5 ms·

Can some words even be expressed in 'pure Chinese'? I see in foreign (primarily spanish-speaking) papers all the time that they have loan-words or just straight

by tibbon 16y ago

Can some words even be expressed in 'pure Chinese'? I see in foreign (primarily spanish-speaking) papers all the time that they have loan-words or just straight up use many of the technical words that English developed. "Internet" "World Wide Web" "iPhone" "HDMI cable" "Digital SLR" Are all pretty much exactly the same in Spanish as English. To remove the 'English' there... well you need to make up totally new words then. Seems a difficult problem. Note: I'm not even great at English some days, and know little about Chinese.

cglee 16y ago
The short answer is yes, with abbreviations being possible exceptions. "Internet" and "World Wide Web" already have Chinese counterparts. Other words will just be phonetically similar Chinese phrases, similar to how we write "Beijing" instead of "北京".
T-zex 16y ago
All these words could be translated into native languages, except iPhone which is a brand.
bitwize 16y ago
I shared a dorm with a lot of native Spanish speakers and were surprised to hear them use the English word weapon to refer to the weapons in first-person shooter games. For example to describe the railgun in Quake: "este weapon es muy lento".
- huherto 16y ago
  Native spanish speaker here. If you are used to see the word in Englsh, you may even forget what is the word in Spanish. Also, people from Spain are more careful about preserving the language, people from other spanish speaking countries not so much. Spanish speakers living in the US, use Spanglish all the time.
- gcb 16y ago
  and that's exactly what the chinese are trying to avoid. every country does that to some extent.
presidentender 16y ago
It's difficult to get a sense of Chinese zeitgeist without actually going to China. There's a certain je ne sais quoi to the ethnic unity that can be established through the unique commonality of a language, and the Chinese government is undertaking this linguistic jujitsu in order to preserve that.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  I have to admire your use of a French loan phrase in your English-language reply about Chinese language policy. What's really astounding about China (as compared, say to Taiwan) is the huge number of people there who are still not conversant in Modern Standard Chinese. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838... The progress of a common language in China has been remarkably slow, doubtless because the wretched poverty of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution periods slowed development of telephony and internal travel, which do much to build a common language in any country. (The United States population is made up of not more than about 25 percent persons of English-speaking ancestry, but English has been the common language of the country even in peak periods of immigration, and even when American-born persons, such as both of my maternal grandparents, could receive their entire primary education in a non-English language--German in their case.) But if commonality of a language is the concern, it doesn't really matter whether or not Modern Standard Chinese of the 21st century has lots of English loanwords or only just a few. The issue is whether everyone living in China has much opportunity to communicate with one another freely and to travel readily.
  - presidentender 16y ago
    French loan phrase The German and Japanese, were they just seamless?
    - tokenadult 16y ago
      The German was seamless (thanks for pointing it out) and the Japanese I took to be a reference (then used metaphorically) to the actual Japanese practice, and thus not as jarringly noticeable in the sentence. But touché for writing a reply in which both the message and the medium were the message.
gcb 16y ago
Yes it's possible. just don't go trying to translate english contractions into other languages. They may not always fit. probably sometimes. And the opposite is also true. Other languages may have some pretty cool contractions for some stuff, that in english we are left with two or three descriptive words put together to get any sense.

by tibbon 16y ago

cglee 16y ago

The short answer is yes, with abbreviations being possible exceptions. "Internet" and "World Wide Web" already have Chinese counterparts. Other words will just be phonetically similar Chinese phrases, similar to how we write "Beijing" instead of "北京".

T-zex 16y ago

All these words could be translated into native languages, except iPhone which is a brand.

bitwize 16y ago

I shared a dorm with a lot of native Spanish speakers and were surprised to hear them use the English word weapon to refer to the weapons in first-person shooter games. For example to describe the railgun in Quake: "este weapon es muy lento".

huherto 16y ago
Native spanish speaker here. If you are used to see the word in Englsh, you may even forget what is the word in Spanish. Also, people from Spain are more careful about preserving the language, people from other spanish speaking countries not so much. Spanish speakers living in the US, use Spanglish all the time.
gcb 16y ago
and that's exactly what the chinese are trying to avoid. every country does that to some extent.

presidentender 16y ago

It's difficult to get a sense of Chinese zeitgeist without actually going to China. There's a certain je ne sais quoi to the ethnic unity that can be established through the unique commonality of a language, and the Chinese government is undertaking this linguistic jujitsu in order to preserve that.

tokenadult 16y ago
I have to admire your use of a French loan phrase in your English-language reply about Chinese language policy. What's really astounding about China (as compared, say to Taiwan) is the huge number of people there who are still not conversant in Modern Standard Chinese. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838... The progress of a common language in China has been remarkably slow, doubtless because the wretched poverty of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution periods slowed development of telephony and internal travel, which do much to build a common language in any country. (The United States population is made up of not more than about 25 percent persons of English-speaking ancestry, but English has been the common language of the country even in peak periods of immigration, and even when American-born persons, such as both of my maternal grandparents, could receive their entire primary education in a non-English language--German in their case.) But if commonality of a language is the concern, it doesn't really matter whether or not Modern Standard Chinese of the 21st century has lots of English loanwords or only just a few. The issue is whether everyone living in China has much opportunity to communicate with one another freely and to travel readily.
- presidentender 16y ago
  French loan phrase The German and Japanese, were they just seamless?
  - tokenadult 16y ago
    The German was seamless (thanks for pointing it out) and the Japanese I took to be a reference (then used metaphorically) to the actual Japanese practice, and thus not as jarringly noticeable in the sentence. But touché for writing a reply in which both the message and the medium were the message.

gcb 16y ago

Yes it's possible. just don't go trying to translate english contractions into other languages. They may not always fit. probably sometimes. And the opposite is also true. Other languages may have some pretty cool contractions for some stuff, that in english we are left with two or three descriptive words put together to get any sense.