Sentence database

[calibre2001]

Can someone help with the meaning of 易名為 in the sentence below? I don't quite get the meaning from the given translation. Thanks!

我已邀請M. G. 威爾士先生加入我公司，在他的合作下敝公司易名為——約翰遜與威爾士。

I have taken into partnership with Mr. M. G. Wells, and with his cooperation will carry on this business under the style of - Johnson &Wells.

[HashiriKata]

易名為 literally is: change (易) name (名) to become (為). So, 敝公司易名為... means "this company will be known/named as..."

[Capitalist]

@OP

I have also read through AJATT. You are aware that Khatz recommends SRSing hanzi through the heisig method first, right? No stance taken, correcting possible misconception.

[calibre2001]

Patterns of the day (compiled from older threads)

1)對于..而言 / 就..而言

對于我 而言, 北京比廣州要好得多 - formal

就我而言，北京比廣州要好得多 - less formal and colloquail

As far as I'm concerned, Beijing is much better than Guangzhou.

對我來説，北京比廣州要好得多 - less formal and colloquail

For me, Beijing is much better than Guangzhou.

就教育而言，中國排在世界前列。

In terms of education, China ranks high in the world.

2)為已任

瑞安市春余機械廠自創建以來始終以發展中國包裝機械事業為已任。

Since its establishment, Ruian Chunyu Machinery Plant permanently takes it as its own responsibility and the center of leading research to develop new package equipment and Chinese package machinery.

Techinical explaination: (把 ……) (作)爲(自)己(的責)任 - take something as one's own responsibility

3)以便

我們要做英文練習以便學好英語

We do English exercises so that we learn good English

4)簡而言之

簡而言之，和父母有很大的關系。

In other words, parents do matter.

5)代之以

他們不喜歡土豆，所以我們代之以大米。

They do not like potatoes , so we replaced it with rice

6)以...為目的。

你永遠應該以搞好你的工作為目的。

You should do your job with the intention of doing well.

7)以...為...

他們以我為領袖

他們把我當領袖 (alternate form)

They made me as leader

及時

還好我及時趕到，救了他一命。

Fortunately I came just in time and saved his life.

9)因而

路面積雪很大，人手又不夠，因而影響了交通。

The snow on the road is very heavy, and we were short-handed, such that

it effected the traffic.

10)相處

我們相處得很好

We get along well with each otherl

11)而來

竭盡全力，一切都會為你而來

Give your best and that best will come to you.

12)至于

至于這件事，我無話可說。

As for this issue, I have nothing to say.

13)那属我不得已而为之的事情

而 = 但是

14)明知不可為而為之! 你們的出席令一切變美, 謝謝

不可為 = 不能做

15)勿以恶小而为之，勿以善小而不为。

为之 = (還是)做了

16)由于存货有限，所有礼品，先到先得，售完即止。

Due to limited stock, all orders, will be processed on a first come first serve basis and are subject to stock availability.

17) 就中国的这样一种思想而论，在某种意义上，我们应该把中国看作是苏联的替代者。

With regard to the idea that China that we should view China in some way as a replacement for the Soviet

Union.

18) 这个好消息令我们兴奋不已！

The good news made us excited unstoppably.

不已=繼續不停

19) 如果你想成功，请不要以它为目标；只做你热爱并且深信不移的事情，成功就会自然而至

Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in it and it will come naturally.

报纸和电视台的采访随之而至

Newspapers and TV interviews followed.

而至2012年，这支队伍正好是23岁，符合参加伦敦足球赛的年龄要求。

Come 2012, the team is just 23 years old, in line with London to participate in football age.

Edited July 4, 2010 at 10:15 AM by calibre2001

[chinopinyin]

Do you know any database of spoken chinese?

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Institute of Linguistics had a very interesting project http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200412/22/eng20041222_168227.html

Any news on it?

[chrix]

Yes, check out the CALLHOME corpus of Mandarin telephone conversations, published by U Penn.

[chinopinyin]

Thanks a lot, but it seems to cost US$2250 http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/Catalog/CatalogEntry.jsp?catalogId=LDC96L15

[chrix]

of course it does, but you didn't ask about FREE databases now, did you?

If you're not affiliated with a university, you can try and go through state libraries in your area.

[chinopinyin]

Touché

You will not know anything about a free database,will you?

[chrix]

Hm, that would depend on your needs I say. I think people on this thread (we got merged into) have talked about some others. There's like this 20,000 HSK sentence set as well.

But as far as databases go that fulfill academic standards (in the sense that they could be used for linguistic research), I only know of the CALLHOME corpus...

[chinopinyin]

As far as I know, the sentences in the HSK 20000+ database are example sentences taken from dict.cn, so probably they have a written (or made-up) origin.

The nciku conversations http://www.nciku.com/conversation/ could be useful to build a sentence database, although I don't know whether they reflect real conversations.

Any nciku guy out there?

[Baudelaire]

There's also the Tatoeba project

http://tatoeba.org

(Disclaimer: I’m part of the dev team)

The main goal is especially to make the largest FREE (as in free beer AND as in free speach) sentence database aligned in as many languages as possible. (for those interetesed we also support Shanghainese and if people are ready to contribute in Cantonese, we will also add this language)

I can only encourage you to drop by and contribute, because it’s a Wikipedia kind of thing, anyone can contribute. And we are distributing the sentences under the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY).

It is still true that NOT 100% of the sentences are reliable, but now they are open to everyone, and everyone can improve them. And hopefully someday, we’ll end up with a resource that can be 100% trusted. That’s at least what we’re aiming for.

Even though, right now, the system is not perfect… But there’s enough to get things done. For instance, one user created a list of English sentences he felt had mistakes (http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences_lists/edit/29). If you’re an English speaker, you can check this list, and correct the sentences if they are indeed not correct.

I've also created a list for conjunction in chinese http://tatoeba.org/sentences_lists/edit/55, so after anyone can help organizing the database by creating list (for example an HSK list etc...)

(sorry for my poor english, it's not my native language)