Reading my book

[muyongshi]

小姑娘 is one that is hard to put a specific age on....It can refer to a child or a teenager or even a young woman. It all depends on the context and who is saying it.

[Altair]

It's difficut for me to distinguish when 得 is used in an adverbial construction or in an resultative construction.

Could anyone explain to me how to discern one from the other?

I think the problem here is with English, rather than with Chinese. Maybe I can improve on your Chinglish.

他吃得很飽: Him eating, achieved very full. In his eating, he achieved a state of being full. He ate to fullness. He ate himself full.

and

他吃得很快 = Him eating, achieved very fast. In his eating, he achieved a state of being very fast. He ate to a point of speeding. He ate speedily.

The link between the two structures is the idea of getting to a certain state.

You should also note that the structure 他吃得很快 does not really describe the manner of eating. To focus on "manner," I think you would say something like 他很快地吃饭. English has only one common structure to cover both meanings, but the Chinese sentences emphasize different things and are not quite the same in meaning. The first one is more objective and describes the outward circumstances. The second one is more subjective and includes the intention of the person doing the action.

[SeekerOfPeace]

It's generous of you all to chip in and try to explain:mrgreen:.

To be frank, however, I still don't feel 100% confident as to the functions of 得。

I guess I'll have no choice to get a book on the subject.

Here's another sentence from my book:

Sentence A:

"太阳火辣辣的，可是他浑身打着冷战。"

"The sun was hot, however he was shivering from head to toe."

I don't get: 打着 in this sentence. What does it mean?

And just to make sure:

B: "汤姆不能再走了。"

Tom couldn't leave/ It was impossible for Tom to leave."

Is that right?

C: "他肚子里空空的，人觉得要呕吐。"

"His stomach was empty, he felt like throwing up."

Is that ok? I'm wondering what the exactly is the purpose of 人 in this sentence.

[skylee]

For sentence A, take a look at this -> 打冷战

For sentence B, my guess (not knowing the context) is that it means "Tom is not able to go on walking any more".

For sentence C, 人 refers to the "he" at the beginning of the sentence. It can be omitted, but sometimes we write like this.

[SeekerOfPeace]

For sentence A, take a look at this -> 打冷战

For sentence B, my guess (not knowing the context) is that it means "Tom is not able to go on walking any more".

For sentence C, 人 refers to the "he" at the beginning of the sentence. It can be omitted, but sometimes we write like this.

I see, thanks!

In the following sentence:

"他倒在地上一动不动，过了许久，他才歪歪斜斜的爬起来，慢慢走到一个个村的门口。"

Now, it's been explained that 起来 can both mean to wake up and jump up.

Would I be right to say that: 爬起来 means to get back on your feet?

EDIT:

Since we're on the topic:

“女孩子哭起来，男孩子哈哈大笑，很不礼貌的向他指指点点。”

Does it mean that the little girl "cried in surprise". She was so surprised she started crying? Would that mean that 起来 is sometimes used to imply abruptness?

"指指点点"

My dictionary tells me that 指 means point accusingly... I'm thus having a hard time the rest of the sentence.

[gougou]

“女孩子哭起来，男孩子哈哈大笑，很不礼貌的向他指指点点。”

Does it mean that the little girl "cried in surprise". She was so surprised she started crying? Would that mean that 起来 is sometimes used to imply abruptness?

Here 起来 means "to start to"; so your sentence would be ”The girl started to cry."

[imron]

起来 can refer to any upwards movement, so by itself, it doesn't mean jump up. The "jump" came from the verb 跳.

In this case 起来 is preceded by the verb 爬, which means to crawl/climb, and in this context 过了许久, 他才歪歪斜斜的爬起来 would mean something like "after a long time, he finally dragged himself to his feet"

Regarding your second question, 起来 also has the meaning of "beginning some action", so 女孩子哭起来 means "the girl started crying", and has nothing to do with being surprised.

[skylee]

Regarding 起來, this might help -> http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%b0%5f&category=wholerecord

36. 起來 [qi3lai2], (1) v.i., get up from bed; v.i., get up, arise; (2) vb. suffix, up: 拿起來 take up; vb. 扛起來 carry up on shoulder; vb. 撿 (拈) 起來 pick up; vb. has meaning of “when” or “done”: 唱起來很好聽 sounds beautiful when sung, or when s.o. sings; vb. 走起來不方便 (a dress) is not easy for walking or when walking (too tight); vb. 看起來事情不妙 it seems (“when seen”) we are in for some trouble, this matter will not be pretty; vb. 說起來話長 it's a long story to tell (when told).

