7 ms·

> Since the sounds per character are 1-1 and the semantics are very clean you can get a lot out of a text by looking characters up in the Unihan database. You

> Since the sounds per character are 1-1 and the semantics are very clean you can get a lot out of a text by looking characters up in the Unihan database. You probably got a lot of wrong meanings this way. The characters aren't 1-1 mapped to sounds and their semantics are profoundly context-dependent.

kfk34k 3y ago
The characters are mostly 1-1. There are a few exceptions, but usually one is a lot more typical than the other, so reading it with the typical reading won't usually get you in trouble
- gtranger 3y ago
  While not as egregious as Japanese where characters can have 15+ readings, the number of exceptions certainly are not few. Below is a link to the official table of words with multiple pronunciations in standard Mandarin. https://zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%99%AE%E9%80%9A%E8%AF%9D%E5%BC%82%E8%AF%BB%E8%AF%8D%E5%AE%A1%E9%9F%B3%E8%A1%A8%EF%BC%88%E4%BF%AE%E8%AE%A2%E7%A8%BF%EF%BC%89 https://zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%99%AE%E9%80%9A%E8%AF%9D...
  - Asraelite 3y ago
    872 in that list. It would be interesting to see how many of those exceptions are actually common and relevant to everyday speech. But yeah, even taking that into account, Japanese is a trainwreck compared to Chinese.
    - gtranger 3y ago
      It's worth noting that the aforementioned list is the unified pronunciation list that was published in 1985 by the Ministry of Education. The reason why you see some words only having a single (unified) reading in that list is due to the necessity of having to unify them in the first place, although there are still quite a few words with multiple readings. Keep in mind that there was no official language of China until 1932. Without going into detail about how pronunciations evolved with the change of dynasties and how China actually has 300+ spoken languages, the need for a unified pronunciation stems from the fact that many people in China, historically and even today, do not speak standard Mandarin as their first language. In other words, prior to 1985 it was much more chaotic. If you want a more up-to-date comprehensive list of words with multiple readings (多音字) you can find it below (although this is not an official government list). I've linked directly to the common words of which there are 106 (although the page does not define what is considered "common"). https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%9A%E9%9F%B3%E5%AD%97/10884829#2 https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%9A%E9%9F%B3%E5%AD%97/108...
  - housel 3y ago
    While I couldn't find any characters with more than three or four readings in this list, the Taiwan list (https://language.moe.gov.tw/files/people_files/%e5%88%9d%e7%a8%bf.pdf https://language.moe.gov.tw/files/people_files/%e5%88%9d%e7%...) has one character with five readings (著) and one with six (和). Still a long way from 15, though.
- canjobear 3y ago
  The multi-sound characters are common in usage. For example 长 can be cháng meaning "long" or zhǎng meaning "to grow". 行 is xíng "to walk" or háng with no real single coherent meaning, appearing in compounds like 银行 yínháng "bank" and 行业 hángyè "profession". All of these are very common usages. In context they are essentially never ambiguous, but if you are going through character-by-character it's not going to make sense.
numpad0 3y ago
I think GP's assessment that Chinese is semantically clean and regular might not be completely correct, rather it's quite close to his primary that friction is much reduced compared to Japanese, or many others for that matter. It's very well known that Chinese grammar is super close to English for whatever reasons.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > It's very well known that Chinese grammar is super close to English for whatever reasons. They are both felt to have gone through a lot of simplification. It isn't well known that they have similar grammars, for the fairly straightforward reason that they don't have similar grammars.
  - BalinKing 3y ago
    I imagine the parent is referring to both languages being analytic (although, IIRC, Mandarin is a fair deal more so than English). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      As an English speaker I find it frustrating that languages like German and French have so many irregular verbs and that you also need to keep track of grammatical gender which seems pretty arbitrary. In Chinese though you find structures which are pretty regular such as "measure words" where you might write yi zhang zhi which means one (piece) of paper where the word "zhang" is used because paper is thin, but you might use "ke" for something round like a pebble or "tiao" for something long and flexible like a snake. This and a lot of of what I read in the grammar book comes across as rational to me.
      - glandium 3y ago
        English is not that much better, actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_irregular_verbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_irregular_verbs The English language has many irregular verbs, approaching 200 in normal use—and significantly more if prefixed forms are counted. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:French_irregular_verbs https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:French_irregular_ver... There are approximately 350 irregular verbs that do not conjugate in either the first or second conjugation I don't think French has examples as crazy as go -> went. I mean, there aren't even letters in common!
RyEgswuCsn 3y ago
I think they meant there is only one syllable per character.

