASCAP. There is none. This would be a bogus etymology, though. They're really an aid to a session player faking their way through a gig.
David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 17:04, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering if you could add an etymology here. The OED has "Chinese Tong (or Taung) -ké (or -kei), dialect form of Tun-ki or Tun-chi, the name of two streams (and a town) in An-hui and Chi-kiang, China." DTLHS (talk) 02:01, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've made the changes now. But I can't speak to the exact transcription used - you'll have to ask someone else about that. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:26, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Greek translation requests[edit]

It was agreed some time ago that translation requests would be kept to those of immediate interest - if there are too many those which people really want will be lost amongst the many. Of course, eventually all will be translated :) — Saltmarshσυζήτηση-talk 06:44, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've been adding them because, as I understand it, we have at least one active Greek contributor at the moment. Is that not the case now? ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:16, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I was just trying to discourage you from adding too many exotic terms (gastric acid, Orange-Nassau) while we're trying to build up the basic vocabulary. — Saltmarshσυζήτηση-talk 04:55, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
OK I will refrain from adding requests like that in the future. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:49, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Carl. I support Saltmarsh's request. I stopped adding Russian translations for exotic and multipart terms. I just want to focus on basic vocabulary and genuine requests. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:01, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello.[edit]

I don't know how to leave you a note. Is this how? I also don't know how to "add it to the list" under requests for new entries.

I got here by looking in Wiktionary for 陈腔滥调, and finding nothing, then thinking that English was the wrong place to look, going to "Mandarin" leads and still finding nothing.

Anyway, my original quirk is, this seems like a delicious phrase, and I'm sure I'll want to use it some time in the future if I ever speak Mandarin -- but I wouldn't want to do so without knowing its etymology ~~ which is why I turned to Wikipedia.

So.

So, first, thanks for all your good work as an editor. This is a wonderful resource, so I appreciate the work of people like yourself who are constructing it.

Second, so I'd like to know how to add to that list, and how to write to you correctly. And I'd like it if the instructions in the relevant places were clearer but I'll get it figured out soon -- and it's probably a good thing that there be some barriers against the profligate and the promiscuous among posters... :-)

Third, offhand do you know the etymology of 陈腔滥调? Or can you just tell me "how it works," what sort of situation it turns up in in Putonghua?

Cheers, and all the best for '17.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 16:47, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've added an entry for it. The etymology however is unclear. It is used to describe writing that lacks innovation. Note also the common idiom 陳詞濫調 with a similar meaning. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was having another look at this entry earlier today, and I was curious if you or @Wyang or any of the other ZH editors (whose names currently escape me) could expand on the etymological details, to provide more details on the change in meaning over time. I also think this term should probably go in Category:Chinese_twice-borrowed_terms, similar to 物理 (wùlǐ). The wasei kango mention and categorization strikes me as a mistake, as this term was not coined in Japanese so much as repurposed from its Chinese origins in a clear development and expansion of earlier senses -- wasei kango should be reserved specifically for terms “invented in Japan rather than borrowed from China” (per the w:Wasei-kango article), which 自由 (zìyóu) clearly isn't.

(For that matter, 社會#Chinese needs a similar reworking of etym templates to remove wasei kango and add Category:Chinese_twice-borrowed_terms.)

Is this something you'd have any interest in doing? If not, do you have any suggestions for who might find this interesting? Or should I just have a stab at it, and rely on your help for fixing any mistakes on my part? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:43, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a fascinating topic, but one that I'm afraid I have little expertise in. Given how difficult it is to determine the etymology of these kind of entries, we should ideally be consulting scholarly sources to get a final answer. Have you tried contacting any of the other active Chinese contributors that are listed on my user page? They are much more knowledgeable in linguistics than me. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:43, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I am for rewriting the {{wasei kango}} template to only include Japanese coinages. I don't like using the default {{der}} to write the vi ↔ zh ↔ ja ↔ ko borrowings, as most of the borrowings are only by "form", not by "sound" (as is implied by {{der}}). The sounds are deduced from the forms in the borrowing language, not from the borrowed language. For example, Category:Korean terms derived from Japanese is now a mix of sound (e.g. 히라가나)- and form (e.g. 할인)-borrowings. Wyang (talk) 06:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Old zh -> ja borrowings are generally okay, but the default {{der}} wording may be confusing for ja -> zh borrowings, such as 自由 (zìyóu). If we repurpose {{wasei kango}} to only include Japanese coinages, I would prefer we use a separate template for the etymology of 自由 (zìyóu) and include some explanation that the borrowing was only by 'form', not using the default {{der|zh|zh}}. Wyang (talk) 07:26, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Native speakers of any Chinese language who AREN'T of Chinese ethnicity[edit]

Hi Tooironic, do you know of anyone who falls into this category, i.e. your friends, famous people? They should usually be Western, but there are some exceptions – AWESOME meeos * (chōmtī hao /t͡ɕoːm˩˧.tiː˩˧ haw˦˥/) 05:10, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No I don't. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:13, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

精氣神[edit]

Is the term 精氣神精气神 (jīngqìshén) a real one? (Also, you may want to archive the messages on your talk page, just like I did to mine.) --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 19:51, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why not. It is included in the ctext dictionary, as well as CEDICT. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:19, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can try to help add these entries with my bot. It doesn't sound very difficult. Wyang (talk) 13:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, cool. Is it able to handle a simple spreadsheet? How would I format it? ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally, with formatted translation and pronunciation, so that they can be fed into {{zh-new}}. It is okay if it is unformatted and/or without pronunciation; formatting and pronunciation can be done semi-automatically - I think the entries will need be manually checked before and after creation to make sure they are correctly generated. Wyang (talk) 08:13, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I added some red links from the Chinese Wiktionary. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 04:17, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Good work. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:18, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome! :) --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 04:27, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Atitarev, Wyang Check out what I did. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 07:23, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Lo Ximiendo Thanks. Some terms I can easily tell they are idiomatic and we need them but for some more time would be needed to asses or native speakers or more advanced speakers are required. It is a little dangerous to copy from another Wiktionary, their CFI can be very different from ours. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:29, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

祕 in simplified Chinese[edit]

