How different is Mandarin? - All fear English Domination *Rawr*

[kcwong]

There's always Esperanto! <snip>
Example:
domo = house
dometo = small house
domaro = neighborhood (collection of houses)
domacxo = crappy house ("acx-" implies a degree of contempt)

and you can mix them together like dometaracxo = slums (collection of small, crappy houses)

So assuming:
dogo = dog

Is this how it goes:
dogero = small dog
dogaro = a group of dogs
dogacxo = dirty dog
dogetaracxo = a group of small, dirty dogs

I've read the Wiki article about it... it said it's being taught in school in China, but I've never heard anything about it until now!

Also the wiki linked to a few articles against it... they all complain it is too complex, and Euro-centric. And I feel the same... even the name suggests it is something related to Europe. And how many suffix do you have in Esperanto? Keep appending suffixes and it quickly becomes unreadable... and what about the order of the suffixes...

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Indeed. There's no way you can make us Chinese give up on our cultural heritage, which is backed by thousands of years of history behind it.

We can still read our books, written during the Han dynasty and before!

 

[Ansar]

P.S. I just found a free online Chinese Dictionary... www.zdic.net. They probably don't have all the words in yet, but the current status is already very good, comparable to the ones you can buy. Neat.

It's in Chinese...

 

[mangxema]

Is this how it goes:

Basically, though "dirty" has a lot of meanings... worthless is probably more precise, but yeah, that's basically how it works. And root is "hundo," though I certainly can't blame you for making up "dogo".

I've read the Wiki article about it... it said it's being taught in school in China, but I've never heard anything about it until now!

Yeah, it's kind of a cult following I guess... There aren't too many people who actually speak it natively, so there's little motivation for the average Joe to learn it, making a vicious cycle. I like it b/c I was bored in my French class and started messing around with trying to make a regular language, and when I stumbled upon Esperanto, I found three of my top priorities: the syllable vocab-building thing, only one verb conjugation per tense, and no gender. I was too lazy to continue after that.

Also the wiki linked to a few articles against it... they all complain it is too complex...

To this I would say, "Quit whining" because all languages have their eccentricities. The rules are complex, but they ALWAYS work. I personally have always dislike the seemingly arbitrary nature of English, where there are rules and then a ton of exceptions. But that's just me.

...and Euro-centric. And I feel the same... even the name suggests it is something related to Europe.

This is very true. While it does integrate Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages pretty well, there is very little influence from the East. Though honestly, I think their influence could only be so big since they have different writing systems, but I would like to see more Asian roots.

And how many suffix do you have in Esperanto? Keep appending suffixes and it quickly becomes unreadable... and what about the order of the suffixes...

I don't think that's as big of an issue as it initially seems. I used that example to show how you could do it in theory, but a quick glance of wikipedia in Esperanto shows few words with multiple suffixes. Instead, there are usually word phrases just like any other language. For example: I found this in an article: komputila programaro

komputilo = computing tool (a computer)
programaro = collection of programs (software)
so
komputila programaro = collection of programs for a computing tool (computer software)

The order is a valid point. You've got me there.

 

[kcwong]

It's in Chinese...

If you don't know a bit of Chinese already, a Chinese dictionary is of no use to you.

You will need to be able to tell the "Radical" of a glyph, and how to write the glyph (number and order of the strokes).

 

[GenMarshall]

If you don't know a bit of Chinese already, a Chinese dictionary is of no use to you.

You will need to be able to tell the "Radical" of a glyph, and how to write the glyph (number and order of the strokes).

This might also apply to me learning Japanese Kanji. How can one tell the radical of the character/glyph as well as how to write it correctly without making it look like crap . Ahh thank goodness for the eraser and the pencil .

 

[kcwong]

I found a Wiki article about Chinese radicals, and how to look up a Chinese dictionary.

It's in English this time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(Chinese_character)

 

[Tomoyo]

If you don't know a bit of Chinese already, a Chinese dictionary is of no use to you.

Chinese dictionaries won't be of much use to some people that know some Chinese. They define Chinese words in terms of more complicated Chinese words. Phrase dictionaries are better.

 

[kcwong]

Chinese dictionaries won't be of much use to some people that know some Chinese. They define Chinese words in terms of more complicated Chinese words. Phrase dictionaries are better.

Perhaps that's because your knowledge of Chinese is really shaky (I know... I've seen you confusing some glyphs before, e.g. &#22478; vs &#25104. And isn't that the same for English dictionary.

I personally don't like English to Chinese and Chinese to English dictionaries... you don't want translations when learning about a word...

 

[colontos]

If you think Japanese and Chinese are bad, take a look at Korean glyphs. You'll have a headache trying to remember them.

ED: Here's an example, from Character Map.
Korean:

Both are like pictures to non-natives, but at least the Chinese characters are much different from each other. Those Korean glyphs all look the same...

Minor point, but Korean does not have 'glyphs' or 'characters.' They simply have an alphabet, 24 letters, a fairly easy one, too. Those syllables you posted (that's what they are) are all simple to read. It works like this:

The word for price is 'kaps' and the individual letters look like this:

k - &#12593;
a - &#12623;
p - &#12610;
s - &#12613;

When you make a syllable, you just arrange the letters on top of each other like this:

12
34

so the word for price is: &#44050;

It's quite a simple and easy writing system.

