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The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
- skybrian 10mo agoMaybe there's a difference in frequency of usage, but we also say things like "he's not wrong" pretty often in English.
- crote 10mo agoI reckon a decept part of that is due to American English vs. British English. A great example of this is the Korean War, where a British brigadier in an extremely difficult situation told an American general "Things are a bit sticky, sir" - who interpreted it as "Could be better, but we're holding the line". The misunderstanding resulted in 500 dead and captured.
- BalinKing 10mo agoFWIW I’m not quite convinced there’s that much of a dialectical divide: “Not bad,” “he’s not wrong,” etc. sound entirely natural to me in American English.
- t-3 10mo ago"American English" has so many dialects and regional variations that aren't even mutually intelligible that making statements about it is pointless anyway.
- psunavy03 10mo agoI'd argue there's few Americans I flat out couldn't understand, even if it sounds like they're putting their words through a blender. And I say that having lived all over the country, Northeast, Midwest, West, and deep South. Accents can be thick but they're largely intelligible. Unlike, say, the Scots. Especially compared to a language like German. I took 5 years of German and still didn't have a damn clue what anyone was saying if they were talking in dialect.
- makeitdouble 10mo agoThe main difference may be in the range of meanings. In a scale of 0 to 10 where "bad" is 0, one side will take "not bad" as a 4~5 while the other side meant it as 7~8.
- paleotrope 10mo agoIs that really the same thing? We aren't just talking about understatement.
- mercer 10mo agongl
- tomlockwood 10mo agoAs an Australian can I just say of this article: yeah nah
- deadlyllama 10mo agoAs a New Zealander, I can say: it's not bad.
- astrange 10mo agoOne thing I remember from languagelog is that almost all English speakers have a form of "yeah no" and they all think they invented it. https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=30758 https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=30758 Might be Scottish.
- tomlockwood 10mo agoNot only did Australians invent it, we also invented Pavlova, Sam Neill, etc.
- astrange 10mo agoThis is like when Australians tell me they invented drinking coffee. (Conversely, I've seen Australians who dislike Halloween because they think it's an American invention, but it's also Scottish.)
- tomlockwood 10mo agoYes we also invented drinking coffee.
- BurritoAlPastor 10mo agoThe language pattern the author refers to is called litotes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes), but to say that English doesn’t use them is… not quite right.
- alwa 10mo agoNot quite right, but not quite wrong, no? The pattern seems similar, but I think of litotes (as the Wikipedia article suggests) as a rhetorical device: the assertion-by-negation carries an ironic charge, and strikes the (Western) ear by standing out from the ordinary affirmative register. If I'm understanding the author's account of Chinese assertion-by-negation correctly, doesn't it sound like assertion-by-negation is the ordinary case in that linguistic tradition, and it's the assertive case that jars the ear? Same pattern, different effect?
- seszett 10mo agoI think it's especially American English that doesn't use litotes as much as British English or the other Western European languages. This piece seems to be very much about American English, when I read something like: > In English, this feels bizarre. If something is good, you say: Nice Great Perfect Brilliant
- woodruffw 10mo agoYou would absolutely say "not bad" as an idiomatic variant of "good" in American English.
- almostgotcaught 10mo ago"not bad, not bad at all"
- messe 10mo agoI think Hiberno-English uses them even more.
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- Bengalilol 10mo agoThe debug log was not without its charms. The article was not bad yet not my favorite.
- sph 10mo agoThat's not ideal. I'm not a fan of this.
- kimixa 10mo agoAs a Brit, I'm not quite sure this article is right in it's declaration it's a universal "English" thing and not more "American English".
- tomww 10mo agoYep, "not bad" is very very common here - definitely more so than "decent".
- sph 10mo ago"How are you?" "Not too bad" always makes me smile. Such a British answer.
- kimixa 10mo ago"Can't complain"
- theresistor 10mo agoI say and hear it all the time in the US...
- AStrangeMorrow 10mo agoYeah, same as a French speaker first living in the US, I have to sometimes refrain myself from calling things “just fine”, “will do” or “not bad”. These are still used in American English, but I tend to use them for cases were people normally use more positive/stronger version. Like at a grocery store: “is that enough? That will do yes -> yes that’s perfect”
- thyristan 10mo agoSame for a German. Scales of goodness of expressions are shifted relative to English: "good" (gut) to a German means "it totally fulfills all my needs and expectations, so it is perfect for my purpose". "very good" (sehr gut) means "it exceeds all my expectations" and to a German already sounds like total hyperbole. Anything like "delightful" or "excellent" to a German sounds either totally sleazy or sarcastic. When something is not perfect but adequate and we are happy with it, we would say something like "not bad", "it's fine" or "you can leave it like that". Which to the english speaking world has totally different connotations and can lead to rather interesting misunderstandings. And especially "not bad" ("nicht schlecht") can be confusing in that it is sometimes something rather positive. It, in German and said in the right tone of voice" can mean "this is suprisingly good".