Are you sure about 祕闻秘闻? AFAIK, is only used as a surname in simplified Chinese. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 01:17, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I added it because there are hits on Baidu. Don't know if it can be properly attested though. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:17, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It's definitely nonstandard, so I'll see if I can find any attestation. If not, I'll RFV it. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 19:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Cheers! ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:32, 8 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

patalinė blakė[edit]

Lithuanian terminus technicus patalinė blakė is definitively feminine. --Kusurija (talk) 07:41, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As I said in the edit summary, I didn't mean to do that. I reverted it immediately after. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:07, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For future reference: if someone moves an entry to a new spelling and you think there should be entries at both old and new spellings, move the entry back to the old spelling and create the entry for the new spelling from scratch. Recreating the entry for the old spelling from the redirect means that the revision history is at the wrong entry and will get deleted if the new spelling fails rfv. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 07:44, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK thanks for pointing that out. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:20, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Moving 高頂絲製禮帽 to 高頂絲質禮帽 was the only way to have the edit history at the correct place. I didn't know enough about the 高頂絲製禮帽 entry (or Chinese entries in general) to recreate it properly, and since it was being rfved due to having only 2 raw Google hits, I left it at that. As I said at the RFV (which you probably didn't see because I deleted the page that linked to it), I basically speedied that page, but if anyone wanted to recreate it and continue the rfv, that was fine with me. I realize that this has left the simplified-form entry hanging out over empty space, but it was the best I could do in the time that I had.
The content of the page at the time I deleted it is in the revision history of 高頂絲質禮帽 (I made sure to restore the deleted revisions in the edit history), but if you use any of that content, you'll have to provide a link (either a literal link or a mention that contains enough detail so anyone can find it) from the entry that contains it to that revision history so that the attribution chain is maintained (either in an edit comment or on the talk page). Since this was basically just an alternative-form page, it seemed to me better to start from scratch so you wouldn't have to do that. As long as proper attribution is present at each entry for all the edits that end up in the current version of the entry in question, I'm fine with what ever you decide to do. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:48, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a typo? —suzukaze (tc) 03:52, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks. I've fixed it now. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Active Chinese contributors[edit]

hello. i think you should add User:Zcreator to the list. thank you. --2A02:2788:A4:F44:5C52:9E8F:6FB7:2B00 20:36, 13 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:39, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe Zcreator alt (talkcontribs) just below him? Although he seems to have stopped contributing.

Hi. You might wanna add Mx. Granger (talkcontribs). By the way, sorry about this; it won't happen again. Per utramque cavernam 10:19, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:31, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Dine2016 (talkcontribs), KevinUp (talkcontribs), Geographyinitiative (talkcontribs)? Per utramque cavernam 14:17, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please could you just delete this, I will make it again right away (ip was me). Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 16:18, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ---> Tooironic (talk) 16:20, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks 😃 it was supposed to be my first Chinese entry. Don't worry, I'm not editing Chinese now. Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 16:24, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

丑鸭 / 丑鴨 (Chinese)[edit]

I left a message at the Talk Room but on second thoughts I should have left it here.

The message I left was:

The Wiktionary page on 丑鸭 [15], meaning 'harlequin duck', has a 'See also' redirect to 醜鴨[16].

It also carries the note:

For pronunciation and definitions of 丑鸭 – see 醜鴨 (“harlequin duck”).
(This term, 丑鸭, is the simplified form of 醜鴨.)

This information is incorrect. The Simplified character 丑 is actually a simplification of two Traditional characters: 醜 meaning 'ugly' and 丑 meaning 'clown'. In the case of 丑鸭, the correct Traditional form is 丑鴨 literally 'clown duck' (that is, 'harlequin duck'), not 醜鴨 'ugly duck'. This is quite apparent if you visit the Wikipedia page on 丑鸭, where the Taiwan traditional character version gives 丑鴨.

I would fix this myself but I'm not sure how to go about it. Fixing it requires 1) transferring all the information from the 醜鴨 page to the 丑鸭 page, and 2) deleting the 醜鴨 page completely.

(Sorry if my formatting isn't correct. I'm not sure how to link within Wiktionary)

103.57.93.242 09:51, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, it's been fixed now. Wyang (talk) 09:56, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, you are quick! 103.57.93.242 10:28, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

佈道 and synonyms[edit]

In my experience, there are some distinctions between these terms:

I'm not sure if these connotations are my own, but it's probably worth a usage note. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 06:12, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I defer to you on these religious terms. A usage note would certainly be helpful. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:57, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"veins on beach"[edit]

Perhaps veined patterns on the sand of a beach. I found this: "沙文浪中積 Patterns on the sandy beach accumulate in the waves" (2012, Ping Wang, The Age of Courtly Writing). Equinox 15:36, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Duly noted. Thank you. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:50, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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On 2014年12月4日 (四) 05:43 you specifically changed this word's pronunciation from |m=liánpeng to |m=liánpéng,tl=y [17]. I have made another change based on the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian and Taiwan MOE dictionary website. If you have the time, please let me know what you think. Thanks! --Geographyinitiative (talk) 09:00, 19 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fine to me. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:00, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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用中文怎麼說TFSV[edit]

Hello! Can I ask, how do you translate 'toneless final syllable variants' into Chinese? I made a page for 重·次輕詞語 in the belief that this is the same thing as the 'toneless final syllable variants' we see mentioned in the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian. I have a test prep book for the w:Putonghua Proficiency Test which seems to make this connection. (Have you taken that test yet? It's pretty interesting- please check out and edit the Wikipedia page for it if you are interested- I plan to be making edits to that page over the course of the next few months.) Also, I'd appreciate any feedback and/or edits you could make on the 沒有 and 巴不得 pages which I have been editing recently, both of which have a toneless final syllable variant ("they are 重·次輕詞語"- is that correct?) in Xiandai Hanyu Cidian Ed 7. Are the Mandarin pronunciations on these pages standard? Are they 'right'? Any insights and edits you could make would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks! Here's the definition we have at 重·次輕: toneless final syllable variants (Used to describe a two or three character Chinese word in which a variant pronunciation for the final character can be read in neutral tone or in its normal tone) If everything I have done is wrong, please do not hesitate to delete it. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I will have to defer to the other Chinese language editors @Wyang, @Justinrleung, @Suzukaze-c and @Atitarev as they are the experts in these matters. I have very little knowledge of linguistics. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:15, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Toneless final syllable variant" is (末字)輕聲變體, and corresponds to 重·輕. Btw, I think 重·次輕 is a sum of parts; it can be 重/中/輕·重/次輕/輕. Wyang (talk) 23:06, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Wyang, Suzukaze-c, Justinrleung, Dokurrat, KevinUp&c. I just created this page-- if you have any thoughts about how it should be written, please edit! --Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:38, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Geographyinitiative: I didn't get the ping - you need to ping in the same edit as your signature. I've reorganized the entry. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 02:27, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Knock knock, I have removed 同是 from page tóngshì. I think I would treat 同是 as a SoP phrase rather than a word, so I think its pinyin form would be tóng shì. Both 同 and 是 can be used alone in MSM, even colloquially. Dokurrat (talk) 18:36, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads up. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:42, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of 小姐[edit]

