Chinese phrase – Chinese sentence – learn Mandarin – How to say ” We don’t remember long days, we remember short moments” in Chinese: Wo3 men5 bu2 ji4 de5 man4 man4 chang2 ri4, wo3 men5 ji4 de5 duan3 zhan4 shun4 jian1. 我们不记得漫漫长日， 我们记得短暂瞬间。
I made some changes to this quote:
We do not remember days; we remember moments. ~Cesare Pavese, The Burning Brand
So that I can add two useful adjectives to enrich your Chinese vocabulary and also review the pronunciation rule for reduplication of adjectives.
Wo3 men5 (我们 pronoun, we) bu2 (不 don’t, not, a negative prefix to put in front of verb to negate it) ji4 (记 verb, remember) de5 (得 a habitual particle to put after a verb) man4 man4 (漫漫 adverb , endless, very long to modify the chang2, adj. ) chang2 (长 adjective, long) ri4 (日 noun, day), wo3 men5 (我们 we) ji4 de5 (记得 remember) duan3 zhan4 (短暂 adjective, short) shun4 jian1 (瞬间noun, moments, shun4 means wink or blink, jian1 means time -shi1 jian1 时间, so, the time for one winking or blinking is short, thus, it means moments).
Pronunciation rules for reduplication of adjectives:
1. Two adjective: the accent is put on the second word.
2. Two adjective + de5 的： same as above.
3. Two adjective + er5 儿：the accent is put on the first word, and the second word got softened (sound like neutral tone).
For example: *** means accent
1 Man4 **man4** zou3. 慢慢走。Walk slowly.
2 Man4 **man4** de ren2. 慢慢的人。 Slow person.
3 **Man4** man4 er4 shuo1. 慢慢儿说。 Speak slowly.
For memory, in Chinese we call it ji4 yi4 记忆.