5 ms·

Chinese has symbols which do not correspond to pronunciation. Each symbol represents a syllable and there are no spaces between words and no capital / lowercase

• ekianjo 9y ago
  thats plain wrong. each chinese symbol has a unique prononciation. Japanese is way more ambiguous because the Japanese transposed chinese characters to a language with a totally different structure.
  • thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > each chinese symbol has a unique pronunciation Your overall point is correct, but this isn't true. Compare 长 zhǎng "grow" with 长 cháng "long", or 行 xíng "walk; be permissible" with 行 háng "line".
    • jpatokal 9y ago
      In Chinese these are rare exceptions. In Japanese, having at least two (and sometimes four, ten or sixty) possible pronunciations is the rule, and it's the single-reading characters that are rare.
      • thaumasiotes 9y ago
        Again, I understand the situation in Japanese, which is why I headed my comment with "your overall point is correct". And also again, it is not true that Chinese characters with multiple readings are rare exceptions, unless you want to measure rarity by dividing the count of "characters with multiple readings" by "all characters ever attested". Characters with multiple readings are extremely common; one of them, 的, is the most common character in written Chinese by a wide margin.
  • freeloop3 9y ago
    I meant that from looking at the character you can't determine how to pronouce it