Hi. I'm new to Wiktionary. Is this how I contact Tooironic? -- i.e. by editing the User talk:Tooironic webpage? I wanted to make a comment about the remark that "CC-CEDICT did not explain the reason or give a proof for this pronunciation ["xiǎojie"]" -- on Talk:小姐 Richwarm88 (talk) 03:57, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Richwarm88: Hi, and welcome. Yes, this is how you contact Tooironic. May I ask what your comment about that remark is? Wyang (talk) 04:11, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the welcome! I'm unfamiliar with the markup so I hope this reply works out OK. My comment is that I (as a CC-CEDICT editor) did in fact explain the reason for having the pronunciation xiǎojie. If you go to the CC-CEDICT Editor website https://cc-cedict.org/editor/editor.php?handler=ListChanges and enter 小姐, you can see the history of editing changes for the 小姐 entry, which includes this: https://cc-cedict.org/editor/editor.php?log_id=41666&return=ListChanges&handler=ViewLogEntry

In the editor's comments, I pointed out that xiǎojie was given as the pronunciation in the following sources: ABC C-E Dictionary, Oxford Concise C-E, New Age (Commercial Press), Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (FLTRP), ChinesePod lesson transcripts (in most cases), and "Mandarin Primer" by Yuen Ren Chao.

In addition, ChinesePod has a webpage where the pronunciation of 小姐 can be heard in multiple audio clips: https://chinesepod.com/dictionary/english-chinese/%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90

Richwarm88 (talk) 04:46, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Richwarm88: Thanks for the links and sources! 小姐 is one of the 重·次轻 words, which is distinct from both the normal unreduced disyllables (中·重) and fully reduced disyllables (重·最轻). There is no official way to notate 重·次轻 in Pinyin, and I guess that is the reason for the discrepancy. Wyang (talk) 05:29, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. But the previous version of the entry for 小姐 said

Pinyin: xiǎojiě [Phonetic: xiáojiě] → xiǎojie (toneless final syllable variant)

whereas now it says

Pinyin: xiǎojiě [Phonetic: xiáojiě]

which means that the fact that there is a "toneless final syllable variant" has been deleted.

Richwarm88 (talk)

@Richwarm88: The complexity is 重·次輕 (partially reduced) words are pronounced differently from 重·最輕 (fully reduced) words, especially after rising-tone syllables. The removal of the tonelessness information is IMO based on valid concerns. In general, pronouncing 重·次輕 words as normal, unreduced words feels only marginally unnatural, but pronouncing it as the prototypical toneless word 重·最輕 when the preceding syllable is rising tone gives an awkwardly unnatural feeling (違和感). IPA-wise, a fully reduced xiǎojie is expected to be /ɕi̯ɑʊ̯²¹⁴ d͡ʑ̥i̯ɛ⁴/ (with a mid-high-pitched flat second syllable), and a partially reduced one /ɕi̯ɑʊ̯²¹⁴ t͡ɕi̯ɛ²¹/ (with a low-falling second syllable). Wyang (talk) 07:15, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Well, thanks for taking the trouble to explain that. Richwarm88 (talk) 07:39, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Richwarm88: No worries! Hopefully this is an area that can be improved on in the future. Wyang (talk) 07:45, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have often encountered the sentiment that 'place names are never in qingsheng', but I just don't know if it's true. No need to change 扒頭 one way or the other; I just don't believe that 'place names are never in qingsheng' is a proven fact of Mandarin. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 09:16, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:24, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yuen Ren Chao [18] writes in his Mandarin Primer (p.27), "Some neutral tones are optional, as Jeh.jiang or Jehjiang 'Chekiang'." (i.e. Zhèjiang or Zhèjiāng 浙江) – Richwarm88 (talk) 08:28, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was being really careless...[edit]

Sorry for bothering you. Dokurrat (talk) 14:40, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's OK! :) No problem. That entry was created by A-cai. I guess it's literary, or at least formal in register, no? ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:07, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, not literary. Dokurrat (talk) 13:16, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

cmn-pinyin: Mandarin or Chinese?[edit]

Sorry to bother-- I want to ask: should the heading for Hanyu Pinyin entries be "Mandarin" or "Chinese"? I seem to have seen examples of both.

Mandarin: [19]

Chinese: [20]

--Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:12, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have an example of a Chinese header on an entry not created by you? I've looked at several entries in Category:Mandarin pinyin and they all have a Mandarin header.
As I understand it, the reason we have everything under a Chinese header is because the written language is more unified than the spoken language. Hanyu pinyin is specific to Mandarin, and represents spoken Mandarin, which is quite distinct from the other topolects as spoken. As such, IMO, it should have a Mandarin header. Also, if you look at the categories on the page, they all say "Mandarin". It seems strange to have the text of the page at odds with its categorization. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:23, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Tooironic, Chuck Entz I don't think I came up with the 'Chinese' header for pinyin on my own- I think I would have copy-pasted it from somewhere. But I wasn't paying close attention to that header because it wasn't the focus of my effort. I will use the Mandarin header as was stated here. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 06:29, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

lemma forms & pinyin[edit]