Also this -> http://cdict.giga.net.tw/?q=%B0_%A8%D3

起來

beginning or continuing an action

upward movement

stand up

Regarding 指指點點, it can mean this -> http://www.baidu.com/baidu?ie=gb2312&ct=1048576&cl=3&word=%D6%B8%D6%B8%FCc%FCc

It can also mean 説長道短/説三道四 -> http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/chengyu/dictionary/detail/22324.html

[SeekerOfPeace]

Ahhh... Now I get it.

Ok, I think I'm getting better at this:

"汤姆刚一出现，那些孩子看见汤姆又脏又黑的样子，全都吓坏了。"

Tom appeared, the kids saw him dirty and black, and they were all startled.

My question is: 又 means again or and.

In the example above:

a. Is my translation correct? Be difficult. If it's not perfect, I want to be corrected.

b.

About: 又， 和， 也.

和： links two nouns.

又： links two adjectives? Would it be right to say that?

也： links two verbs.

Is that right? If it's not right, I'll search some more in the forum for more examples.

One last thing:

"... 一点也不乎。"

For 乎 my dictionary only says: "oh" so I'm kind of confused as to what it means.

Does that mean that I have a rather incomplete dictionary? I seem to be missing a lot words.

I don't know the name of my dictionary as I bought it in China but it's there:

http://www.eebbk.com/

Anyone know if there's a way to add dictionaries/entries in my dictionary?

[skylee]

The word is 在乎. Take a look -> http://dict.cn/big5/search/?q=%A6b%A5G

1. 我一點也不在乎。

I don't give a damn.

As to the pattern 又 ... 又 ..., it means "both... and...". Take a look -> http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%a4%53&category=wholerecord

Conj.

oft. 又…又…：又高又大 big and tall;

又聾又啞 both deaf and mute;

又冷又下雨 it's cold and raining;

又饑又渴 both hungry and thirsty.

The translation is ok.

[skylee]

You might wish to make use of the on-line resources listed in this thread to facilitate your study -> A list of online Chinese-English dictionaries

[SeekerOfPeace]

That's great!

As it turns out, you were right.

The whole sentence was:

"可是汤姆太疲倦了，一点也不乎。"

"However Tom was too tired, he didn't really care."

I'd rather use my hand held dictionary as it's more convenient rather than read next to the computer, which really isn't all that comfortable and browing the net every time I don't know a word.

The main problem with my handheld dictionary is that it's missing a lot of expressions with two characters, like 指指.

I wish I could get those online dictionaries into my handheld, that would be perfect.

Thanks, Skylee.

[skylee]

The main problem with my handheld dictionary is that it's missing a lot of expressions with two characters, like 指指

Well the expression is actually "指指點點", not "指指".

It's disappointing that you prefer an inadequate dictionary (I assume it is inadequate based on the questions you asked).

[SeekerOfPeace]

Well it's not that bad really. I mean, it does have the words/expressions I'm looking for 80% of the time.

Another question, an easy one:

"我吃不下。"

Does it mean I don't want to eat anymore? I'm following my intuition on this one.

And some more translation:

"上帝保佑！你没有偷什么东西吧？"

God bless you! You didn't steal anything did you?

“没有”

No, I didn't.

“上帝保佑！如果不是上帝指引他，谁听说这种事情呢？”

God bless you! If God didn't lead you here, who has ever heard of this kind of thing?"

I don't think the sentence in bold makes sense in my translation, but I'd like to know where I've made a mistake.

[muyongshi]

If you think of it more as "god help us" it might help in how you think about it. It's not the actual translation but it gives it the right meaning of being an exclamatory.

I would translate the sentence like this: If it wasn't for God directing him, who would have ever thought of it?

Now obviously I'm trying to translate more by meaning than by words...

[Lu]

"我吃不下。"

Does it mean I don't want to eat anymore? I'm following my intuition on this one.

Yes. 'eating but doesn't go down'

[SeekerOfPeace]

You're all making me progress much faster in learning Chinese.

I have another question. There's a sentence in my book which went something like this, if I remember correctly, I don't have my book at hand right now.

他现在吃。

Which means:

"He's eating."

But how would I translate:

他正在吃。

Would I translate it the same way?

I guess what I'm really asking is the difference between 现在 and 正在。

I've searched the forum for: xianzai and 现在 but couldn't find any useful threads.

[skylee]

I think 他現在吃 sounds strange (not knowing the context).

[SeekerOfPeace]

So do I but why is that?

[muyongshi]

I wonder if you read 他现在在吃 in which case there is no difference really between the usage of 正在 and 在. The former adds a bit more emphasis to the exactness of time but not much other than that.