马上 on a horse/right away

[Ferno]

I wonder how Chinese think of these two characters...

马上 (ma3 shang4) horse + on top

The English translation is "right away", I'm guessing this is from the literal meaning of "on a horse" being the fastest way to do something (we're really feeling the history here )

Then again, if you want to say "he is on a horse" you say Ta1 zai4 ma3 shang4

Do Chinese mentally seperate the two meanings?

just something i was wondering...

[L-F-J]

Well I always liked words like 猫头鹰 and 长颈鹿 !

猫头鹰= Owl (lit. kitty head eagle)

长颈鹿= Giraffe (lit. long neck deer)

It's funny but it makes sense. Well, at least the kitty head eagle makes sense. The giraffe doesn't really look like a long neck deer. But besides, Chinese don't think of it as the literal translation I think. Kind of like family names, people don't think of Mr. Wang as Mr. King, or Miss Lin as Miss Forrest.

It's the same with 马上 I suppose. It makes sense in the literal translation but they think of it simply as "right away". I don't know the history. It sounds like since it makes sense that's just what they used and it just became the word for it and the literal translation became less literal.

[Xiao Kui]

I always wondered the same thing abt ma3 shang4. I don't know the origin since I'm not a native speaker or etymology expert, but i always used this idea as sort of a mnemonic device for remembering the word.

I thought of it sort of like "it's on the way", like we say "the check is in the mail" in English. I think of whatever it is I'm waiting for when someone says mashang like "it's on the horse" (it's on its way) Regardless of its origin, I think it's definition is disputable. Though it's supposed to mean "immediately" or "right away" , my time in Sichuan taught me it means "at least another 30 minutes."

[self-taught-mba]

It is these little things that make me LOVE Chinese. That AHA moment. My first favorite one was the word for dillemna: 进退两难

(Adso not working: Jin4 Tui4 Liang3 Nan2)

Think about it in military terms ---brilliant and deep--how beautiful!

[roddy]

Chinese won't think 'on horseback' when they hear 马上 any more than we think 'a board which is black' when we hear 'blackboard' or 'a book by Joseph Heller' when we hear 'catch 22' or than scholars of ancient Greek think 'distant vision' when they hear 'television.'

[Celso Pin]

Talking about horses...

I wonder the characters for the sex pistols record "castigando un caballo muerto"

[Sophia_Shang]

Then again, if you want to say "he is on a horse" you say Ta1 zai4 ma3 shang4

Do Chinese mentally seperate the two meanings?

If we want to say "he is on a horse", we say Ta1 zai4 ma3 shang5, where we stress ma3 only and leave shang5 unstressed. If we want to say "immediately", we say "ma3 shang4", where both syllable is stressed.

In Chinese, we also have other interesting words to express "at a tremendous speed". One of them is "火速", the speed of fire. In ancient times, we send messages by "烽火台", you can see them on the Great Wall. Fire or smoke can send messages instantly, so "火速" means "at a tremendous speed".

ex. 我饿了，于是火速赶到全聚德烤鸭店，饱餐了一顿。

[mph]

The kangeroo (pocket mouse) 兜鼠 is also not bad.

The buffalo 水牛 and the hippo 河馬 are OK as well.

The "cloud swallow" 雲吞 is a great way to remember 云 and 吞 when you are eating wonton.

[geraldc]

What with the current astrological phenomena, I do think 日食 is a great term for eclipse, especially with the cause of eclipses being attributed to dragons eating the sun.

[Quest]

especially with the cause of eclipses being attributed to dragons eating the sun.

I think it's 天狗, a dog not dragon.

[Ian_Lee]

Hmmm.....you guys are so interested in the term 馬上, how about 馬上風?

[skylee]

The kangeroo (pocket mouse) 兜鼠 is also not bad.

I've never heard of 兜鼠. I think it is always called 袋鼠.

日食 is a great term for eclipse

I've just looked it up. The word is 蝕， and its simplified form is 蚀.

[geraldc]

The Pleco Oxford Dictionary says 食 and Wenlin says 食/蚀。

[skylee]

Well then it is strange. Personally I won't use 日食.

[HashiriKata]

There is also 月食/蚀.

（Could it be that the 月 here is being eaten by a 天猫, since 猫 is a nocturnal hunter ? ）

[Ian_Lee]

In Chinese legend, it is 天狗食日

[webmagnets]

I just thought of the term "firearms".

When I read this in spanish (armas de fuego) I immediatly thought of a man with arms made of fire. But then I realized it was talking about guns and weapons.

I realized also that I never thought of arms of fire when I ever heard the word "firearms".

I suppose it is the same for 马上 (ma3 shang4)

[Ferno]

The kangeroo (pocket mouse) 兜鼠 is also not bad

meh... what about other marsupials?

[geraldc]

I was taught that the term Kangaroo, meant "I don't know" in an aboriginal dialect, i.e. when the English first landed in Australia, they asked the aboriginal people what was the animal was, and the response was "I don't know".

[Ferno]

why wouldn't they have a name for it? :o

oh and that quote "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" popped into my head when you called it an aborigional "dialect"