Hello! I want to do an edit of the page that looks like this: [21]. I feel like I am not doing it right because I don't have the correct theoretical understanding of lemma forms. If you have any suggestions or pointers about this edit, please make edits to that page according to your understanding. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:31, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looks OK to me. Just so you know, I rarely edit 字 entries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:11, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ok Thanks -- Noted --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:52, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure about the noun sense you added? If it's from Hanyu Da Cidian, it's a verb: 指 [ 祭祖 時 ]adverbial clause [ [ 焚化 ]verb [ 包封 好 的 紙錢 ]noun phrase ]verb phrase — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 03:55, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I misunderstood the definition. I've reverted the changes. Thank you for picking this up. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:59, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No worries! I'd misread it if I were skimming the definition, but the examples given make it more obvious that it's a verb. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 04:04, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

變得 possible SOP?[edit]

Drive-by comment-- Back in 2009, you made a page for 變得. But I don't see this presented as a word in 现代汉语词典第7版 on page 80, 现代汉语规范词典第3版 on page 76, 辞海第6版 page 153, jianbian, chongbian or zdic- why would they all skip it if they considered it a word? However, it does have an entry on zaojv. Regardless, to me there's no question that 'biànde' (no space) is a legitimate Pinyin- it appears in the Pinyin text in 普通话水平测试实施纲要 on page 355 and seems to comply with 《汉语拼音正词法基本规则》6.1.9.1. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:51, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I created that entry many years ago. I note it is only included in CC-CEDICT. It may be SoP. I don't have much of an opinion on it. ---> Tooironic (talk) 14:57, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thought on alternate forms of Hanyu Pinyin[edit]

Hello! I know you are big on Pinyin, and I was thinking about my reoccurring conflicts with other Wiktionary editors concerning Hanyu Pinyin when a solution came to mind. Why not show the alternate forms of Hanyu Pinyin on each Hanyu Pinyin page as we already do with Zhuyin Fuhao (and maybe also in the hidden part of the Template:zh-pron box)? For instance, it seems that there are three ways to write the Hanyu Pinyin for the ㄐㄧㄣ ˙ㄅㄨ ㄓㄨˋ pronunciation of 禁不住: one is "jīnbuzhù" ("lianxie" method), which is the way it is written in Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian (see 现代汉语规范词典第3版 page 686 "jīnbuzhù"). Another is "jīn˙buzhù" ("dotted" method), which is the way this word and all other words with a silent tone are handled in Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, Edition 7 (see 现代汉语词典第7版 page 677 "jīn˙buzhù"). Note that the "dotted" method is explicitly allowed for use in Mainland dictionaries per 《汉语拼音正词法基本规则》7.3条 (2012). A third method is "jīn ˙bu zhù" ("spaced" method), which is the way it is written in Xiandai Hanyu Cidian Trial Edition (and probably some other later versions) (see 现代汉语词典试用本 page 525 "jīn ˙bu zhù"). Note that, following the usage of spaces in left-right aligned Zhuyin Fuhao, the third "spaced" method seems to be followed for almost all words by 簡編 and 重編, a practice which renders 隔音符號 utterly useless. The "spaced" method was previously used for a lot of words in Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, but is now only used for a smaller number of entries. I would like to propose that somebody make a change to Template:cmn-pinyin such that in addition to displaying "jīnbuzhù" and "ㄐㄧㄣ ˙ㄅㄨ ㄓㄨˋ", our readers can also get an automatically generated or semi-automatically generated glimpse of the "dotted" and "spaced" alternative methods of writing Hanyu Pinyin- in this instance, "jīn˙buzhù" and "jīn ˙bu zhù". It sounds like a lot of programming work; the first attempt to do this kind of edit may result in a messy situation. But I can tell you that I will let you know if I see any unusual Hanyu Pinyin forms as I edit. I think this would make the dictionary stronger in that we are finding a way to encompass all of the officially sanctioned versions of Hanyu Pinyin. Just a passing thought- Merry Christmas! --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:40, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah, and the entries that have a dash in the middle of the Pinyin could be handled this way too. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:42, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind either way, just inform me when changes are made by community vote so I can adjust my edits accordingly. Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 15:19, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
 I will probably never get around to doing this, but I am thinking about it and I will let you know if I make any progress. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:06, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:39, 29 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I don't think the words in the thesaurus entry for 兒童早期教育學 are actually its synonyms. They seem to be synonyms of 兒童早期教育 instead. 兒童早期教育學 refers to the study of 兒童早期教育. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 02:36, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for picking up on this. I've made the necessary changes. Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:41, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks! — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 02:50, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, you've moved subj to sing form. However, that creates a problem in the Translations section: many of the translations are in fact in plural. Not sure what the way forward could be.Borovi4ok (talk) 17:15, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

 Done ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:12, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hey- if you have a moment, let me know what you think of this entry and the translations I gave for the examples. Thanks!!--Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:23, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid this goes beyond my expertise. I wonder though whether this only applies to Beijing dialect? What about Standard Mandarin, and the various other varieties of Mandarin? ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:07, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This definitely applies to Standard Mandarin, which bases its phonology on Beijing Mandarin. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 02:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Romanization[edit]

Months ago I contacted you about seeing some Hanyu Pinyin pages that had the header "Chinese" instead of "Mandarin". At the time, I couldn't give you an example that wasn't one that I had personally made. I just saw one today: zǔzhīxué. It was changed to Mandarin today. They are out there. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:36, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:42, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I found 7000 such entries. KevinUp (talk) 22:25, 5 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of 經濟裝 in entry 經濟[edit]

Hi. May I ask two questions? Does expression "economical pack" exist as far as you know personally? I guess the common expression in English would be "value pack", right? Thanks. Dokurrat (talk) 07:10, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we do have "value pack" in English. Sounds about right. "Economical pack" sounds strange. ---> Tooironic (talk) 14:08, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks! Dokurrat (talk) 14:22, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, 'value pack' is real. I think I have seen 'economy pack'. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:07, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Strange "A=A" situation in thesaurus entries[edit]

Hey- I love your synonym work. I would like to point out one potential problem that may already aware of. Because of the way Thesaurus:發牢騷 works, 吐槽 is listed as a synonym of itself on the 吐槽 page.

This is true for 怨嘆 and the other words too. I do not accept that a word can be legitimately called a synonym of itself, and I therefore object to including word 吐槽 under the heading for 'Synonyms' on the 吐槽 page.

