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Japanese writing system basics
231–240 of 347 posts
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#232If 口 substitutes for mouth -- the adjective form of "mouth" is "oral", an etymologically (and audibly!) distinct word. Should that use 口 too? If king is 王, kingly is 王ly, and royal is 王al, what is regal? If mouth is 口 and mouthed is 口ed, why would ate be 食t rather than 食ed? Japan misinterpreted the Chinese writing system (already terrible) into easily the worst writing system known to mankind. It won't look cute when…
That's because you're thinking in English. "Kingly" is a very English way of thinking of things (as in king-like behaviour for example). In Chinese and Japanese, there simply isn't a way to describe it as elegantly as in English In Chinese it'd be 王道 (the tao of the King if translated directly to English), which has a completely different connotation (it's more holistic in concept (i.e. it has an overloaded meaning)…
> That's because you're thinking in English.
No, it's because I thought making the point in English made more sense in an English-speaking forum than making the point in Chinese. I'd go with 像国王一样(的) "like a king" or 适合国王(的) "fit for a king" for the English senses of "kingly".
The point is that, as bad as the Chinese writing system is, it's still fundamentally a writing system. 女, 娘, and 妮 may all variously mean "girl" (actually, 女 is an adjective), but they are written differently because they are different words (or, as the case may be, stems). Conversely, it makes sense to talk about the pronunciation of a Chinese character. Japan somehow overlooked this principle when trying to adopt writing, and the Japanese system is a total mess. Japanese 漢字 can only be read in context; in isolation, they represent a grab bag of some unrelated words with shared semantics along with assorted nonsense syllables.
> Other than that, in Chinese, there is the concept of a radical, which can be combined to inform the readers about the context it's used in. In Japanese, as bemmu wrote, it'd be additional kanas to inform of context.
This appears to be... nonsense? The concept of a character radical is not restricted to Chinese. It refers to a part of the character that gives you a hint about the overall meaning. For example, the radical of 冷 "cold" is the 冫 on the left, which means "ice". The radical of 切 "cut" is the 刀 "knife" on the right. And the radical of 漢 "the Han race" is the 氵, which means "water" (they're not all helpful). They are an inherent part of the character and are totally independent of any context. And the kanas you describe as "inform[ing] of context" in the OP do no such thing; they encode grammatical suffixes which have no characters of their own. Chinese uses (wait for it...) Chinese characters for the same purpose; Chinese grammatical markers, unlike Japanese ones, do have dedicated characters. Radicals are a completely unrelated phenomenon.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking as someone who started as an adult and is now fluent, I think this would make Japanese much, much harder to learn. Or rather, the 2-3 months would be ten times easier and everything after would be ten times harder.
Why? What is the advantage of using a different symbol for each word, that offsets the huge disadvantages of having to learn and remember a different symbol for each word? Especially considering that the spoken language already distinguishes between all possible words through pronunciation (and context in the case of homophones.)
There are way too much homophones and you don't always have the luxury of the context. Learning a symbol for each root (not word!) is not that bad, English spelling is almost as bad, actually.
Spoken language is quite limited compared to written Japanese.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#234Another interesting aspect of traditional Chinese characters is that complex words are expressed by combining simpler symbols. For example, the Chinese word for computer is 電腦. The first character represents "electricity", and the second character represents "brain". Which is really what a computer is, an electric brain. Similarly, a computer programmer is 程序員, where the three symbols are "rule", "order", and "person…
> you only need to learn around 3000 symbols This is not a good result. Learning 3000 characters could take years, and even then there would still be some you don't know. To read an English newspaper you only need to learn 26 symbols. Yes you need to learn the words, but you also have to do that for Chinese which is separate from learning the symbols for each word. It's a hugely inefficient way to write. Furthermore,…
>It's a hugely inefficient way to write.
Agreed. Remindeds me of an anecdote from David Moser:
"I was once at a luncheon with three Ph.D. students in the Chinese Department at Peking University, all native Chinese (one from Hong Kong). I happened to have a cold that day, and was trying to write a brief note to a friend canceling an appointment that day. I found that I couldn't remember how to write the character 嚔, as in da penti 打喷嚔 "to sneeze". I asked my three friends how to write the character, and to my surprise, all three of them simply shrugged in sheepish embarrassment. Not one of them could correctly produce the character. Now, Peking University is usually considered the "Harvard of China". Can you imagine three Ph.D. students in English at Harvard forgetting how to write the English word "sneeze"??"
Regarding the grandparent's point of joining characters, my favorite has always been 火雞 (fire chicken) for turkey.
