3 ms·

Stuff like this really makes me appreciate phonetic alphabets. Even if I've never seen a written word before, I can still sound it out and gain some clues on wh

Stuff like this really makes me appreciate phonetic alphabets. Even if I've never seen a written word before, I can still sound it out and gain some clues on what it means. I'm surprised that Chinese never became at least a hybrid system like Japanese. Kanji can still be frustrating to learn, but it's usually mixed with hiragana/katakana and sometimes includes furigana for uncommon kanji or for texts aimed at younger readers.

Tier3r 3y ago
Chinese is quasi-phonetic, the right side (or if the character is only made of one section) strongly suggests the pronunciation of character. The number I have been told by my tutor is 70% of the time it is similar. Far bigger of a problem to me seems to be how many characters are pronounced the same. I suspect that the common usage of it avoids words that sound the same and cause confusion, but it is still a problem.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  That's one style of character composition, by far the most common, but not the only one. > I suspect that the common usage of it avoids words that sound the same and cause confusion This problem is solved in modern Chinese by making most words more than one syllable long.
- lupire 3y ago
  English also has homophones. It's challenging, but also fun. There's some tradeoff between "language complication (unnecessary complexity) impairs thinking" and "language puzzles inspire thinking".
- siraben 3y ago
  Yes, most Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds.[0] However, this makes most sense in the original Old Chinese[1] phonology, where the forms were taking place. For example, 偒 was pronounced /*l̥ʰaːŋʔ/ and 陽 was pronounced /*laŋ/, but the modern pronunciations are tǎng (/tʰɑŋ²¹⁴/) and yáng (/jɑŋ³⁵/) respectively. So the phonetic part 昜 /*laŋ/ no longer consistently represents that sound, although in this case the final -aŋ is still present. And as for sounds that were present in Old Chinese but not in Middle Chinese and Mandarin, like [2] 巽 was pronounced /*sqʰuːns/, now xùn (/ɕyn⁵¹/), they underwent a series of regular sound shifts that make them sound quite different when used in characters in Mandarin. Also, Old Chinese was not a tonal language, tones first appeared in Middle Chinese, which the modern system derives from (with changes). Tones never had a chance to appear in writing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compounds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classificati... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B7%BD https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B7%BD
gwd 3y ago
I've been studying Mandarin since around 2010. For various reasons, about 8 months ago I started studying Biblical Greek. After about a week, once I'd got the letters down, it was amazing HOW MUCH easier it is to learn when you can Just Read words you've never seen before!

Tier3r 3y ago

Chinese is quasi-phonetic, the right side (or if the character is only made of one section) strongly suggests the pronunciation of character. The number I have been told by my tutor is 70% of the time it is similar. Far bigger of a problem to me seems to be how many characters are pronounced the same. I suspect that the common usage of it avoids words that sound the same and cause confusion, but it is still a problem.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
That's one style of character composition, by far the most common, but not the only one. > I suspect that the common usage of it avoids words that sound the same and cause confusion This problem is solved in modern Chinese by making most words more than one syllable long.
lupire 3y ago
English also has homophones. It's challenging, but also fun. There's some tradeoff between "language complication (unnecessary complexity) impairs thinking" and "language puzzles inspire thinking".
siraben 3y ago
Yes, most Chinese characters are phono-semantic compounds.[0] However, this makes most sense in the original Old Chinese[1] phonology, where the forms were taking place. For example, 偒 was pronounced /*l̥ʰaːŋʔ/ and 陽 was pronounced /*laŋ/, but the modern pronunciations are tǎng (/tʰɑŋ²¹⁴/) and yáng (/jɑŋ³⁵/) respectively. So the phonetic part 昜 /*laŋ/ no longer consistently represents that sound, although in this case the final -aŋ is still present. And as for sounds that were present in Old Chinese but not in Middle Chinese and Mandarin, like [2] 巽 was pronounced /*sqʰuːns/, now xùn (/ɕyn⁵¹/), they underwent a series of regular sound shifts that make them sound quite different when used in characters in Mandarin. Also, Old Chinese was not a tonal language, tones first appeared in Middle Chinese, which the modern system derives from (with changes). Tones never had a chance to appear in writing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compounds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classificati... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B7%BD https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B7%BD

gwd 3y ago

I've been studying Mandarin since around 2010. For various reasons, about 8 months ago I started studying Biblical Greek. After about a week, once I'd got the letters down, it was amazing HOW MUCH easier it is to learn when you can Just Read words you've never seen before!