This is not a big deal, and I can understand an argument for keeping 吐槽 in the synonyms box on the 吐槽 page. But I just wanted to let you know what I was feeling- 'Synonyms' can not be "A=A"- they are "A=B" (to me).

Whether or not my crazy 'problem' is resolved, keep going. It's a very minor complaint I'm making here.

--Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I noticed that too. I don't know how to fix it. It's a problem with the script. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:26, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Geographyinitiative: I've made some edits to the module to make it better at detecting this. The problem was that 吐槽 had some notes, but now it should be able to handle these cases. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 15:46, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks mate! ---> Tooironic (talk) 15:47, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No problem :D — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 15:51, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Choosing thesaurus entry names[edit]

Hi, I'm just wondering if you have any way to determine what you use for the thesaurus entry names? I find it odd for some of them, like Thesaurus:闡明 instead of Thesaurus:解釋 or Thesaurus:發牢騷 instead of Thesaurus:埋怨 or Thesaurus:抱怨. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 07:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I try to choose ones that don't have any other meanings or usages apart from the one being referred to in the thesaurus. Feel free to make any changes where you see fit. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:42, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. I feel like another thing to consider is how specific a word is. To me, 發牢騷 seems a little more particular than 埋怨. 埋怨 doesn't seem to have any other meaning and its usage is pretty broad (self and others), so it seems to be a better choice. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 17:22, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have tried my best but if you see areas for improvement please go ahead and make the necessary edits. As I'm sure you appreciate, it can be quite tricky at times. Having edited many synonyms entries, I have found that the line between a synonym, near-synonym and a related term can be very difficult to determine. I consult multiple dictionaries and thesauri, but they often do not agree with each other. My only rule that I have stuck to is to make sure that all the synonyms listed are of the same part of speech. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:16, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, synonyms are tricky. (Unfortunately, parts of speech are also tricky for Chinese.) It might be good to check thesauri to see what they use as the headword. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 02:25, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Will do. Thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:52, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hey- I'm thinking 就義 could potentially be added to zh-syn-saurus|死亡 but I'm not sure, so I thought I would see what you thought about it first. What do you think? Thanks --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:29, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:14, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I find 義薄雲天 difficult to translate into English, the reason being there doesn't seem to be a good English translation for the Chinese compound 義氣. Can you please suggest a better translation for 義薄雲天 than the crappy one we currently have? RcAlex36 (talk) 15:43, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a literal translation and fixed the grammar in the definition. That's all I can do for now. There is no equivalent for 義氣 in English, so it is not possible to provide a perfect translation. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:53, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

gloss at burning bush[edit]

Glosses like these (diff) are just asking for trouble down the road. Could you please clarify with a taxonomic name which (sub)definition you had in mind? ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 14:01, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Repeating the above request. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 13:19, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Community Insights Survey[edit]

RMaung (WMF) 14:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder: Community Insights Survey[edit]

RMaung (WMF) 19:14, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder: Community Insights Survey[edit]

RMaung (WMF) 17:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

need help?[edit]

with anything let me know. thnx Baozon90 (talk) 02:02, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How can you help? ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:04, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
With chinese enteries. Baozon90 (talk) 02:05, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Could you be more specific? There is no info about you on your user page, and none of your user contributions relate to Chinese. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:08, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How to download the whole list of available words for a certain language on the Wiktionnary, and the translation of all of them in some chosen languages ?[edit]

Hi everyone,

What I'm trying to do is the following: 1) choose a language, 2) obtain a list of all words in this language (that have a definition and translations on the Wiktionnary), 3) download the list of these words as well as the list of all the translations of each of these, 4) repeat this for other languages, so as to create bilingual lists for selected languages (French-spanish, English-german, arabic-hebrew, ...).

Thank you so much for your help, I have been struggling so much to try and find how to proceed ...

Best,

You are using the wrong space character[edit]

diff DTLHS (talk) 02:56, 24 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hey- I just wanted to let you know that I do not recommend the methodology you are employing on the Dengzhou page. In my opinion, the etymologies should be split like on the Hongshan page. If you just don't have the time to do it right now, that's fine, but I just want to confirm that you wouldn't think all the definitions on the Hongshan page should be subsumed into one etymology. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:54, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I just didn't have time to do it myself. Feel free to make the changes if you are free. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:56, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thesaurus:幫兇[edit]

Thesaurus_talk:幫兇#Split_into_"同伙"_and_"走狗". Since you're the one who created this entry, and the only contributor, I think maybe I should notify you. ZypA13510 (talk) 04:33, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads up. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:44, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey

Can you please unprotect the page event. N00bs like me can't edit it, and I want to add a Shakespeare quote to the page --Alsowalks (talk) 10:58, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And the page cool, also protected --Alsowalks (talk) 10:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just wondering: is 學家学家 an actual compound? Compounds like 經濟學家经济学家 (jīngjìxuéjiā) should be decomposed as X學 + 家, not X + 學家, and it seems to me that 藝術史學家艺术史学家 (yìshù shǐxuéjiā) is 藝術史學艺术史学 + (jiā), not 藝術史艺术史 (yìshùshǐ) + 學家学家. RcAlex36 (talk) 03:47, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I think 學家学家 should be deleted. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 07:40, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Good spot. Yes, I don't think 學家 is a word. It is not in any of the major dictionaries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:16, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tumxuk pronunciation[edit]

Hey- in your 2016 creation of the Tumxuk page, you made a pronunciation request. I actually did find a New York Times article describing the pronunciation of this word. "(pronounced TUM-shook)" [22] Is this good enough to be able to generate an IPA pronunciation from? I don't know how to do it. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:28, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Geographyinitiative: I'm not sure, but it'd be something like /ˈtʌm.ʃʊk/, although I'm not sure about the vowels. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 18:22, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have not learnt IPA before, so I'm afraid I can't help. That's why I put the request in. ---> Tooironic (talk) 21:38, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

大空[edit]

Do you think 假大空 can be count as a derived term of 大空? even though 大空 is in 假大空 but 假大空 is a combination of 假,大,and 空? Shen233 (talk) 03:50, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, 假大空 is short for 假話/假话 (jiǎhuà) + 大話/大话 (dàhuà) + 空話/空话 (kōnghuà). ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:52, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That’s what I thought, thanks Shen233 (talk) 03:53, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

紅人[edit]

Hi! Back in 2009, you defined 紅人 as "fair-haired person". Many dictionaries have "fair-haired boy", which means "someone who is liked by a person who has power or influence, and who is therefore likely to be successful" [23]. But it seems no dictionary other than Wiktionary suggests that 紅人 can mean "a person who has fair hair", which is the only thing "fair-haired person" can mean, as far as I'm aware. Richwarm88 (talk) 23:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have adjusted the senses in order of frequency of usage. The first two are certainly the most common. "Fair-haired person" is my mistake. I have edited it out now. Thanks for spotting it. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:07, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

zhǐdào for 指導?[edit]

I came across the reading zhǐdào in the Chinese Wiktionary, the simplified version of 指導 in particular. What kind of reading is it?

