Confusing pairs (and a triplet)

[yakeyglee]

Along my studies of Chinese, I have come across the following groups of characters that have similar meanings and would like some clarifications on the differences between them.

1. 鍾 and 鐘
2. 入 and 進
3. 會, 能, and 可以
4. 但是 and 可是

Feel free to respond to any number of the above. Thanks! ^_^

[roddy]

3

4

For starters. 1 and 2 I'll leave for someone else

[skylee]

鐘 (the second word) means bell or clock. 鍾 (the first word) can mean bell (but this usage is not popular now IMHO), and has some other totally different meanings.

PS - I don't think there is any confusion here. But perhaps the confusion has to do with the simplified characters? I am not sure.

[yakeyglee]

The confusion actually originally came from that I had found 鐘錶 and 鍾錶 for "clock." I was essentially just wondering if they were synonymous or not.

[small tree]

会→can

when you user 会，you just want to give the face that you can do this thing

能→be able to

when you user 能，you emphasize on that you have ability to do this thing

[chaussen]

both 鐘 and 鍾 were simplified to 钟,which is confusing.

a 鐘 is a bell now and originally refers to a kind of musical instrument made of bronze in ancient china.

a 鍾 is a container of holding wine.this meaning later extends to a measure unit of capacity.the character 盅 is a better variant,still used today.

但是 can be used in both formal and informal situations,so it can be heard in a wider range of situations from daily talk to official reports on state radio.可是 is only used informally.

i can feel little difference between 会，能 and 可以.能 and 可以 can indicate someone is allowed to do something.that's the only thing i can think of.

入，进: i believe they are usually used as part of a phrase,so the major difference is their idiomatic usage.