# 下：北方也许还下着雪



## Konstantinos

每年三四月份的时候，如果从北方坐火车到南方去旅游，一路上你会发现，不同的地方有不同的风景：窗外的树一棵一棵地变绿，北方也许还下着雪，南方却已经到处都是绿色了。

Hi all. This is from a book about HSK4. What does 下 mean in this clause: 北方也许还下着雪?

Just down, on the land? Drifted snow? Or I am missing something?

Thanks in advance.


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## ovaltine888

下雨 下雪 下冰雹
These are just fixed collocations. You may understand 下 as "falling" here, but it is not necessary to translate it literally.
外面还在下雨吗？ Is it raining outside?
嗯，还在下呢。Yes, it is still raining.

Once again, I suggest you should learn Chinese by words instead of by separate characters. The basic meaning of 下(down) should already give you a clear hint in the context, but it is not wise to attempt to translate every character literally.

Otherwise, you would definitely get lost in translation of the single character 下 in the different words below.
下令
下单
下班
下饭
下饺子
下结论
下功夫


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## Konstantinos

Hello ovaltine888. Thanks for your answer.

It is not so easy as you think. As starting points I have neither characters nor words, but just sentences. Also, a Chinese word may have 1,2,3, or even 4 characters. If in the begin I see just a sentence, how may I know which characters form which words? Mathematically, a Chinese sentence with n characters has (n!/(n-4)!) (or something like that, I cannot do the exact calculation at the moment) possible combinations of characters for forming words. How may know which one is right? There are not spaces between Chinese words.

Baidu translate indeed helps somehow in that point. You put a Chinese sentence and it gives you out some words. But is there another online tool, taking as input Chinese sentence and then getting as output its words (like traditional to simplified conversion)? Why do I feel that there are not strict rules of detecting the words from sentences?

This example: 北方也许还下着雪
Some possible combinations:
1) 也，许，还，下，着，雪
2）也许还下着雪
3）也许，还下，着雪
4）也许还，下着雪
5）也，许还，下着，雪
6）也许，还下着，雪
7）。。。

So if me I see 也许还下着雪, how can I know that the right combination is 也许，还，下着雪 and 也许 means possibly, 还 still and 下着雪 = 下雪 + ing = snowing?

Also about 下雪, why does my mind accept both possible combinations?

1) 下雪 = to snow
2) 下，雪 = to fall snow

If you get my point, it is a clear advanced decoding, actually out of human levels, especially in my HSK4 level.

PS: During analyzing Chinese sentences you cannot imagine how happy I feel when I meet 2-character or 3-character words, and how much nervous I become with 1-character words, especially the new classifiers.


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## ovaltine888

I see what you mean and I understand how challenging it is for a Chinese language learner to identify words from the character combinations in a sentence.

Theoretically, yes, there are tons of possible combinations in a sentence from the perspective of maths. But the method of exhaustion is obvious not a good idea. That is also where my advice comes from -- memorizing more collocated combinations will help to reduce substantially the workload of the syntax analysis. For example, if you already knew 也许 and 下雪 as fixed phrases, and also the grammatical function of 还(still) and 着(continuation), then you would not need to go through all below.



Konstantinos said:


> This example: 北方也许还下着雪
> Some possible combinations:
> 1) 也，许，还，下，着，雪
> 2）也许还下着雪
> 3）也许，还下，着雪
> 4）也许还，下着雪
> 5）也，许还，下着，雪
> 6）也许，还下着，雪
> 7）。。。


And even for native speakers, we cannot tell the exact meaning of a single character in a word in many cases.

I think it is a bit like phrasal verbs in English. It makes no sense to analyze every word in a phrasal verb and you have to treat it as a whole.
e.g.
to put up with=to endure


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## SimonTsai

ovaltine888 said:


> It makes no sense to analyze every word [...] e.g. to put up with = to endure


It does make sense; otherwise, you would probably not really know how the phrase 'to put up with something' differs from 'to endure' in meaning, register or connotation.


Konstantinos said:


> why does my mind accept both possible combinations? 1) 下雪 = to snow ...... 2) 下，雪 = to fall snow


Your second guess is closer to what it literally means. The verb 下 means 'to drop'. The subject is naturally left out as it is of little interest. (You can say it's 老天, a Chinese god often alternatively called 老天爺.)


> how may I know which characters form which words? [...] There are not spaces between Chinese words.


Knowing why characters A and B form the word AB helps, but to a limited extent, especially for beginners. Your first priority is to expand your vocabulary so that, as @ovaltine888 said, you can parse sentences easily.


> Mathematically, a Chinese sentence with *n* characters has *n! / (n − 4)!* [...] possible combinations of characters for forming words.


That will be *2^(n − 1)* to be exact.

We are basically putting *k* conceputal bars into some of the *n − 1* conceptual spaces between the *n* characters. *k* can take any values between *0* and *n − 1*, inclusive. All the bars should be separated by one or more characters from one another. So the total number of mathematically possible combinations is the sum of *binom(n − 1, k)* with *k* going over all the possible values and *binom* the binomial coefficient. Applying the binomial theorem yields the result.

