261–270 of 347 posts
口 and 食 are also Chinese characters for mouth and eat, although I had to check google for 食. Initially, I thought that he was teaching Chinese until I read 食 was eat (which needed Google) and that it was "Japanese".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. Not necessarily true. For instance, "Not necessarily true" is 18 characters and 2 white spaces, while in Chinese, it could be as simple as "未必".
While English might be among the worst alphabetic writing systems (compared to, say, Spanish, which has a wonderful correspondence between what is written and what is spoken), it is certainly a more efficient writing system than Chinese, in that fewer years of school have to be dedicated to just learning to read and write.
Furthermore, as highlighted by someone else, it is not uncommon for writers of Chinese to just completely forget how to write a word.
In English, you might misspell it, but it'll be rare that you can't render it at all.
Great book on the topic of Chinese, debunking several misconceptions, is "The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy" by John DeFrancis. http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-819-9780824810689.aspx
I'm interested in how this compactness changes the expressiveness and evolution of the language. In English, as in other languages written in the latin alphabet, you can make changes to the spelling of a word and create new meanings rather fluidly and it's usually easy for the reader to comprehend. I have no knowledge of Japanese, but are there similar possibilities? How do new words/slang get created?
Yes Chinese characters (used in Japanese as kanji, which means Chinese character) often are composed of smaller elements or other characters. it common for a character to be composed of two common parts,one indicating meaning in some way,the other indicating pronunciation.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T5FNvW19GbA
The entire character set is not that simple though.
Yeah yeah, this all makes sense until you see 品, which isn't "a three-mouthed monster" but "goods". Languages are weird, man.
This is off topic, but I can't find any pricing on the candyjapan.com website when visiting on mobile (iPhone). Anyone can tell me how much it costs per month?
Yeah yeah, this all makes sense until you see 品, which isn't "a three-mouthed monster" but "goods". Languages are weird, man.
I interpret that character as "three boxes" so "goods" is a very intuitive translation :)
But I think I might like to visit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 'what does "in-con-ceiv-able" mean?' Really? You don't think someone with less experience in English would say "what does... inkonsayvaybull mean?" There are plenty of instances where the word is not pronounced the way you think it is. > A japanese beginner will see 照り焼き and say "uhhhh.. ri..." A child or beginner would probably be more likely to say "uh, what's that thing with the 日 and the 火, it's something ri so…
> Really? You don't think someone with less experience in English would say "what does... inkonsayvaybull mean?" There are plenty of instances where the word is not pronounced the way you think it is. You're missing his point and English is a crappy example because it's spelling is an unmitigated disaster. For example, if you can read and vocalize the Greek alphabet, you can just ask someone what "νόστιμο φαγητό"* me…
While many Chinese characters have a phonetic component (in addition to a component related to the meaning), it rarely corresponds exactly to the current pronunciation (in Mandarin).
Furthermore, you can very rarely conjure the right character out of pronunciation and and some aspect of the meaning.
I'm interested in how this compactness changes the expressiveness and evolution of the language. In English, as in other languages written in the latin alphabet, you can make changes to the spelling of a word and create new meanings rather fluidly and it's usually easy for the reader to comprehend. I have no knowledge of Japanese, but are there similar possibilities? How do new words/slang get created?
In 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'.
†IPA something like this: /ʃɝ/