(An unrelated topic: I happened upon the terms 蒙驢拉磨, which I added to as an example phrase, and 蒙驢.) --Apisite (talk) 09:55, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Justinrleung How about you? --Apisite (talk) 12:58, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Apisite: I don't think we should include zhǐdào unless it's common. It's probably used by some southerners due to dialectal influence but I don't know if it's common enough. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 18:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Apisite: I have not come across that reading before. We do include variant readings, but they need to be common and systemic, e.g. 室 read as shǐ is common, especially among Northerners, despite being non-standard, and can be found in any of the compound terms like 辦公室, 教室. etc. Do you have any sources/evidence for this reading? ---> Tooironic (talk) 19:56, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

Hey, I wanted to alert you that I found at least one translation with Hanyu Pinyin that read 什 as shen where it should be shi. [24] Don't know if this could have been a systematic problem. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 07:38, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We need a reliable source on whether locals pronounce it Ātúshí or Ātúshén. I saw both transcriptions on the WWW. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:59, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Where have you seen Ātúshén? It should be shí in most place names. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 23:20, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Google Books: "The same method could be used in several places to the north of the Tian Shan as well as in the Haerjun basin near Artux (Atushen) County in southwestern Xlnjiang." "A good deal of coins of the period of Kala Khan were unearthed in Atushen." Are they wrong? ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, these are English sources, so it's very likely they made a mistake, especially since shén is used in common word 什麼. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 03:39, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:47, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Erhua[edit]

@Tooironic, Justinrleung Is there a good list of Mandarin erhua words around? Also, where can I check whether a particular word can be erhua-ed in Standard Mandarin? Thanks! RcAlex36 (talk) 12:36, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Did you try Googling around? I'm not aware of any particular studies, but I'm sure they exist. Erhuayin words considered standard in Putonghua tend to be included in dictionaries like the Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian, however many common regional and dialectal words won't be included. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:50, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@RcAlex36: Xiandai Hanyu Cidian is probably a better source for erhua in Standard Mandarin because it shows whether a word can be optionally erhua-ed. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 14:47, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

unprotect event[edit]

Hi. As the only admin online at the moment, can you please unprotect event? I'm planning on doing some amazing work on the page. --Java Beauty (talk) 12:42, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We sent you an e-mail[edit]

Hello Tooironic,

Really sorry for the inconvenience. This is a gentle note to request that you check your email. We sent you a message titled "The Community Insights survey is coming!". If you have questions, email surveys@wikimedia.org.

You can see my explanation here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:48, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Word of the day[edit]

Hey, on the main page I was wondering how to make it for even more days. I wanted to apply it to another wiki because I won't be there all the time to add another word of the day.

Hey- way back in 2017, you made the page for Kaifeng- thanks for doing that work. The etymology you provided at that time was not correct because it assumed that the Hanyu Pinyin system had generated the word Kaifeng. In fact, the word was already in existence before World War II (see the new example I have added to the page). I would like to urge caution on this front when an etymology is written in the future, and ask you to check to make sure English language loan words from Mandarin Chinese are confirmably Hanyu Pinyin derived. It may seem silly, but if a word existed before Hanyu Pinyin, then the word is not derived from Hanyu Pinyin. The opposite is true: Zhou Youguang used the systems that existed at that time to craft the Hanyu Pinyin system, a system that wouldn't be used until decades later. It would be more correct to say that the word Kaifeng led to Hanyu Pinyin than the opposite. Historical revisionist etymology viewed from the "Hanyu Pinyin is de facto Chinese" mindset is 1984 territory because it interferes with the accurate understanding of the origin of words. Thanks for your work. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:56, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for picking up on this. In the absence of peer-reviewed scholarly research, I think it is preferable to format transcriptions like we do at Chongqing, which does not mention anything about pinyin. In my opinion, the most important question is the language (Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Nan, etc.) the word derives from, not the romanization scheme it happens to be written in. ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:01, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, what a refreshing reply! That was awesome. I would like to make two further comments on what you have said.
1) I agree that as a general principle, it is correct to be vague in an etymology and just say which language a word is derived from. I also agree that "the most important question is the language (Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Nan, etc.) the word derives from" and not the romanization system.
2) You wrote "In the absence of peer-reviewed scholarly research" we might have trouble determining where a word/spelling came from. There is a way to get a pretty solid idea of where a Mandarin derived loan word came from into English. In the case of Chongqing in particular, I speculate that, with a little research, we would likely be able to say with great certainty that the word "Chongqing" originated with Hanyu Pinyin. My method of verification would be as follows: 1) What is the postal romanization names (and variants), Wade-Giles names (and variants), and archaic (and variants) names for 'Chongqing'? If they are all different from Chongqing, then... 2) What is the earliest use of the word 'Chongqing' on archive.org? Without looking, I would guess that the earliest usage will be somewhere around 1978. There may be some fancy pants Communist literature from the 1950s that uses the word, but I doubt it. 3) Once we see no confirmed instances of the word 'Chongqing' before 1950, and we know that the other systems could not have produced 'Chongqing', then we can say with reasonable certainty that the spelling 'Chongqing' not only originated with Mandarin, but is almost certain to be Hanyu Pinyin derived, even in the absence of peer-reviewed scholarly research. Let me know if this methodology is flawed, but it seems to work pretty well. (It gets a little more complex with Taiwan.) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:14, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(If you go through this process with Kaifeng, you either realize Kaifeng is derived from an earlier romanization system on step 1, or you discover that it existed before 1950 on step 2.) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:17, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. Jiayou! ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:20, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Geographyinitiative: I think that's pretty good in general. We should probably keep a list of romanizations to check somewhere to be absolutely sure we've been exhaustive (at least within our bounds). — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 02:22, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The whole area I'm interested in with respect to these words is treated as something no interesting person would ever study. It's not because that's actually true, it's actually because the real answer is politically inconvenient for Hanyu Pinyin only ideology. Well I reject that. I'm interested in these loan words and their origins and I will restore sanity on where these damn words came from. Who better to restore sanity than a crazy man? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In case you think I'm accusing anyone- I'm not. Wiktionary is just growing. You can see me making the same mistake that was made with Kaifeng two years later on the Hunchun page. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:07, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I was just wondering would you be able to clean up and/or expand the Chinese section of this entry? Just happened to notice an anon edit that entry while skimming through RecentChanges. User: The Ice Mage talk to meh 15:47, 9 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, this is beyond my expertise. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:56, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I see, that's unfortunate. Perhaps you know someone else to ping regarding this? User: The Ice Mage talk to meh 10:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Justinrleung. If he doesn't know, he knows someone who knows. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@The Ice Mage, Chuck Entz, I've cleaned it up. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 13:56, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Justinrleung I see, thanks. :) User: The Ice Mage talk to meh 14:00, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

