Dates

[Mike]

In English '5th August 1968' is "Fifth of August nineteen sixty eight" and I think in Chinese written 一九六八年八月五号.

Do I say: -

(i) "Yi1 jiu3 liu4 ba1 nian2 ba1 yue4 wu3 hao2", or

(ii) "Yi1 qian1 jiu3 bai3 liu4 shi2 ba1 nian2 ba1 yue4 wu3 hao2"

Or something else altogether :-)

[Etwood]

Hey Mike,

The correct way would be (i) "Yi1 jiu3 liu4 ba1 nian2 ba1 yue4 wu3 hao4"

You could alternatively replace 'hao4" with "ri4", but it doesn't alter the meaning (I don't think).

[Mike]

Thanks Etwood for your speedy reply. And thanks for the hao4 correction - how long will I keep making that mistake - it's because I don't know the pronunciation. I like the idea of ri4 - easier to write in Chinese than hao4 :-)

[nipponman]

Yeah, hao2 here would mean "to roar". You don't want that

[gougou]

Ri4 is more formal than hao4. In the written language, you will mostly find 日, while spoken, 号 should be more common.

[roddy]

In speech it's quite normal to cut the year down to two digits -

七六年生的 - born in '76

零二年开始学 - started studying in '02

[kudra]

Speaking of dates,

back at the 250 character level lesson, I encountered the sentence in Written Standard Chinese, Vol 1, Huang and Stimson.

那本書上說他的生日是一七五九年八月四日。

I tried looking up this birthdate on the web but no luck. I was using English language google.

Anybody know if this sentence refers to a real person, and if so who it is? Obviously there were lots of people with this birthday. I am looking for someone from Chinese history or literature.

Thanks.

[trevelyan]

Between 1795 and 1805 , Yan Ruyi (1759–1826) aided China's government in restoring order to three regions devastated by insurgency: the borderland joining Hunan , Guizhou , and Sichuan provinces (the site of the 1795–97 Miao rebellion); the borderland joining Hubei , Shaanxi , and Sichuan provinces (the site of the 1796–1804 White Lotus rebellion); and the coast of Guangdong province (the site of the 1790–1810 pirate attacks). During these ten years , Yan Ruyi served as a government advisor , researcher , and administrator , joining an influential group of statecraft reformers then shaping the reforms of the early Tiaqing (r. 1795–1820)

A good search tip for this sort of thing might be combining the year in question with the English name of the ruling Emperor.Quick Google suggests this guy, although its difficult to see why this would be in an introductory textbook, and his full birth date isn't provided.

[kudra]

The sentence was given in isolation. My guess, if it does indeed refer to Yan Ruyi (and why not), is that the author of the intro text had been doing some other research, and felt like slipping something off-beat into the otherwise uninteresting vocabulary drill he was writing.

[chenpv]

(i) "Yi1 jiu3 liu4 ba1 nian2 ba1 yue4 wu3 hao2", or

mike this is correct, and both 日 and 号 are acceptable.

(ii) "Yi1 qian1 jiu3 bai3 liu4 shi2 ba1 nian2 ba1 yue4 wu3 hao2"

this is incorrect. this form is only used in years like '1000' '2000'

which read '一千年'，'两千年'