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Japanese writing system basics

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Re: Japanese writing system basics

#241

Post by binaryabyss »

unfamiliar wrote: post #228
primitivesuave wrote: post #212

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. 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,…

English has 52 characters including both cases. Moreover, the ways in which these are combined to form words are highly inconsistent and idiosyncratic.

Chinese characters are made by combining 214 radicals, and most of the characters are written by combining two of these. Most words are created by combining two such characters. It's not really that much more difficult than remembering how to spell an English word.

程序 means program. 程序员 builds on this, not the individual parts of the constituent words.

Chinese is actually a very logical language. The writing system is arguably more complicated than it needs to be (see Victor Mair and his quixotic crusade for romanization), but it conceals a language with very flexible morphemes and simple grammar. I recently had to translate 照顾着 and 被照顾着 for an app, and I had a hard time coming up with concise and decent translations that mirrored the simple relational antonymity of the Chinese.

Re: Japanese writing system basics

#242

Post by felixding »

unfamiliar wrote: post #228
primitivesuave wrote: post #212

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. 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.

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".

Re: Japanese writing system basics

#243

Post by cynix »

xiaoma wrote: post #218
primitivesuave wrote: post #212

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. Similarly, a computer programmer is 程序員, where the three symbols are "rule", "order", and "person…

What traditional character using place are you speaking of? In Taiwan, programmer is 程式設計師 and in Hong Kong, it's 程式設計員. I had thought 程序 was basically a mainland-only variant. Also, FWIW, I couldn't read a paper at 3k characters. It's more like 4-5k if the goal is reading rather than slogging through with a dictionary.

Perhaps GP was thinking of the mainland variant, but only had a Traditional Chinese IME available on the computer.

Speaking of mainland-only variants, their official translation of computer is "计算机" (lit. computation machine).

Re: Japanese writing system basics

#244

Post by JimDabell »

primitivesuave wrote: post #212

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. Similarly, a computer programmer is 程序員, where the three symbols are "rule", "order", and "person…

Isn't that the same in most languages though? For instance in English "electronic mail" became "e-mail", which became "email". "Web log" became "weblog", which became "blog". "Cellular phone" became "cell phone".

Re: Japanese writing system basics

#245

Post by dghughes »

geomark wrote: post #151
anqurvanillapy wrote: post #149

In Chinese, 'eat' is usually '吃'. We use '吃了 (le)' to say we 'ate' and '在 (zài) 吃' or '吃着 (zhě)' for 'eating'. It is really interesting that in China people often ask their friends '吃了吗? (Have you eaten?)' rather than '嗨 (Hi)' in daily life. So initially I thought this post was describing something in Chinese w/o my noticing the URL.

Same in Thai. They ask กินข้าวหรือยัง ("Have you eaten yet?", or literally "Have you eaten rice yet?") as a greeting.

That reminds me that sometimes in my family we'll jokingly say jeet? It comew from the comedian Jeff Foxworthy who said it's redneck for "Did you eat? "

I'm in Canada and not redneck I wonder if jeet is actually used in the US.

Re: Japanese writing system basics

#246

Post by ced »

_kdhr wrote: post #237
primitivesuave wrote: post #212

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. 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 "comp…

Right, but when learning English as a second language, they don't teach you "com" and "putare", because the roots are too far away and too diverse (Latin, Germanic) whereas in Chinese, it's often immediately obvious. Well, more often than in other languages. Most of it is still random-looking.

Re: Japanese writing system basics

#247

Post by athenot »

unfamiliar wrote: post #228
primitivesuave wrote: post #212

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. 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,…

> To read an English newspaper you only need to learn 26 symbols.

Replace English with any other language using the latin alphabet and this doesn't hold up as there is no indication of meaning. For that matter, there's not a strong indication of pronunciation. I may know English and French but that doesn't help me understand Hungarian or Swedish.

I do not know Chinese but my understanding is those 3000 characters are not only glyphs, they are elements of meaning. Incidentally, that is the same order of magnitude of words one needs to know to read an English paper, with the difference that in English, there is a portion of the meaning that is encoded in grammar, ie. the relation & order of words. That a cognitive overhead we take for granted in our language system.

Re: Japanese writing system basics

#249

Post by geomark »

leafsleep wrote: post #219
geomark wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Thai. They ask กินข้าวหรือยัง ("Have you eaten yet?", or literally "Have you eaten rice yet?") as a greeting.

If you want literal, it's "eat rice already" - Thai does not have conjugation

Actually, if you want it literally it would be "eat rice or not yet" (กิน=eat, ข้าว=rice, หรือยัง=or not yet). Like you said, verbs are not conjugated in Thai but instead verb tenses are accomplished with helper words to indicate past, present or future. Sure is a lot more orderly than English verb conjugation with all its irregularities.

Re: Japanese writing system basics

#250

Post by dingaling »

geomark wrote: post #179
dingaling wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In lowland Scotland one finds 'You'll have had your tea?' which is a semi-polite way by which the enquirer informs the visitor that he'll not be given any tea ( i.e. dinner, food ). Has entered mainstream as a cliche of Scottish parsimony but does exist in the wild.

Interesting. It's sort of the opposite when Thais ask if you have eaten already because if you answer "not yet" it is common for them to offer you something.

The Scottish response to 'not yet' is usually something like 'well it seems foolish to have ventured out in that case', obviously delivered in the local dialect.

Though I have extracted one dinner from an Edinburgh man who deploys the phrase, but that was probably because his ( English ) wife had put it on to cook earlier!

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