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屡见不鲜 tone incorrect?

ximeng   November 26th, 2013 9:54a.m.

屡见不鲜 should the last character be third tone rather than first? It's first tone in Baidu, zdic, Skritter and others, but it seems the "few / rare" third tone meaning would make more sense. I asked one Chinese speaker and they said it with third tone. Also this page http://www.tieku001.com/507301/16.html says the first tone is a common error (item 234 in a list of common errors). Opinion of Skritterers?

Kryby   November 26th, 2013 12:23p.m.

I checked a couple of Chinese dictionaries and it should be xian1 - one dictionary had a special note about the pronunciation. The chengyu describes something that is “多次見到,並不新鮮“. The English definition on skritter doesn't made the lack of 新鮮-ness clear.

There are a fair few pinyin errors in skritter, so it's worth being vigilant. But in this case it seems correct.

gua nö   November 26th, 2013 12:40p.m.

It is listed with first tone for all my eight dictionaries that contains it in pleco.

pts   November 26th, 2013 12:46p.m.

If one considers the modern meaning of 屡见不鲜, which is “something commonly seen and not rare”, then it is easy to jump to the conclusion that 鲜 should be third tone. But this is a 成语, and it has a story behind it. In that story, 鲜 refers to a freshly killed game, and so should be first tone.

More information can be found if one looks up 数见不鲜, which is a variant of 屡见不鲜. From zdic, under the tab 成语解释, the explanation for 鲜 is "鲜:新杀的禽兽,引伸为新鲜。本指对于常来之客,就不宰杀禽兽招待。后指常常见到,并不新奇。" The TW MOE dictionary also gives a similar explanation for 數見不鮮 and reaffirms that 数见不鲜 and 屡见不鲜 are just variants.

snowcreature99   November 26th, 2013 11:47p.m.

Interesting. FWIW, 現代漢語規範詞典 in the entry for 屢見不鮮 also says「注意 “鮮”這裡不讀xiǎn, 意義跟“少”不同。」

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