Vocabulary
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Learn vocabulary for marine life
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5 Comments
HideWould you go swimming in shark infested waters?
@蓝大卫
Very different thought patterns indeed! I was going to ask how you describe 触角 in English.Thanks.:smile:
Yes, the "fish" term, I've noticed that, too. We call abalone 鲍鱼(bao4 yu2), whale 鲸鱼(jing1 yu2), alligator 鳄鱼(e4 yu2). Also we have a series of words to describe aquatic animals that starts with 海, ocean, like 海豚(hai3 tun2), dolphin, 海蜇(hai3 zhe2), jellyfish, 海参(hai3 shen1), sea cucumber, 海龟(hai3 gui1), turtle, etc.
@LanZi.
Another interesting observation. We call the 触角 "arms" but the word you used is translated "antenna" or "feeler" at YellowBridge. I believe the Greek derivation of the word means "eight feet". Neither is incorrect, just a difference way of describing.
I also find it interesting that Chinese uses the word for "fish" to describe aquatic animals.
An octopus is a mollusk, but not technically a fish.
Thanks for these lessons, they reveal some differences in thought patterns.
@蓝大卫
Interesting! I never seriously thought about the names of these animals and why they're called what they're called.
海豚——海里的小猪,可能因为它们很胖:)
章鱼——又叫“八爪鱼(eight-claw-fish)”, 因为他们有八个触角。But for 章鱼,I would say "seal-印章,封印" makes the most sense here, because seals need ink to print, and octopus spurt ink and also they have lots of 吸盘.
魔鬼鱼 —— Exactly.
你开玩笑吗?:razz: 我不要跟鲨鱼一起游泳!
I'm curious about the meanings of the names. I looked up the etymology at YellowBridge.com
I'm asking these questions because I'm trying to get an idea of what the Chinese mindset is when
they describe these animals:
海豚 -- dolphin. -- literally "ocean suckling pig"
章鱼 -- octopus -- literally "chapter; seal; section; movement (of symphony); camphor laurel tree; lumber; surname Zhang fish" Which of these words most closely describes what the Chinese mind
thinks of regarding the octopus.
魔鬼鱼 -- Stingray, literally "devil fish", I suppose because of the barb in the stingray's tail?