kfk34k 3y ago

The characters are mostly 1-1. There are a few exceptions, but usually one is a lot more typical than the other, so reading it with the typical reading won't usually get you in trouble

gtranger 3y ago
While not as egregious as Japanese where characters can have 15+ readings, the number of exceptions certainly are not few. Below is a link to the official table of words with multiple pronunciations in standard Mandarin. https://zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%99%AE%E9%80%9A%E8%AF%9D%E5%BC%82%E8%AF%BB%E8%AF%8D%E5%AE%A1%E9%9F%B3%E8%A1%A8%EF%BC%88%E4%BF%AE%E8%AE%A2%E7%A8%BF%EF%BC%89 https://zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%99%AE%E9%80%9A%E8%AF%9D...
- Asraelite 3y ago
  872 in that list. It would be interesting to see how many of those exceptions are actually common and relevant to everyday speech. But yeah, even taking that into account, Japanese is a trainwreck compared to Chinese.
  - gtranger 3y ago
    It's worth noting that the aforementioned list is the unified pronunciation list that was published in 1985 by the Ministry of Education. The reason why you see some words only having a single (unified) reading in that list is due to the necessity of having to unify them in the first place, although there are still quite a few words with multiple readings. Keep in mind that there was no official language of China until 1932. Without going into detail about how pronunciations evolved with the change of dynasties and how China actually has 300+ spoken languages, the need for a unified pronunciation stems from the fact that many people in China, historically and even today, do not speak standard Mandarin as their first language. In other words, prior to 1985 it was much more chaotic. If you want a more up-to-date comprehensive list of words with multiple readings (多音字) you can find it below (although this is not an official government list). I've linked directly to the common words of which there are 106 (although the page does not define what is considered "common"). https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%9A%E9%9F%B3%E5%AD%97/10884829#2 https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%9A%E9%9F%B3%E5%AD%97/108...
- housel 3y ago
  While I couldn't find any characters with more than three or four readings in this list, the Taiwan list (https://language.moe.gov.tw/files/people_files/%e5%88%9d%e7%a8%bf.pdf https://language.moe.gov.tw/files/people_files/%e5%88%9d%e7%...) has one character with five readings (著) and one with six (和). Still a long way from 15, though.
canjobear 3y ago
The multi-sound characters are common in usage. For example 长 can be cháng meaning "long" or zhǎng meaning "to grow". 行 is xíng "to walk" or háng with no real single coherent meaning, appearing in compounds like 银行 yínháng "bank" and 行业 hángyè "profession". All of these are very common usages. In context they are essentially never ambiguous, but if you are going through character-by-character it's not going to make sense.

numpad0 3y ago

I think GP's assessment that Chinese is semantically clean and regular might not be completely correct, rather it's quite close to his primary that friction is much reduced compared to Japanese, or many others for that matter. It's very well known that Chinese grammar is super close to English for whatever reasons.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> It's very well known that Chinese grammar is super close to English for whatever reasons. They are both felt to have gone through a lot of simplification. It isn't well known that they have similar grammars, for the fairly straightforward reason that they don't have similar grammars.
- BalinKing 3y ago
  I imagine the parent is referring to both languages being analytic (although, IIRC, Mandarin is a fair deal more so than English). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    As an English speaker I find it frustrating that languages like German and French have so many irregular verbs and that you also need to keep track of grammatical gender which seems pretty arbitrary. In Chinese though you find structures which are pretty regular such as "measure words" where you might write yi zhang zhi which means one (piece) of paper where the word "zhang" is used because paper is thin, but you might use "ke" for something round like a pebble or "tiao" for something long and flexible like a snake. This and a lot of of what I read in the grammar book comes across as rational to me.
    - glandium 3y ago
      English is not that much better, actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_irregular_verbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_irregular_verbs The English language has many irregular verbs, approaching 200 in normal use—and significantly more if prefixed forms are counted. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:French_irregular_verbs https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:French_irregular_ver... There are approximately 350 irregular verbs that do not conjugate in either the first or second conjugation I don't think French has examples as crazy as go -> went. I mean, there aren't even letters in common!

RyEgswuCsn 3y ago

I think they meant there is only one syllable per character.