6 ms·

「 and 」 are quotation marks.

by mkr-hn 14y ago

jlgreco 14y ago
The directionality of those is pretty cool. Of course with latin style quotation marks you can always do the 'smart quote' style quotation marks, but those really depend on handwriting a lot more. I suppose adopting those style quotation marks in English is probably a lost cause though.
- eru 14y ago
  In German we use ,,this style'' of quotes. Which is discernible even with bad handwriting.
tibbon 14y ago
Thanks! I really like those visually. While non-standard, I just might have to start using those in my English typesetting/formatting of documents. As a complete tangent, I think that over the next 50 years, various Chinese phrases, language quirks and usage will start bleeding into English, much as Spanish has if not moreso.
- compay 14y ago
  > I think that over the next 50 years, various Chinese phrases, language quirks and usage will start bleeding into English Right on. That was one of my favorite elements of the Firefly TV series.
  - Wingman4l7 14y ago
    One of the criticisms of Firefly was that for a future that was supposed to have a large Chinese population / integration of Chinese culture, you never really saw any Chinese characters (aka whitewashing). That said, I always thought it was an elegant work-around to broadcast TV's limitations on cusswords.
- WiseWeasel 14y ago
  Maybe they could start picking up a phonetic alphabet in the meantime, so it doesn't take me that long to become competent with their written language.
  - mkr-hn 14y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin
    - WiseWeasel 14y ago
      That doesn't appear to be used for internal communication, but rather for communicating with foreigners. I'm sure many millions of young Chinese schoolchildren would love it if Pinyin was adopted as a native written language, so they wouldn't have to spend quite so much mental effort memorizing the tens of thousands of characters needed to qualify for a diploma. Same goes for Japanese schoolchildren, since they're plagued with a non-phonetic alphabet as well. The widely-used phonetic [hiragana] alphabet is ready to replace their daunting kanji alphabet imported from China.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - jmadsen 14y ago
        Won't start a big argument, but replacing kanji with hiragana would make the language a vaguely-worded nightmare. Massive number of homonyms; huge number of verbs with slightly different nuance achieved through a different choice of kanji. The language IS evolving toward hiragana for simple, everyday words, but ask any adult who has to read children's books (all in hiragana) how painful it is to group the words correctly and you'll agree a bigger change won't come soon.
        WiseWeasel 14y ago
        If there are many homonyms that could be mistaken despite context, how do people understand the spoken language? Are verbal inflections incompletely represented in hiragana versus kanji? As for grouping into words, other languages have found spaces useful. ; )
- runn1ng 14y ago
  Dong ma?

「 and 」 are quotation marks.

by mkr-hn 14y ago

「 and 」 are quotation marks.

The directionality of those is pretty cool. Of course with latin style quotation marks you can always do the 'smart quote' style quotation marks, but those really depend on handwriting a lot more. I suppose adopting those style quotation marks in English is probably a lost cause though.

eru 14y ago
In German we use ,,this style'' of quotes. Which is discernible even with bad handwriting.

tibbon 14y ago

Thanks! I really like those visually. While non-standard, I just might have to start using those in my English typesetting/formatting of documents. As a complete tangent, I think that over the next 50 years, various Chinese phrases, language quirks and usage will start bleeding into English, much as Spanish has if not moreso.

compay 14y ago
> I think that over the next 50 years, various Chinese phrases, language quirks and usage will start bleeding into English Right on. That was one of my favorite elements of the Firefly TV series.
- Wingman4l7 14y ago
  One of the criticisms of Firefly was that for a future that was supposed to have a large Chinese population / integration of Chinese culture, you never really saw any Chinese characters (aka whitewashing). That said, I always thought it was an elegant work-around to broadcast TV's limitations on cusswords.
WiseWeasel 14y ago
Maybe they could start picking up a phonetic alphabet in the meantime, so it doesn't take me that long to become competent with their written language.
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin
  - WiseWeasel 14y ago
    That doesn't appear to be used for internal communication, but rather for communicating with foreigners. I'm sure many millions of young Chinese schoolchildren would love it if Pinyin was adopted as a native written language, so they wouldn't have to spend quite so much mental effort memorizing the tens of thousands of characters needed to qualify for a diploma. Same goes for Japanese schoolchildren, since they're plagued with a non-phonetic alphabet as well. The widely-used phonetic [hiragana] alphabet is ready to replace their daunting kanji alphabet imported from China.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - jmadsen 14y ago
      Won't start a big argument, but replacing kanji with hiragana would make the language a vaguely-worded nightmare. Massive number of homonyms; huge number of verbs with slightly different nuance achieved through a different choice of kanji. The language IS evolving toward hiragana for simple, everyday words, but ask any adult who has to read children's books (all in hiragana) how painful it is to group the words correctly and you'll agree a bigger change won't come soon.
      - WiseWeasel 14y ago
        If there are many homonyms that could be mistaken despite context, how do people understand the spoken language? Are verbal inflections incompletely represented in hiragana versus kanji? As for grouping into words, other languages have found spaces useful. ; )
runn1ng 14y ago
Dong ma?