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- "外面刮着风。"
"外面刮着风。"
Translation:It is windy outside.
24 Comments
The audio is not correct here, right? It's supposed to be gua1 zhe, not gua1 zhao 2?
I believe that 着 is actually one of those words with alternate pronunciations, and zhao is one of them. I'm still not entirely sure what rules govern the use of alternate pronunciations, but I don't believe that this particular instance is incorrect.
1236
Characters may have 2 or more pronunciations. A particular pronunciation goes with a certain meaning or usage of the character and usually is consistent with the latter.
e.g. 外面刮着风，小心着涼。
The 1st 着 is a preposition indicating a continuous action, and is pronounced as zhe;
The 2nd 着 is a verb which means catch as in catching cold. It is pronounced as zhao.
刮风 is very common and natural, it is usually used when referring to strong or wide range wind. For example, we would say:
明天可能刮台风。(we don't use 吹 for typhoon) 今天上午刮风了。 我的衣服都被风刮跑了。
吹 is used when the wind is gentle or in a small range. For example: 微风吹动树叶。 风轻轻吹起了窗帘。 我用吹风机吹干了头发。
Another prompt in this same lesson insists 刮着风 means "very windy" and here "very windy" isn't accepted. Really frustrating.
I have never heard 刮 (gua) associated with wind blowing; I've always heard 吹 (chui) or simply 外面风很大.
- 1236
吹 does mean blow and it can substitute 刮. Only it is less usual to use 吹 without describing the strength of the wind. So more usually 吹著微風，吹著強風， 吹著很大的風，etc.
刮 already include the implication that the wind is strong, so using with or without magnitude are both natural, but it does not apply to weak wind.
- 203
Thank you, Keith. I appreciate your expanded comments; I'm learning a lot of interesting things about Mandarin from you.
Kinda frustrated that it's "it's windy outside" both with and without the 着...
Stand alone it means to shave, to scrape, to blow(of wind). Coupled: Guafeng 刮风 means to be windy Guahuzi 刮胡子 to shave ones beard
