’gina 😂
bendan
joined 10 months ago
i can’t believe duolingo would do this to me 
My guess, pandas are also named this way, 熊猫 xióngmāo “bear cat”, but that could be because it’s a rare animal people weren’t talking much about, or that it historically was found in or beyond the southern regions that spoke different dialects or languages. But owls actually exist literally everywhere except the ice caps 🤷
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #23
猫头鹰
(māo tóu yīng)
Literally: “cat head hawk”
Figuratively: “owl”
We love our owls don’t we folks? 
we have to close the doge gap
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #22
而已
(ér yǐ)
Literally: “and [finish]”
Figuratively: “... [and that] is all”
I don’t know exactly why I like this. 已 otherwise usually means “already”, which gives it a tinge of stating the obvious. It just sounds cool 而已.
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #21
森林
(sēn lín)
Individually: “[lush] [milieu]”
Combined: “forest”
Remember 木 mù “wood”? Well here are some more of them! Both 森 and 林 can (at least could once upon a time) mean “forest” on their own, but their other meanings pull in different directions: 森 towards thick, dense, dark, strict, and 林 towards grove, circle, group.
Posting neat Chinese phrases whenever I feel like #20
狗拿耗子
(gǒu ná hàozi)
Literally: “dog catch mouse”
Figuratively: “meddle; meddlesome”
They’ve updated it a bunch, but the “Pleco” dictionary is actually based on a Chinese-made dictionary that had originally plenty of old timey examples from communist slogans and such
help i misspelled Brendan oh man i am not good with computer pls to help