In space, no-one can hear you learn vocabulary

There's a great little character (actually it's the same size as all other characters :-) that comes up really often in Mandarin, so it's worth spending a moment with it.

If you're a beginner, the content of this article may be new to you; and even if you're intermediate, then there are probably still words that are new.

Overall in the WordPack context, this is an example of what we discussed recently about being an active learner, when reasonable beavers co-operate.

The root of all time & space
Our starting point is 间 (間) which is pronounced 'jiān'. You can get the full definition at MDBG, but for our purposes, it comes down to "time & space".

Space
When 间 (jiān) is used to mean 'space', these are some of the resulting words:

空间 (kōng​jiān) space (literally empty space)
房间 (fáng​jiān) room (literally house space)​
洗手间 (xǐ​shǒu​jiān) bathroom (literally wash hands room)
雅间 (yǎ​jiān) private room
田间 (tián​jiān) farming area / village (literally field space)

Time
When 间 (jiān) is used to mean 'time', these are some of the resulting words:

时间 (shí​jiān​) time (perhaps literally this is: time space)
日间 (rì​jiān​) day-time (literally sun time)
夜间 (yè​jiān​) night-time (literally night time)
北京时间 (Běijīng Shíjiān​) Chinese Standard Time
格林尼治标准时间 (Gé​lín​ní​zhì​biāo​zhǔn​shí​jiān​) Greenwich Mean Time, GMT (ignore the literal meaning here, this is more of a transliteration)

Special Mentions
I've put these into a separate group because they have a bit of an 'angle' on them:

之间 (zhī​jiān) between
外层空间 (wài​céng​kōng​jiān) outer space (literally outside stratum empty space)
空间站 (kōng​jiān​zhàn) space station (literally empty space platform)
网络空间 (wǎng​luò​kōng​jiān) cyberspace
三维空间 (sān​wéi​kōng​jiān) three-dimensional space
坐标空间 (zuò​biāo​kōng​jiān) coordinate space (maths)
拓扑空间 (tuò​pū​kōng​jiān) topological space (maths)


How many of these words will you remember next week?  Are you really progressing over time?

A Mandarin Moment

Hang on a sec', can I get your help quickly? Just hold this for a moment ... thanks, now take a quick look.

These are really common English phrases, and it's quite useful (nay, very useful) to be able to say it in Mandarin. Fortunately, in true WordPack style, there is a very familiar pattern that links these, and other similar phrases.

The pattern is:   一下

yí xià:  Literally this means "one down", but the dictionary translations look more like: one time / once / in a while / all of a sudden / give it a go (when used after a verb).

Here are some of the more common phrases that you'll hear, and certainly ones that you're very likely to use. If you're a little beyond beginner, then you probably already know most of the opening hanzi, in which case the phrases will be really easy to remember.

看一下: kàn yíxià: take a quick look
等一下: děng ​yíxià: wait a moment
让一下: ràng ​yíxià: literally this is "yield a moment", but it's used in the context of, for example, "Excuse me, can I get past you?"
拿一下: ná ​yíxià: hold this for a second
挑一下: tiāo yíxià: usually it's like "let me take my time to choose" (literally: choose a moment)

 Now that you've got these phrases sorted, take a moment ...