Posted on 12/31/2001 9:36:55 PM PST by Rowdee
But geeze, you're starting to sound like I do sometimes...do I make myself clear?
I'll not call it easy, it is loose. It is very hard for computer to figure out the meaning of a Chinese sentence though.
The word "TREE" in Chinese character is a picture looks like a tree. The word "WOODS" in Chinese character is "two tree characters" combine together to represents the idea. And you guess it, "FOREST" in Chinese character is "3 tree characters" combine together.
For example the character for electricity 'dian' is made up of two of the above mentioned 'bu shou'. That is a Chinese character. Each character might be made up of one, two, three, or more of the 'bu shou'.
Chinese words though are not made up of single characters normally. 'Dian'+'hua'= dian-hua, which means literally 'electric word' or more commonly known as a telephone. There are some single character words though, such as basic verbs, and things like the words "you" "me", etc.
Those 188 or however many bu-shou there are are in a sense a Chinese alphabet. Once you learn to write the 188 you can mix and match.
It is not a random mixing though. The bu-shou for ear + the one for eye + the one for heart+ the one for king all combined together make the character for the word "listen". Combined those bu-shou form the cultural meaning for what it means 'to listen'. They cannot be put together in random order either. Each bu-shou has to be placed in proper order next to the other bu-shou that you use. If you don't do it that way you are just writing greek. In traditional characters the bu-shou, as well as how to write each indivdual character (all however many 10,000s of them there are) are standardized.
Mainly it is all memorization. You either know that character or you do not. You either know the proper sound that goes with each character or you do not. It is all practice and memorization.
Chinese is very diverse and there are so many different dialects. The actual grammar is different in many cases as is some of the word choice. (for example in the US we say flashlight, but in the UK they say torch)
Part of the problem in reading old texts from say 1000 years back is that often those things were not written with modern mandarin in mind. They were written in a broad 'wen yan wen' which is like classical Chinese grammar. Its about like comparing modern English to Shakespearean English. A lot of the characters are the same, but the grammar is all different.
In modern Chinese they do not use wen yan wen anymore, only maybe in artwork or something. Wen yan wen was only for writing though, even in the old days.
Today though they use bai hua wen which is kind of a system where they merged spoken Chinese with written chinese. It is a lot more simple. If you can talk, you have the basic grammar patterns down. That is unlike wen yan wen where the spoken grammar was different than the written grammar.
Across dialects spoken grammar is not 100% the same, and more often than not that doesnt even matter. Its like a Frenchman speaking to a Englishman, and neither one knows the other's language.
Traditionally written characters have almost always been the same since about 221BC. In the 20th century though the mainland started using simplified characters though.
I want a coke.
I want some coke.
In other words, Mr. Reagan and I are in deep doooo.....
It's a given I won't be starting a thread regarding oddities in Chinese! LOL.......and thanks for the lesson. :)
How does one actually post something in "Breaking News"?
I've seen people taken to task for doing this but on the posting/categories page I see no "Breaking News" category.
'Rowdee' mentioned a "Vanities" category. I don't see that category either.
I've posted a few times before but don't seem to be looking at the same page as others when I do. Any input?
Fast = To refrain from eating
Fast = to be loose with women
Fast = To be held tight
Fast = Not to run or fade
Fast = Ahead of the actual time
Yawn, fast asleep
Breaking news is an option from the first pull-down menu
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