Chinese languages

I am sure this is a recurrent question, yet I was unable to find it, so please forgive me if it's been answered before. :D So basically, can someone explain the difference between 河，江 and 川？ We have 四川, 红河 (which is apparently also called 元江), 澜沧江 (also called 湄公河), etc. So are they simply interchan...

"东西".. Since RS gives no definitions, I went with my gut on the meaning, and apparently was totally wrong according to any dictionary I've checked. The only sentence they give with this word is: 这只狗在吃东西。 It shows a picture of a dog eating dog food. Since at this point we've been given seve...

I came across this idiom in the following sentence: "我们的外交事业可以说是风声水起、有声有色" BTW, I found an explanation (Google 风声水起是什么意思) that says this is rooted in a folk story about fishermen that had no firewood and had to eat the fish raw, and then this became a name for a cooking style.. but even if...

I can't work out what the above sentence means and I can't find it in the dictionary.
Is it colloquial meaning something like "that was a close one"?

Thank you in advance for any responses.

How's this for a fun game.

Can anyone think of some words in Chinese which can be switched around?

Off the top of my head: 搭配/配搭 (collocate) and 冰棒/棒冰 (ice block/popsicle). I think they have - more or less - the same meaning, depending on the context.

Is there a good way to express sarcasm when you are speaking or writing Chinese? I know in English it is usually context dependent and in speaking uses vocal and visual cues. Is it the same in Chinese?

Hi everyone! I have been watching a lot of Anime in Chinese lately, and this phrase 才对 has been used quite a lot at the end of a sentence. However, I just CAN'T figure out what it means. No dictionary seems to have this, and even a search on the web doesn't help anything. This is really frustrating....

bicycle - 單車。腳踏車。自行車。 taxi - 的士。計程車。出租車。 bus - 巴士。公車。 hotel - 酒店。飯店。。。。。 broccoli - 西蘭花。綠菜花。青花菜。 potato - 薯仔。馬鈴薯。土豆。 tomato - 番茄。西紅柿。 cucumber - 青瓜。黃瓜。胡瓜。。。。 lettuce - 生菜。萵苣。 notebook/laptop - 筆記型電腦。筆記簿電腦。筆電。手提電腦。 computer - 電腦。計算機。 mobile phone - 手機。手提電話。流動電話。無綫電話。 salmon - 三文魚。鮭魚。 tuna - 吞拿魚。金槍魚。鮪...

I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to say the following as a chengyu? You change the external wrapping, but the contents are still stay the same, ie. superficial/meaningless change? Or something to that effect (there are a lot of ways you can express that sort of meaning in English). I'd ap...

I'm looking for lists of words where within Standard Putonghua there are meaning differences depending on whether or not qingsheng or erhua occurs. For instance: - 东西 dōngxi "thing" vs. dōngxī "West-East" - 花儿 "flower" huār vs. 花 huā "spend" (erhua is trickier...