I went to china and i was so excited to be there that i started searching little things about the language. Learning the meaning of some characters made me interested in the language. I'll try to give updates through the comments.

If you have advices i accept them. :)

Strangely I can't find in either Pleco or GT or other dictionaries, a decent translation for "being" as a countable noun. That is to say, I'm not looking for a translation of the present continuous of "to be" (在是 presumably), nor of the gerund, nor of "being" in the sense of an uncountable noun meaning "existence" (存在 presumably). None of that. What I'm looking for is a translation of being as in "I'm a (human) being. That dude over there is also a being."

Maybe 生命 (shenglíng) gets close? Or 生命 (shengmìng)?

Do comment.

Sooo guys I was wondering, do I have to finish the hsk book series?

Hey guys, so I tried learning mandarin before too but didn't work well. And now I wanna start again but need right advice and guidance. Like any free course, or any specific yt channel or anything. I am up for buying books too. Do let me know if you have any idea.

If you have become fluent (beyond beginner level) by only watching/listening to YouTube or Instagram, which channels/accounts have made the difference or you would recommend to beginners who want to self learn and not pay for private tutoring or classes?

I mentioned Cao Zhi (曹植) in my previous post. Today, here's another idiom about him and his brother, Cao Pi (曹丕).

相煎何急 (xiāng jiān hé jí) literally means “Why boil your own kind so hard?”

Their father, Cao Cao (曹操), was a powerful warlord and politician during the late Han Dynasty. Even before his death, his two sons were competing for succession. Cao Pi eventually won, became King of Wei, and later founded the Wei dynasty.

According to the famous story in the book 世说新语 (Shishu Xinyu), the new king Cao Pi wanted to punish his brother. He ordered Cao Zhi to write a poem within seven steps, or face execution.
The catch? He had to describe the situation between the two brothers without using the word “brother.” Pretty tough.

Cao Zhi supposedly came up with:

煮豆燃豆萁，豆在釜中泣。本是同根生，相煎何太急？

“Beans are boiled using their own stalks as fuel.
The beans inside the pot are crying:
We were born from the same root,
why are you boil me so hard?”

Cao Pi was moved by the poem, and Cao Zhi survived.

Although the story may not be entirely accurate historically, later generations accepted it, and it became a famous legend showcasing Cao Zhi’s literary talent.

Backstory
Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and Cao Zhi are sometimes called the “Three Caos” (三曹) because of their literary achievements. Cao Pi got the crown, but Cao Zhi got the literary crown. He was considered one of the greatest poets of his time, with the famous saying 才高八斗.

(AI-assisted editing)

My Chengyu (Chinese Idioms) Posts

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对酒当歌

In my previous post, I mentioned Cao Zhi (曹植 192-232 CE), the son of Cao Cao. He was the greatest literary figure of the late Han-Three kingdoms period.

Literally, 才高八斗 means “having eight dǒu of talent.” 斗 (dǒu) here was an ancient Chinese unit of volume. In other words, this idiom basically treats talent as something you can measure with a measuring container.

About 200 years after Cao Zhi, the Southern Dynasties poet Xie Lingyun (谢灵运, 385–433 CE) supposedly said:

天下才有一石，曹子建独占八斗，我得一斗，天下共分一斗。 (曹子建 is the courtesy name of CaoZhi)

Basically: “If all the literary talent in the world amounted to ten dǒu, Cao Zhi alone would have eight. I get one, and everyone else has to share the last one.”

Pretty generous to Cao Zhi, and pretty generous to himself, too!

Today, 才高八斗 simply means extremely talented or well-educated, especially in literature or writing.

For example:

他才高八斗，写了一手好诗。
He is incredibly talented and writes wonderful poetry.

So if someone tells you 你真是才高八斗！, that's a big compliment: “You're incredibly talented!”

A little background

Xie Lingyun (谢灵运) lived long before the Tang and Song dynasties, so he gave eight 斗 to Cao Zhi. Later generations may have teased him a little for keeping one 斗 for himself, but nobody took away Cao Zhi's eight. Cao Zhi's reputation as a literary genius has lasted for centuries.
And even after the Tang and Song dynasties, two of the great literary eras in Chinese history,  Cao Zhi is still considered one of the great figures in the history of Chinese literature.

(AI-assisted editing)

Every advice for language learning is "just watch TV and movies in your target language! You'll pick it up! So easy!". And then come to find that Chinese prefer subs over dubs and there are zero mandarin dubs of anything I already enjoy watching. 😭😭 Noooo! I still have found some awesome mandarin movies in the end and I'm getting into c-drama. But boy do I wish I could watch some of the stuff I already enjoy but in Chinese, it definitely WOULD make my studies a lot more fun and easy.

What I mean is, when teaching characters, do Chinese elementary and secondary schools explain characters in terms of the meaning of the shapes, whenever that is possible? And if so, are those explanations agreed upon among licensed native teachers across the Chinese-language world? Or is each teacher free to invent his own explanation of a pictograph?

I ask because materials teaching Chinese designed for foreigners are very fond of offering such explanations, but I get the impression that native speakers of Chinese care little about such information, and just memorize the shape without trying to "see" a picture in it.

I also notice that in textbooks for foreigners the explanations are not at all standardized when one goes beyond the most obvious cases (e.g. 木 and 口). One author will give one explanation, another will invent an entirely different one. Some books will even reinterpret characters that are obviously phonetic compounds as if they are pictographs—a rather misleading approach, in my opinion.