Do you like 米粉 rice flour/rice-flour noodles？Don’t forget the radical rice米 because you eat the food made from 米 every day. Continue reading “Radical rice 米”
Author: Decode Mandarin Chinese
天地 Heavan and earth
You must have seen such expressions during the festivals: 欢天喜地过大年/闹元宵。Why not use only 欢喜？What difference is there between 欢喜 and 欢天喜地？
天地 literally means heaven and earth, and is used very often with another two-word phrases such 欢喜, 长久, 昏暗, 惊动, 感谢, etc. to form four-word phrases, also called set phrases, to achieve the effect of emphasis, e.g. 欢喜 with joy 欢天喜地 with extreme joy；长久 for a long time 天长地久 everlasting and unchanging.
Why “闹”元宵?
To learn 闹, it’s better to know the meaning of 市 first. You can see 闹 is composed of 门 door and 市 market. A market is a noisy place, so the original meaning of 闹 was noisy, which is very well expressed by the phrase, 闹市 noisy market.
In Chinese, many adjectives can be turned into verbs which have meanings related to these adjectives, e.g. 闹. The meaning of 闹 is extended from noisy to noisy-related verbs such as make a noise 吵闹, celebrate 闹元宵, suffer from 闹水灾, etc.
How many antonyms do you know?
奔 run
As you can see, the pictogram of 奔 is an image of running person. It can combine with many characters to form new words such as 奔放，奔腾，奔流，投奔，私奔，奔赴，etc.
To check more about 奔 for further study.