Just 'English with Hanzi' • Hacker News Board

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#11

Post by raincole » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”.

> Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。”

No, what? Most native speakers today definitely say things like “雨大，不去了” in daily conversations.

> Take his most famous poem, Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again (再别康桥). In Classical Chinese, a farewell to a river might be compressed into four dense characters: Liu shui, li ren (流水，离人 | Flowing water, departing person). But Xu wrote:

> (轻轻的我走了，正如我轻轻的来；我挥一挥衣袖，不带走一片云彩)

Sorry, it's just stupid. Yes, Xu's poetry style is heavily influenced by European languages. However it doesn't mean this is equivalent to "流水，离人."

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#12

Post by AreShoesFeet000 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:26 PM UTC

why use many word when few word do trick?

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#13

Post by Apocryphon » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

I wonder how this accounts for regionalisms, let alone different Chinese dialects. Taiwanese Mandarin uses 研究 as a verb easily enough.

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#14

Post by underlipton » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:32 PM UTC

I'll read this when it's written by a human.

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#15

Post by Apocryphon » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

picture wrote: post #6

> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”. > Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。” Interestingly the "traditional grammar" is much more conversational and natural, while the latter is expected for modern written work.

I don’t think there’s an inherent modern bias against the laconic traditional style. It actually sounds more in line with the simple sentences children learn in grade school. Really, that ‘traditional’ version is only missing a noun for the second part and then that’s sufficient for modern use. Could remove the last character, even.

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#16

Post by raincole » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

raincole wrote: post #11

> Traditional Chinese relies on context: “Rain heavy, not go”, “雨大，不去了”. > Modern Chinese demands explicit logic: “Because the rain is heavy, therefore I will not go.””因为雨下得很大，所以我决定不去了。” No, what? Most native speakers today definitely say things like “雨大，不去了” in daily conversations. > Take his most famous poem, Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again (再别康桥). In Classical Chinese, a farewell to a river might be compressed…

> The constant use of “I” (Wo) is a modern invention; classical poetry usually omits the subject to create a universal feeling.

我(Wo, "I") has been constantly used for a very very long time. Just less in poetry. For example, this is from early 19th century[0]:

>> 嫣娘答應著，出來三步兩步，連忙跑到園裡，一進門就高聲說道：「我回來了，我可也回來了！」

This is from Journey to The West, 16th century:

>> 我等在此，恐作耍成真，或驚動人王，或有禽王、獸王認此犯頭，說我們操兵造反，興師來相殺，汝等都是竹竿木刀，如何對敵？須得鋒利劍戟方可。如今奈何？

This is allegedly more than 2,000 years(!) old[1]:

>> 帝力於我何有哉

Actually, there are pronouns specifically created for western text:

- 她 (she)

- 妳 (female you, no longer used in mainland China)

- 祂 (originally this character was only used for He and Him in the Bible).

The author mentioning 我 instead of these makes me question how knowledgeable this article is.

[0]: https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E9%A2%A8%E6%9C%88%E9%91%9...

[1]: https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E6%93%8A%E5%A3%A4%E6%AD%8...

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#17

Post by egeozcan » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:42 PM UTC

I'm not one of those AI haters, and as long as you give it enough love, I have nothing against the usage of AI in blog posts. Actually, I'm even quite disappointed that I'm not allowed use AI to correct my grammar here anymore.

That said, this has so much fill-words and weird section titles that reading becomes torture. Not to mention the lack of sources.

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#18

Post by dirteater_ » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

The biggest shift in the past ~100 years or so was the fact that mass-literacy became a thing. People started writing how they speak.

The written language's disconnect from the spoken language had a bunch of different reasons: bridging the gap between mutually-unintelligible regional dialects, political gatekeeping, etc.

I think the main claim of "Modern Chinese can read as English in Hanzi camouflage" owes a lot to the fact that they're two "subject verb object" languages with similar formal/written registers.

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#19

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 7:05 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Just 'English with Hanzi'

#20

Post by yorwba » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC

This article seems to completely ignore the fact that languages change over time on their own and attributes all differences between Literary Chinese and Modern Standard Chinese to contact with European languages, which is rather excessive. Lu Xun was interested in translation, but he was even more interested in writing for the common folk, i.e. not in some relexified foreign language. There are definitely some innovations that were originally used in translations (e.g. different characters for gendered pronouns that are pronounced identically) and of course there are loanwords, but I think most of the claims about grammar are false.