10 Feb - 失敗 - Fail/Failure

Word of the Day: 失敗 - Fail/Failure

Pronunciation: ㄕ ㄅㄞˋ|| Shībài

By Character:

(1) 失 -　Lose

(2) 敗 -　Defeat

Word Construction:

To fail/failure is therefore to LOSE (失) and to be DEFEATED (敗) at the same time. Not a very pleasant thought and kind of the way I am feeling right now for some reason. So the word is very appropriate for today.

Google Image Search:

Decided to make this real with an image search for 失敗. I got the following in Google.

Living Language:

I picked up the word from the headline in the Weekly Business Magazine I try to read (although I don't understand much). The headline reads (read article).:

一本談失敗的書

http://www.businessweekly.com.tw/KArticle.aspx?id=57357

You can see the headline above which means "a book that discusses failure." It seems as per the article the book is called "Business Misadventures" and it seems to be a favorite of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

09 Feb - 設想 - Imagine

Word of the Day: 設想 - Imagine
Pronunciation: ㄕㄜˋ ㄒㄧㄤˇ|| Shèxiǎng

By Character:
(1) 設 - To establish something
(2) 想 - This is a very common word for think.

06 Feb - 漫畫 - Cartoon

Word of the Day: 漫畫 - Cartoon

Pronunciation: ㄇㄢˋ ㄏㄨㄚˋ || Mànhuà

By Character:

(1) 漫 - Overflow. Really simple definition for this one.

(2) 畫 - Painting. Very common must know character this one.a

By Character:

This means then that, in Chinese, a CARTOON (漫畫) is an OVERFLOW (漫) of PAINTINGS (畫). As beautiful and logical as ever.

There is not much I can add to this. You can hit up Google Image search see what comes up if you are interested. I just love the logical nature of Chinese.

05 Feb - 成為 - Become

Word of the Day: 成為 - To become, to turn into

Pronunciation: ㄔㄥˊ ㄨㄟˊ || Chéngwéi

By Character:

(1)  成 - This one has a few meanings according to my dictionary - but can mean (1) settled, accomplished (2) to achieve (3) to become. 

(2) 為 - To be, to do, to make

Put these characters together and you get 成為 or "to become, to turn into".

Living Language

As usual I plugged 成為 into Google News and the first headline to pop up is shown below. The headline is saying that after yesterday's Transasia Airline Crash in Taipei, the location (遷建) of Songshan Airport (松山機場) is again (再度) becoming (成為) a topic (話題) (for discussion).

04 Feb - 設計 - Design

Word of the Day: 設計 - Design
Pronunciation: ㄕㄜˋ ㄐㄧˋ || Shèjì

Breaking it Down:
設 means "to establish" something and 計 means "plan." Put together 設計 means design.

Expansion:
(1) 設計館 - Design Museum 
(2) 設計公司 - Design Company 
(3) 設計人 - Designer 
(4) 室內設計 - Interior Design 
(5) 室內設計師 - Interior Designer
(6) 商品設計 - Product Design

Pictures
The FB Logo for the Taiwan Design Museum (台灣設計館) is shown below. You can see the three characters for Design Museum quite clearly:

If you look at the picture below for the 2011 Design Awards in Taiwan you can clearly see the characters for "設計公司" (image is from Caddiss Website)

And finally if you type 室內設計 (interior design) into Google Image Search you are gifted with a series of pictures of beautiful homes such as the ones below.

So now we know what 設計 means.

03 Feb - 帝國 - Empire

Word of the Day: 帝國 - Empire
Pronunciation: ㄉ一ˋ ㄍㄨㄛˊ || Dìguó

Breaking it Down:
The two characters that make up Empire are the characters for Emperor (帝) and country (國). The empire is literally then the "Emperor's Country".

Living Language:

I saw the phrase in an Apple Daily (蘋果日報) article. You can see the original article HERE. The sentence I saw it used in was:

大清帝國沒有日本帝國一樣

which I guess a rough translation would be "the Qing Empire unlike the Japanese Empire..." (I cannot read the rest but that part makes sense.) You can see a screen shot of the phrase in the article below.

Expansion:
大清帝國 - Qing Empire
大明帝國 - Ming Empire
日本帝國 - Japanese Empire
英國帝國 - British Empire
羅馬第國 - Roman Empire
希臘帝國 - Greek Empire

02 Feb - 主委 - Chairman

Word of the Day: 主委 - Chairman
Pronunciation: ㄓㄨˇ ㄨㄟˇ || Zhǔ wěi

Breaking it Down:
There are two characters:

(1) 主 - P: ㄓㄨˇ || Zhǔ - The Lord
(2) 委 - P: ㄨㄟˇ || Wěi - Appoint

An Example From the Commonwealth Magazine:

The original article can be see HERE. You can see the phrase 主委 appears in the sentence highlighted below.



The phrase "前國科會主委" means "the former  Chairman of the National Science Council" 

Expansion:
國科會主委 - Chairman of the National Science Council
國發會主委 - National Development Council Chariman
社區主委 - Community Chairman

01 Feb - 厚臉皮 - To be Thick Skinned

Word of the Day: 厚臉皮　- Thick Skinned
Pronunciation: - ㄏㄡˋㄌㄧㄢˇㄆㄧˊ || Hòu liǎnpí

Elaboration: 厚臉皮 means to be thick skinned as in you need to toughen up and get stronger and not so easily upset by other people. This phrase was taught to me by my Taiwanese friends.

Breaking it Down
Today for brevity we will just look at the characters and not break the characters down too. Maybe another day when I have time I will do it (but probably not). The phrase itself has three characters:

(1) 厚 - Thick
(2) 臉 - Face (figuratively speaking and literally speaking)
(3) 皮 - Skin

The phrase "thick skinned" in English is literally rendered into "thick (厚)", "face (臉)" and "skin (皮)".