 

[Cuivienen]

I agree with Dann... there's no "a pi of horse" in English. "&#21305;" is simply dropped when translating. "&#21305;" was also a measurement unit for length... e.g. &#19968;&#21305;&#24067; (a piece of cloth of certain length). Though nowadays "&#21305;" usually do not carry that meaning anymore.


If you think Japanese and Chinese are bad, take a look at Korean glyphs. You'll have a headache trying to remember them.

ED: Here's an example, from Character Map.
Korean:

Traditional Chinese:

Both are like pictures to non-natives, but at least the Chinese characters are much different from each other. Those Korean glyphs all look the same...

If I remember from what my Korean friends have explained to me, Hangul are actually written as letters rather than characters. Each of those "characters" consists of a certain number of "letters" that together comprise the sound, and the number of "letters" is about the same as in the Latin alphabet. (For example, the common surname "Kim" would be written with one character that included the "letters" "k" "i" and "m" in the proper location.) While it looks just as intimidating, Korean is far easier for a Westerner to learn than Chinese or Japanese for that reason.

 

[Bluemofia]

Yeah... The Chinese invented an Alphabet recently (Zhu Yin). Why can't they use it like the Koreans did with theirs? Stupid tradition...

And why must the Pin Yin screw things up so much, that when I try to read it in Pin Yin, I can't understand it. If I were to read the Zhu Yin I can understand it fine. And then there is this simplified language. That I don't know any, and the Traditional does seem more sensible to me, because the differences are clearer, and I understand why the words are the way they are. Relitivley.

 

[nihilistic]

Yeah... The Chinese invented an Alphabet recently (Zhu Yin). Why can't they use it like the Koreans did with theirs? Stupid tradition...

And why must the Pin Yin screw things up so much, that when I try to read it in Pin Yin, I can't understand it. If I were to read the Zhu Yin I can understand it fine. And then there is this simplified language. That I don't know any, and the Traditional does seem more sensible to me, because the differences are clearer, and I understand why the words are the way they are. Relitivley.

Zhuyin is not an alphabet. It's a phonetic guide just like Pinyin. The difference betweent them is that Zhuyin looks like Japanese Katakana and Pinyin uses the Latin alphabet with "close to" English pronounciations. Pinyin is is actually easier to learn than Zhuyin, especially for foreigners.

About the traditional/simplified thing, it's a matter of convenience. Traditional takes much longer to write than Simplified, and simply isn't more clear. Also, it is much harder to fit into tight spaces because strokes do have width, and often complicated characters can end up just a big black blob if space is limited.

 

[Dann]

One can write in Zhuyin. You just stack them on top of each other, then place the intonation symbol on the right. Like so:

&#19968;/
&#20011; for the character &#38597; for example.

But the problem is that for every combination there's probably at least a dozen characters with the same sound. That same Zhuyin combination could also stand for &#33469;, &#21713;, &#28079;, etc. So Zhuyin is relegated to a role of pronounciation guide. For children's books. (It's how I was educated as a kid. )

To change Chinese to an alphabet-based system we'd have to overhaul the entire system, and invent a million new sounds (words) to replace the existing ones.

Due to circumstances I have learned to read both Pinyin and Zhuyin. Also both Traditional amd Simplified script. I don't find one to be more or less efficent than the other. Except I do agree that Traditional looks more elegant.

EDIT: Cross post with Nihilistic.

EDIT 2: Slipped a word. :doh:

 

[nihilistic]

Due to circumstances I have learned to read both Pinyin and Zhuyin. Also both Traditional amd Simplified script. I don't one to be more or less efficent than the other. Except I do agree that Traditional looks more elegant.

EDIT: Cross post with Nihilistic.

I tend to think that simplicity is elegance.

 

[Dann]

Oh I agree that Simplified Chinese is definitely faster to write. Saves ink too. What I mean with equal efficiency is that it takes me the exact same amount of time to read either.

It's basically in calligraphy and logos where I prefer Traditional.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Yeah... The Chinese invented an Alphabet recently (Zhu Yin). Why can't they use it like the Koreans did with theirs? Stupid tradition...

And just why the hell should we Chinese give up our millenia-old ideograms for your convenience?

 

[colontos]

You know, Knight-Dragon, once I pm-ed you, protesting a thread that you closed because you found it "offensive to all Chinese." In the pm I simply referred to your being Chinese, and your reply? "I'm not Chinese." But now, it's "we Chinese." Identity issues?

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Probably.

I blame it on the Malay supremacists back home, who can't make up their mind whether to assimilate us as full Malaysians or to leave us as full Chinese. Somewhere in the middle.

Do you know that I grow up speaking Mandarin at home, studying in Malay at school and speaking English with my friends and reading non-school stuff in English? That's a recipe for an identity crisis.

 

[colontos]

It's also a recipe for getting a good job in a lot of countries, with 3 languages. You lucky jerk , I've had to work for all of mine (except first).