美美和田田

[Aneena]

I am studying Chinese using NPCR and I am just reading an article about panda bears (book level 3). There I found that:

"美美和田田的熊猫"

When I type tiantian in pinyin into a dictionary it shows "sweet", but with different characters.

田 is only translated as field and this is all, 田田 is not an option at all in my dictionary.

Could somebody please explain this to me?

[Glenn]

According to Taiwan MOE's dictionary, it means 荷葉鮮碧的樣子 (having the appearance of bright bluish green/jade lotus leaves). I'm not sure that's helpful (also, there is a chance I'm misunderstanding it)...

[Qiulian]

I'm fairly certain 美美 and 田田 are the names of the 熊猫. 美美和田田的熊猫 is like saying, in English, "the pandas Meimei and Tiantian . . . ." Either that or it is saying "the panda of 美美 and 田田," with 美美 and 田田 still as names. I don't believe 田田 exists as an adjective.

[Glenn]

Oh, wow. That seems so obvious now. haha

[skylee]

美美和田田的熊猫 is like saying, in English, "the pandas Meimei and Tiantian . . . ."

You need (名)叫 before that.

[Qiulian]

What skylee said That is probably what is before the "美美". It's now so obvious that missing word is what makes the sentence sounds weird, but it actually didn't occur to me .

[Aneena]

OMG this is so obvious now! The problem with this book is that it doesn't underline proper nouns!

This is not the first time this is happening to me, luckily in most books the proper names are underlined so that the poor students don't need to go through the dictionaries in vain. It is not only my experience but also that of my fellow students, a suggestion for the Chinese publishers to underline proper names! At least in the lower levels...

Thanks for your help, I am finishing book 3 now and since at the end of the next year I'm planning to permanently relocate to Beijing I want to go trough level 4, 5 and 6 by then (realistic?) so I might be present in this forum more often.

[Himin]

Yes, I agree about the proper nouns should be underlined.

The book is just in my hand. The sentence in the book is "...，要把大熊猫美美和田田送给我们国家的一个城市动物园...."

Other examples about this expression:

1. 这是我朋友张亮。

2. 熊猫田田和兔子明明是好朋友。

[skylee]

2. 熊猫田田和兔子明明是好朋友。

Depending on the context, 明明 can mean something else. Actually, you can interpret the sentence as "The panda Tiantian and the rabbit are obvioulsy good friends." Another example - the lyric "明明用盡了努力，明明事事都不計" does not involve anyone called Mingming.

Nowadays 專名號 is rarely used.

[creamyhorror]

Nowadays 專名號 is rarely used.

Wow! I wish this were still used, but I guess it's a little troublesome when typing. Capitals (with spaces) in English are a great and convenient way to indicate names. I wish there were an equivalent usage in Chinese.

[Glenn]

I had no idea there was ever any way of explicitly marking proper nouns in Chinese. That's interesting!