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> IMHO (1) is incredibly important. In Mandarin, if I want to tell you a new character I have to show you. There is no way to describe it. Have you actually st
by w1ntermute 15y ago
> IMHO (1) is incredibly important. In Mandarin, if I want to tell you a new character I have to show you. There is no way to describe it.
Have you actually studied hanzi? It is very easy to describe a character verbally, and if you live in Asia for any period of time, you will see that people do this quite often. There are only 214 Kangxi radicals[0] (plus some variations based upon how much space is available). Clearly not the same as having 26 letters, but not unmanageable by any stretch of the imagination.
The second difference is that characters are "spelled" in 2 dimensions. Once again, there is a set of rules for radical placement, and if you're familiar with these (as you would be if you'd studied Chinese or Japanese), it is very straightforward.
0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_radicals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_radicals
- chc 15y agoThis is true, but I've noticed that in practice, Chinese or Japanese trying to identify characters to each other (rather than look up an unfamiliar character in a dictionary) tend to draw rather than list the components.
- Natsu 15y agoI think it depends mostly on how hard the explanation is or how available paper is. I had a friend of mine show me how to explain how to write her name in Japanese. There are even special names for the different radical forms (e.g. ninben vs. ningen).
- wisty 15y agoI think some of radicals are homonyms of other radicals. Most of the radicals have a lot of near-homonyms.Also, those radicals can change their shape depending on what position they are in. Yes, it's possible, but nowhere near as easy.