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Adjectives in Chinese

You must note, as well, that whenever adjectives follow subjects directly, they imply comparison. 地图大, strictly speaking, does not mean "the map is big," but "the map is bigger (than something else)." The sentence 地图大 might be the answer to a question like 桌子大还是地图大 "Which is bigger, the table or the map?" The normal way to say "the map is big," without implying comparison, is to add an unstressed 很 before the adjective: 地图很大 "the map is big." If you stress the 很, then you have said "the map is very big." (This rules does not apply if the adjective is negated. 地图不大 means "the map is not big," without implying comparison.) From Oh, China! An Elementary Reader of Modern Chinese for Advanced Beginners , 第一课:两张地图
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北斗の拳、セガ・マークⅢ版ーー攻略

 I had a Sega Master System as a kid and played a lot of a game called Black Belt where you have to kick and punch many bandits in the face to rescue your girl (pretty standard story at the time). I still think it's one of the best games on the console.  Many years later I've found out that the original Japanese version of the game was a 北斗の拳 (Hokuto no Ken) game. I was trying to play the Japanese version but there was a mid-level mini-boss I couldn't figure out how to beat, so I looked for a walkthrough online.  Found this one:  セガ・マークⅢ『北斗の拳』 - 北斗が如く 攻略 (dswiipspwikips3.jp) It's actually a 攻略 inside a 攻略. The site is a guide to the 北斗が如く game for the PS4 (using the same engine as Yakuza, 龍が如く). Inside the game there's a point where you can find a Sega Mark III (the first Japanese version of the Master System) and you can play the original 北斗の拳 game on it. 

スーファミとかの部屋

 Interesting site to explore the Japanese games of the Super Famicom, with short descriptions for all games, plus short reviews and walkthroughs/guides for some games: スーファミとかの部屋 Aside from the very old-school appearance and tech (it's not everyday you see cgi-bin in URLs these days), you can search for games by name, by year, by genre etc. 

Ys IV - The Dawn of Ys (PC Engine CD) - Part 10

This was an eventful part of the game. Adol beats a boss monster and rescues Leeza, then the Dark Clan appears, and after some dispute they all go to a room where Eldeel (the last of the race of winged people) tells part of his plan. Then Adol and Leeza return to town where Leeza and his father Schulz tell their secret. Finally the village elder tells Adol to go to the tomb of Miyu, the guardian deity of the town.  A few interesting words: 絶望 と 恐怖 Despair and fear.  笛 Flute, pipe 守護神 Guardian deity 渓谷 Valley; gorge; ravine; canyon 流砂 Quicksand 底深 ( 底深い ) very deep 沈む To sink 参道 The road approaching a Shinto 神社 or Buddhist 寺 地形 terrain (land + shape) 柵 fence 大変動 this one does not appear as one word in the usual J/E dictionaries. I guess it's not on JMdict/EDICT. 大 is "big", obviously, and 変動 is listed as "change; fluctuation". Google Translate and Reverso Context give 大変動 as meaning "cataclysm" 交流 exchange; interaction 途絶える to stop; to ceas...

からかい上手の高木さん 第一章:消しゴム

The Title からかう (揶揄う) means "to mock; to tease; to ridicule", and the English title is basically a straight translation: からかい上手 would mean "good/skilled at teasing" and the rest is the name of the person, 高木さん, thus "Teasing Master Takagi-San".  登場人物 (とうじょうじんぶつ) In this chapter there are only two named characters: 西片 (にしかた), who is the protagonist ( 主人公 ), and 高木さん, who is からかい上手. 言葉 The chapter title is  消しゴム  (けしごむ), which means eraser.  消す means "to erase/delete" and associated meanings (though 削除 seems more common as "delete" in computer terminology). As expected, there's an important part of the plot of the chapter related to erasers.  Next I'll comment on some words in the chapter, I won't comment much about the context, so it may be more interesting to consult this list while reading the chapter.    別に…何も… 別に means "not particularly" and 何も means nothing. バネだ 発条 means "spring" or "coil...

Composing Hangul Syllables

  Hangul is the Korean writing system and its primary unit is the syllable. In contrast with other syllabaries like the hiragana and katakana systems used to write Japanese, each syllable can be decomposed into simpler parts that specify the sounds that make up the syllable.  Every syllable must have an initial consonant and a vowel; some syllables may contain a final consonant ( patchim ) or even two final consonants (double patchim ).  In a string, each syllable block occupies a single character, but when typing each symbol (jamo) is inputted individually and must be composed into a syllable block. If we think about this composition of symbols to form syllable blocks, it could be very hard to do if the codepoints of the symbols and the syllables were not related. That is, if the codes for ㅁ, 마 and 만 were not related, you'd need a table to know the code of 마 when adding ㅏ to ㅁ, and the code of 만 when typing ㄴ after 마, and so on. The number of combinations...

Vietnamese words that are easy if you know Chinese #1 - cao

 When you see that cao in Vietnamese means "tall; high" you immediately think it must have come from Chinese, and indeed it seems to be the case. The character for it in Chữ Nôm is 高 , which is read g āo in Mandarin and also means "tall; high" there. And this is not all, because many compounds with cao are recognizable if you know Chinese. According to chunom.org these are some: tối cao (最高) (Mandarin zuìgāo; Japanese さいこう; Korean 최고) Also meaning "supreme; top-level; the highest". From glosbe we get sentences like Sự Chuộc Tội vĩ đại là hành động tối cao của sự tha thứ. The great Atonement was the supreme act of forgiveness. Socrates cho rằng đạo đức là cái thiện tối cao . Socrates considered virtue to be the ultimate good. đề cao (提高) (Mandarin tígāo; Korean 제고) The word in Mandarin means "raise; enhance; increase; improve" (I'm not familiar with the word in Korean but according to the dictionary it seems to have the same meanings). ...