In a Mandarin word-chain chat today the innocuous 論壇 for “forum” showed up.

I was having both a fun and hard time to find anything starting with 壇 in my printed dictionaries, to continue the game with. Or even identify one that had the character at all. 壇 tán on its own has strong religious connotation, as in temple or ceremonious arrangement something something.

But. Searched four volumes, no dice. Online, no compound expression (maybe I stopped looking early because felt lightly discouraged). So had to dig into the old 1943 Mathew’s Dictionary that falls apart at the spine to find the one single compound noun 壇場 for “arena”. This family owned volume has proven useful at times.

Phew. I love it to have very reliable resources at hand when I need to. Digging that word up gave me a few happy moments of mild euphoria this morning while searching for and then posting my contribution. So you get to read this, too. :o)

#mandarin #learningchinese #cjk #chineselesson #dictionary #languages