[1] Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#235After viewing this a couple of hours ago, ads for Candy Japan are popping up for me on Facebook.
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Re: Japanese writing system basics
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Japanese use of Kanji is usually more similar to Cantonese (Cantonese is a much older language than modern Mandarin) So in Mandarin you wouldn't find people using 食 as a verb, but in cantonese it is the correct verb. In Cantonese it's pronounced something like "sekk" ("sihk" in Yale romanisation, but I think if you're not familiar with Yale you'd try and read that "sick" or "sikh") Edit: "sikh"
Yes, 食 is a verb in Cantonese and Hakka! Both of them are more close to archaic Chinese than Mandarin.
As I understand Hakka is actually a collection of languages, not necessarily mutually intelligible.
I learned a bit of one dialect from a friend's mum. And the basics were very similar to Cantonese.
Would be interested to learn more dialects once I'm done with Mandarin and Cantonese.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#237Another interesting aspect of traditional Chinese characters is that complex words are expressed by combining simpler symbols. For example, the Chinese word for computer is 電腦. The first character represents "electricity", and the second character represents "brain". Which is really what a computer is, an electric brain. Similarly, a computer programmer is 程序員, where the three symbols are "rule", "order", and "person…
> Another interesting aspect of traditional Chinese characters is that complex words are expressed by combining simpler symbols. For example, the Chinese word for computer is 電腦. The first character represents "electricity", and the second character represents "brain". Which is really what a computer is, an electric brain.
That's nice, but I think most languages do this. It's not particular to Chinese. The word "computer" comes from "com-" (with/together) and "putare" (to reckon). Or "composition"; to position together. "compile"; to pile together, etc.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#238Another interesting aspect of traditional Chinese characters is that complex words are expressed by combining simpler symbols. For example, the Chinese word for computer is 電腦. The first character represents "electricity", and the second character represents "brain". Which is really what a computer is, an electric brain. Similarly, a computer programmer is 程序員, where the three symbols are "rule", "order", and "person…
> you only need to learn around 3000 symbols This is not a good result. Learning 3000 characters could take years, and even then there would still be some you don't know. To read an English newspaper you only need to learn 26 symbols. Yes you need to learn the words, but you also have to do that for Chinese which is separate from learning the symbols for each word. It's a hugely inefficient way to write. Furthermore,…
Characters do give a lot of semantic information than an alphabet and it's definitely easier to learn new words through context if you can see the characters vs just hearing them.
Knowing Chinese characters is closer to knowing not only the alphabet but also understanding most basic English words plus Latin/Greek stems like auto (self), locus/loco (place), -ous (possessing or full of -), etc. From that base it's pretty quick to learn longer words and there are tons of clues to help you remember them.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#239In Chinese 食 is pronounced shí. As someone who speaks Chinese, I got a chuckle out of reading 'put your favorite snack in your 口 and 食t it!' due to the association in my mind of that character and its Chinese pronunciation, immediately followed by a 't'.
Japanese use of Kanji is usually more similar to Cantonese (Cantonese is a much older language than modern Mandarin) So in Mandarin you wouldn't find people using 食 as a verb, but in cantonese it is the correct verb. In Cantonese it's pronounced something like "sekk" ("sihk" in Yale romanisation, but I think if you're not familiar with Yale you'd try and read that "sick" or "sikh") Edit: "sikh"
Not to mention that Mandarin would use 嘴（里）rather than 口
The pronunciations of kanji correlate to different Chinese eras and areas.
The usage and choice of characters are influenced by Classical Chinese, which was the literary language in Japan until, uhm, recently-ish.
There is a very good recent YouTube video that explains the usage of Chinese characters in Japanese and which I recommend to anyone interested in the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF3MRMBjd20
I was very impressed by the accuracy and knowledge displayed, as most of what is written and said on the subject is ehhh somewhat disappointing.
Re: Japanese writing system basics
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anybody care to explain why "costs of reprinting/copying was far lower compared to other forms of phonetic systems"? I know nothing about printing technology but I'm a Chinese.
Far many more symbols are required to represent a word with alphabetical systems. I used 65 symbols and 11 spaces to write this sentence whereas with ideograms I'd need about 13 symbols.
OIC, To express the same meaning, using Chinese needs far more less physical space than using English.
And you know what? Classical Chinese takes the compactness to the next level ;D
I'll try give an example: English: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Chinese: 敏捷的棕毛狐狸从懶狗身上跃过
Classical Chinese： 棕色敏狐跃懶犬 Note: This is composed by me, maybe not very well-written, and maybe it can be even more compact, but you see what I mean ;)