1
花 in Context
2
花园 in Context
3
草 in Context
4
草地 in Context
5
猫 in Context
6
药 in Context
7
宽 in Context
8
菜 in Context
9
菜单 in Context
10
点菜 in Context
11
受 in Context
12
受不了 in Context
13
爱 in Context
14
可爱 in Context
15
爱好 in Context
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一共 in Context
17
借 in Context
18
借口 in Context
19
错 in Context
20
不错 in Context
21
没错 in Context
22
还不错 in Context
23
收 in Context
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收到 in Context
25
收入 in Context
26
改 in Context
27
改变 in Context
28
改天 in Context
29
数 in Context
苦 in Context
31
做 in Context
32
做饭 in Context
33
做爱 in Context
34
叫做 in Context
Next Character
Usage 1 - "bitter":
Sentence:
我喜欢吃苦的巧克力。
English:
I like to eat bitter chocolate.
Top-Down Words:
喜欢 xǐhuān - to like
巧克力 qiǎokèlì - chocolate
Sentence:
药真苦。
English:
The medicine is very bitter.
*Sentence:
药这么苦,我还是多吃菜吧!
English:
The medicine is so bitter, I should just eat some more vegetables.
Top-Down Words:
吧 ba - (particle expressing suggestion)
Usage 2 - "emotionally difficult":
*Sentence:
为了孩子,父母再苦也觉得是甜的。
English:
As long as it's for their children, no matter how hard things are, parents will think it's OK.
Top-Down Words:
孩子 háizi - child, children
觉得 juéde - to think, to feel
甜 tián - sweet
The Six Steps to Learning Words
Understanding Chinese Words - Morphemes
Member Comments from 2019-mid-2020
Do you also want to leave a comment? You can do so below!
Abigail
For the last sentence I found a helpful grammar point in Pleco regarding 再:
[used correlatively with 也, followed by a negative expression] no matter how...still (not)
Annette Bicknell
我喜欢吃苦的巧克力. You translate as "bitter chocolate", is this a specifically "bitter" chocolate that people buy in China, different from "dark chocolate" which depending on its sugar content can be somewhat bitter. Just wondering why you translate it as "bitter" if it is "dark" chocolate given your preference for interpretive translation instead of word translation.
Mandarin Blueprint
It's just how this particular person wished to describe it at the time and we translated it as such. They do say dark chocolate (黑巧克力) in China so it makes sense to translate it like this .
Micaela Ellison
Food vocabulary. My favorite! When I read 苦的巧克力, I just assumed it was talking about bittersweet chocolate. So that makes me wonder, can you say 苦甜的巧克力?
Matt Shubert
I'm really surprised there's not any other comments on the last sentence because to me this was a lot to unpack and really difficult to logic out to get to the translation!
为了孩子
I translated this as "for the sake of [their] children" but the translation of the phrase given is "as long as it's for their children". Is the idea that there's a missing 如果 or 要是 there to make it a conditional?
再苦也
Thanks to Abigail's comment, I figured this is saying something like "no matter how emotionally difficult, still..." Is that correct?
父母...觉得是甜的
The 是。。。的 pattern I'm okay with, but is 甜 a normal way to say something like this? The top-down definition given is "sweet", and I know often these words have a more poetic or abstract meaning in Chinese but that seems like a stretch to me to mean "okay", would using something like 不错 or 还好 be much different in meaning?
Sorry for all the questions and I know some of this is probably partly answered in context of the later story, but this is one of those sentences that I am just having issues making a connection with even when it's translated for me. Thanks!
Mandarin Blueprint
Here's a video response for you, Matt: https://www.loom.com/share/c3f6bd6670a14376815c1d39226f31b3
为了·孩子,父母·再苦·也·觉得是甜的。
Matt Shubert
This is a great explanation, thanks heaps Phil!
MB Team
This is where Luke and Phil talked about your question in the Mandarin Blueprint Podcast:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45KKuYfqHz0&t=3721s