(Or, more easily, think of the problem as a dichotomous decision as to whether a bar should be put into a space, with the decision repeated *n − 1* times. The answer follows.)


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## ovaltine888

SimonTsai said:


> It does make sense; otherwise, you would probably not really know how the phrase 'to put up with something' differs from 'to endure' in meaning, register or connotation.


I was saying that it makes no sense to analyze each word _put_, _up_, and _with_ separately.

There are, of course, subtle differences between synonyms.


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## SimonTsai

I think I did know what you were saying and I meant that it helps to know the phrase better to figure out or to feel why 'to put up' and 'with' go together to mean 'to endure'.

Returning to the topic, it definitely helps to know the word 下雪 better to try understanding why 下 is used. Compare 外面正在下大雪 with 山上的積雪崩了下來. (Also, notice the structural similarity between 下大雪 and 下水餃.)


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## ovaltine888

ovaltine888 said:


> Otherwise, you would definitely get lost in translation of the single character 下 in the different words below.


I think it would be better to give the translation of the words below to show how "amorphous" the character 下 could be if you really want to spin it off.

It's true that every 下 below maintains a link to its basic meaning (down), but the link is very subtle. You just can't translate it character by character.

下令 give an order (to a subordinate)
下单 submit an order (of purchasing)
下班 clock off
下饭 (a dish) goes well with rice (to eat)
下饺子 cook dumplings
下结论 conclude
下功夫 put effort (into something)


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## Flaminius

All of the above uses of 下 by Ovaltine are understandable either as a transitive verb (to submit, to make something go down) or as an intransitive noun (to descend from; with 下班 being the only example).  Weather expressions like 下雨 uses the verb intransitively, with a twist.  They bring the verb in front of the subject because they are 存現文.


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## SimonTsai

Flaminius said:


> Weather expressions like 下雨 uses the verb intransitively, with a twist. They bring the verb in front of the subject because they are 存現文.


老天啊老天！拜託你 (subject) 行行好，撒泡尿下 (verb) 幾滴雨 (object)！你這樣是要我這個年怎麼過？


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## SuperXW

Flaminius said:


> They bring the verb in front of the subject because they are 存現文.


I've no idea what is a 存現文 so I did a search. Seems it is a Japanese term.


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## Flaminius

Oh, I thought 存現文 is a Chinese term.  Even if it may be particular to the discourse in Japan, it is still meant to explain the Chinese grammar.  By 存現文 I meant a few conditions for the verb to come before the subject even when the verb is intransitive; if a verb denotes existence (存 < 存在), appearance (現 < 現象), or disappearance, it can be fronted (sometimes obligatorily) and precede the subject.  下雨 is one of the most typical examples of this construction.  Other verbs that are similarly used include: 放、站、坐、有、摆

Anyway, I doubt if 下雨 has an agentative subject like 老天 when nothing explicit is in the sentence.  Historical Chinese texts have 雨下.  I take it to mean that there was a time when verb fronting was not mandatory.


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## SimonTsai

Here is an excerpt from a 法輪功 Web site on the grammatical and cultural explanation of 下雨 and 下雪:

[雪和雨] 在中文裡，一般只用作名詞，相應的動詞變成了「下雪」或「下雨」。[...] 不管「下雪」也罷、「下雨」也罷，中國古人將其視為「天」的行為 [...]。 (正見網，2007 年)​
And here are more supporting examples:

大甲鎮瀾宮偕同農田水利署舉辦祈雨法會，期盼有「雨水媽」之稱的大甲媽祖能讓老天帶來雨勢。台中市長盧秀燕、大甲鎮瀾宮董事長「標哥」顏清標一同出席法會，手持香誠心祈福，盼老天下雨幫助台灣度過缺水危機。 (TVBS 新聞網，2021 年)​
天不滅曹是真的嗎？南北朝時老天颳了四場風幫他奪得半壁江山。 (每日頭條，2018 年)​
兩個兒媳比孝心：老天降雷，一個發財一個喪命。 (360 個人圖書館，2020 年)​


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## Flaminius

I thought we were talking about the Chinese grammar, not religion.  Still, I don't object that weather phenomena can be expressed as instances of 「天」的行為 (the colour redacted).  As early as Mencius, we see 天油然作雲，沛然下雨 (梁惠王上).  Do we, then, always have to assume that this construction has an implied subject and that the subject is a supernal being?  Not necessarily, especially when there is no explicit subject.

In the most ancient and the most religious context, Bone Oracles usually "miss out" the mention to 天, as in 癸巳卜爭貞今一月雨 / 癸巳卜爭貞今一月不其雨 / 王占曰□丙雨 / 旬壬寅雨甲辰翌雨… (合集12487)
There were a lot of gods in the pantheon of Yin Dynasty.  It is unimaginable for the text to lack the name of a god if rainfalls were conceived of as an act of some god or gods.


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