[TIP] Getting help with usage

As you write, you might come across the choice between two synonyms. For example, would you say “一种人” or “一类人”? What’s the difference between “种” and “类”？The best way resolve such usage issue is by looking up the words in a corpus, such as 句酷 (Jukuu)。 For example, go to Jukuu, and search for “种 kind” and “类 kind”. We add “kind“ to specify that we only want sentences with 种 and 类 meaning “kind” and filter out the other meanings. (For example, ”种“ when read as zhòng also has the meaning of “to plant.”) Now compare the example sentences between 种 and 类。You’ve probably observed that “种“ is mostly used with generic nouns like “room”, “account”, “climate”, “personality”, “method”, and “food”, whereas “类“ is mostly used with words related to people and their actions like “measurement”, “question”, “crime”, “business”, “interaction”, “work.” If you look at the results even more closely you can perhaps discern more subtle differences. https://i.redd.it/hgv5ea2429y21.png You can even get more specific and compare sentences with “一种人” and “一类人”. Note the number of occurrences with each search to see which one is more common. Given the fact that both searches yield more than 10 pages results, they are equally common. And you probably noticed that “一类人” tends to be used when referring to a specific person like “you are this type of person,” or “he is this type of person,” whereas “一种人” usually refers to a kind of person in general. So you can come to the conclusion that “一类人” and “一种人” are often interchangeable, but when you want to say “you’re this sort of person” or “he is that sort of person” then “一类人” is preferable. Such subtle distinctions are never explained in books. Even if you were to ask a native speaker, he or she might not be able to tell you the difference. But a quick search in a corpus will help you gain this insight. submitted by /u/ChineseZeroToHero [link] [comments]

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