玩忽職守: Really idiom?[edit]

I'd like to ask if "玩忽職守" is really an idiom? After all, not all Chinese words with 4 characters are idioms. Also, what is the etymology of the term, if it is really an idiom (like the case of 守株待兔)?廣九直通車 (talk) 09:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it's an idiom. It's included in the guifan cidian. ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:21, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If we use Oxford's definition of "idiom" ("a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words"), it's debatable that 玩忽職守 can be considered an idiom, because 玩忽 means "to neglect" and 職守 means "duty", while 玩忽職守 seems to be pretty much "to neglect one's duty". 玩忽職守 is not labeled as an idiom in most dictionaries that include it, whereas 守株待兔 is so labeled in many dictionaries. For example, ABC labels 玩忽職守 as a "v.o" (verb + object) and 守株待兔 as an "id." (idiom). Richwarm88 (talk) 00:11, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For Chinese entries we do not go by that criterion. It would entail the deletion of thousands of entries that are otherwise included in published Chinese monolingual dictionaries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:44, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't mention anything that relates to inclusion or deletion of an entry. The issue is labeling, not inclusion/deletion. 廣九直通車, in creating the entry for 玩忽職守, labeled it a "verb", then you changed the label to "idiom", then 廣九直通車 questioned that change. Nobody has suggested deleting the entry. It's only the label that is being queried. Your explanation for the "idiom" label was that 玩忽職守 is in Guifan Cidian, but of course not everything in that dictionary should be labeled "idiom". — Richwarm88 (talk) 03:23, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If labeling is the issue, they are currently labelled as idioms. The "chengyu" category is then added for chengyus.

Can you identify the word on this licence plate?[edit]

https://imcdb.org/i004530.jpg

I tried to do it myself, but I gave up. —(((Romanophile))) (contributions) 10:07, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

九一七六 9176 --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:58, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pinyin Suggestion[edit]

Hey Tooironic. I remember that you were one of the users behind having pinyin entries. I want to suggest that the way that the pinyin is blue-linked on the Zengdu page (in the etymology and the translation sections) is much more helpful the way the pinyin appears on the Zhangzi page. If you like the way Zengdu appears, it might be a good idea to make this automatic or standard throughout Wiktionary. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:35, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please refrain from editing like this? That is not standard practice on the English Wiktionary currently. If you want changes to be made, you will need to convince the community through a vote and find someone who can enact the changes automatically by script. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:15, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

星梨[edit]

Hi Tooironic, I think you made this entry a while back. Do you remember where you got this word from? I can't find it in any of my Min Nan resources. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 16:43, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'm guessing you got this from the translation table of star fruit? It seems like @Hinthar added this in this diff. The romanization given with this is clearly not for 星梨, but for 楊桃. I will RFV this. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 16:47, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think that is right. Thank you for picking up on this. And sorry for my mistake. ---> Tooironic (talk) 20:51, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No worries! — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 21:01, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For these two, I think 北極+圈 and 北極+光 are more likely. @Justinrleung, what do you think? RcAlex36 (talk) 10:46, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 13:14, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Probably best we provide a source for that since both are possible. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:15, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphens in chengyu pinyin[edit]

Hi Tooironic, I'm not sure why you're adding hyphens in the pinyin of chengyu entries. We have decided long ago not to have hyphens in chengyu. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 04:37, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Both the Xiandai hanyu guifan cidian and the Xiandai hanyu cidian use hyphens when the chengyu is made up of two components (not for every chengyu). I wasn't aware we voted to never include commas. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:41, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There's no formal vote (I think you mean to never include hyphens), but it has been decided long ago. I guess you forgot what was decided (for example just above in #Hyphens in chengyu, and I think we did have subsequent discussions on this, like Talk:興高采烈, Talk:光輝燦爛). I think you need to write it down somewhere where you won't forget. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 04:51, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for reminding me. I won't add them in the future. Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:15, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks! — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 06:15, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, just a reminder that we're not using hyphens in chengyu. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 00:44, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I forgot about this again. Thank you for going to the trouble of reverting those entries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:29, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, but please do try to remember! — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 22:13, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How we will see unregistered users[edit]

Hi!

You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.

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Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.

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We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.

Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

The traditional form of this word is 黃禍論 while the simplified form is 黄祸论, which are pages already existing on this wiki. Since 黄禍論 mixes simplified and traditional forms while also being on the User:Matthias_Buchmeier/en-ja-y list, I assumed it was Japanese shinjitai and created the page accordingly. But I don't know if the word is first coined in Japanese or Chinese. --Kakurady (talk) 22:39, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for picking up that typo. I have removed it from the page. It is obviously an incorrect form. Sorry, I have no idea about the etymology. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Labelling character definitions as literary[edit]

Hi, I have observed that you have been labelling many definitions on single-character pages as "literary or in compounds". I was wondering what your basis for this is, because in many cases, I would think it probably isn't literary (either because it was never used in literary Chinese or because it is still used as a free morpheme in Standard Chinese). — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 05:59, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I only add that tag to hanzi for sense that are not used independently in Standard Chinese (e.g., collocated with objects, adverbs, etc.). This is important information, as without it gives the false impression that the sense can be readily used by itself. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:07, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You labelled the "dance (performance art); dancing" sense with "literary or in compounds" in this edit when it can clearly be used independently in Standard Chinese. I observe that you often indiscriminately apply the label to characters that are clearly free morphemes. It is best that you do not use the label at all, or follow mainstream monolingual dictionaries when applying the literary label. RcAlex36 (talk) 06:13, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain to me how can be used by itself. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:43, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
跳一個舞, as shown in the entry now. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 06:50, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E8%B7%B3%E4%BA%86%E4%B8%80%E6%94%AF%E8%88%9E%22&rlz=1C5CHFA_enHK985HK985&tbm=bks&ei=VTHFYsuzLtuz2roPn7-pyAw&start=0&sa=N&ved=2ahUKEwiLsqvg1uP4AhXbmVYBHZ9fCsk4MhDy0wN6BAgLED0&biw=1440&bih=670&dpr=2 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22%E8%B7%B3%E4%B8%80%E6%94%AF%E8%88%9E%22&rlz=1C5CHFA_enHK985HK985&tbm=bks&sxsrf=ALiCzsYngoBPq_TO-6BL9Q6HQ5G3mLwbwA:1657090485996&ei=tTHFYtarPN3M2roPv9-1mAc&start=100&sa=N&ved=2ahUKEwiW2pyO1-P4AhVdplYBHb9vDXM4PBDy0wN6BAgBEFA&biw=1440&bih=670&dpr=2RcAlex36 (talk) 06:55, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
跳舞 is a compound though. That's why we include it, as do other dictionaries. Thus: "literary or in compounds". But then again we do say "這個舞" without the 跳. So now I understand that I was mistaken in this case. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:08, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
These are kind of separable compounds that are not great for testing boundedness. The fact that you can add classifiers to the object (e.g. 跳一支舞) would be enough to say that the object of this "compound" is quite free. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 07:40, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Tooironic: It is unclear to me how you determine independence in Standard Chinese. I know you are an advanced speaker, but I think many of the entries where you have put this tag are not quite accurate. Most words need to be put in a context, so there might be an impression of being bounded. However, that does not mean they are really not used independently. Also, I think "literary" should be checked more carefully. Not all senses that are "only in compounds" are literary. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 06:17, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Can you give me an example? By literary, I mean 書面語 basically, or 文言文. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:43, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
書面語 and 文言文 are quite different. The definitions you labelled on as literary are not literary in the sense of 文言文. I would not label 書面語 as literary. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 06:53, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary has never had one set definition for "literary", and we don't indicate the difference between 書面語 and 文言文 on here. Regardless, we should indicate if a particular sense is high register. That's useful information. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:08, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Formal" is how I would label something that is 書面語 (i.e. something that is in Standard Chinese but only usually written). That should be distinguished from 文言文 (non-白話文). — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 07:22, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

-n -ng Nondifferentiation[edit]

Hello- I have found some English-language loan words derived form Mandarin which I interpret as misspellings: 'Kuomingtang', 'Xingjiang', 'Jingsha', 'Guandong', 'Jin'an', and such. I want to create a template for Usage Notes sections that can be used for misspellings like these, likely specifically discussing -n & -ng nondifferentiation, along the lines of the Usage Notes sections at Hu'nan, Ji'nan, and Sijian'gou. Would you be willing to write something up or give me some advice on what I might write? See also Talk:Kuomingtang. Thanks for any help. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 18:06, 22 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that would be necessary. AFAIK we don't add usage notes for misspellings on the English Wiktionary. Non-Chinese misspell pinyin all the time (well, so do Chinese too). In particular, you see "Xi Jingping" and "Xingjiang" a lot. They would need to be attested though. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:56, 23 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. See Portugese#Usage_notes for another instance where I have done this. I just feel that a giving the reader an explanation, if there be one, for common misspellings could be a significant aid to the reader. We see that 现代汉语规范词典 goes out of its way to tell its readers about the common pronunciation mistakes that come up. If you can kind of give people a hint about why someone else or why they themselves are having trouble spelling a word, it provides help to the reader that seems in keeping with the "Wiktionary has grown beyond a standard dictionary" Wiktionary:Main_Page feel of Wiktionary. Thanks for your time and work! --Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:12, 23 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. But I feel like you'd be opening a can of worms. There are just so many miswritten/mispoken words of foreign origin in English. It seems like a lot of work to write usage notes for them for little benefit. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:04, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
IMO this information is more like an etymology than a usage note, but I don't see anything wrong with including it in an entry. I've seen Shenzhen misspelled as Shenzen before. To a non-Chinese speaker it's not obvious why this mistake is common, so if we had an entry for the Shenzen misspelling, an explanation that many southerners have trouble distinguishing the "zh" and "z" sounds would be informative. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:33, 23 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also found this tidbit interesting and wouldn't mind seeing it in an entry. 98.170.164.88 02:11, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese links[edit]

Hey. Could you fix some of these links, many of which you made? Cheers It is probably (talk) 17:25, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fix in what way? ---> Tooironic (talk) 21:41, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

VO compounds[edit]

I see that you have been adding this to many entries, but I don't think any of them are VO compounds. What are you thinking of when you're adding these? — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 03:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've been reading 《动词用法词典》 by 孟琼. Those entries are notated with // between the pinyin syllables. Which ones do you think are not VO? ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
出來, 出去, 得到, 超過. I think these are verb-complement instead. — justin(r)leung (t...) | c=› } 07:11, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for picking these up. I'll be more careful in the future. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Technical terms in Chinese[edit]

Hello I see that you’ve been adding many technical terms in Chinese (e.g. legal, finance, medical ones) Could you please label these as {{lb|zh|Mainland China}} where appropriate? Often these terms have different translations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, so the current way you put it is somewhat misleading. – Wpi (talk) 05:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do if I notice a regional difference. Please make changes if I miss anything. Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:34, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]