- mschuster91 10mo ago> You name the quality directly. You point at it. You own it. Fun thing: it works even better with Americans and Germans when it comes to negativity, because Germans also express negativity directly. For me, as a German, Americans want to be coddled and they do not like it if you clearly express to an American that he is bullshitting you. Germans (and I'd say, Germanic/Nordic-origin cultures as a whole) don't like wasting time coddling around and sucking up for no reason at all. We're an efficient people, after all. That's also a part of why Linus Torvalds is such a polarizing figure across the Internet. To me as a German, yes, he could dial down the ad-hominem a bit but that's it. The constant American whining about his tone however is... grating on my nerves. He's speaking the truth, accept it for what it is and move the fuck on. Oh, and it's also why Wal-Mart failed so disastrously many decades ago when they tried to enter Germany. Ignoring labor rights was bad enough, but we could have let that slide (given that our own discounters were all heavily embroiled in scandals)... but what was just way too uncanny from what I hear from older people who actually lived during that time was the greeters. And it matches up with many a write-up [1]. [1] https://medium.com/the-global-millennial/why-walmart-failed-in-germany-f1c3ca7eea65 https://medium.com/the-global-millennial/why-walmart-failed-...
- gsf_emergency_6 10mo agoHow do you feel about Austrians :) https://youtube.com/shorts/pbzNiBps4N0 https://youtube.com/shorts/pbzNiBps4N0
- Stevvo 10mo ago[flagged]
- fwipsy 10mo agoIs identifying a difference between two cultures racism? Or did I miss something?
- crooked-v 10mo agoSomething about this article strikes home for me. I default to 'not bad' for something I don't actively dislike; past that it's a pretty substantial jump to get to 'good', at probably about the same point I'd be willing to actively recommend something to someone else, and then even more substantial to get to anything like 'great'.
- mathewsanders 10mo agoThis makes me think of a tool from semiotics called the Greimas square where you can have opposing concepts e.g. A and B (ugly & beautiful, for & against, legal & illegal). At the surface level they can appear as binaries, but the negation of A is not equivalent to B and vice versa (e.g. illegal is not equivalent to not-legal) and encourages the consideration of more complex meta-concepts which at surface level seem like contradictions but are not (both beautiful and ugly, neither for or against). -- Others have pointed out that English speakers do have the capacity, and do use these sort of double negatives that allow for this ambiguity and nuance, but if you are an English-only speaker, I do believe that there are concepts that are thick with meaning and the meaning cannot accurately be communicated through a translation - they come with a lot of contextual baggage where the meaning can not be communicated in words alone. -- As a New Zealander who's lived in the U.S. for the last 15 years, I've realized in conversations with some native Americans where despite sincere (I think) efforts on both sides, I've not been able to communicate what I mean. I don't think it's anything to do with intelligence, but like author hints how language shapes how we think and therefore our realities. -- I've never found poetry to be interesting, but recently I've come to appreciate how I think poets attempt to bypass this flaw of language, and how good poets sometimes seem to succeed!
- gsf_emergency_6 10mo agonative Americans or Native Americans? the latter would be more like the Moriori and fit the context better, but somehow native English speakers who arent interlegible are also interesting.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- ethbr1 10mo agoNot foreign Americans
- popalchemist 10mo agoWestern culture is predicated on a sort of positivist metaphysics, and our language reflects that. Whereas in the east, the langauges and cultures have both long ago (as in, thousands of years ago) assimilated the precepts of non-dualism, which brings with it a greater degree of subtlety, through its embedded understanding of equanimity, dependent arising, and so on. It's a different ontological root, and therefore a different schema altogether. Knowing what I know of you guys in NZ, a lot of that sort of thinking has made its way into popular understanding by way of encounters with the Maori people, and some of it has to do with more modern notions of pluralism, and some of it has to do with British politeness. All that to say, it is not your fault nor the Americans fault that there's a gap in understanding. It's the byproduct of where those two schemas do not connect.
- Glyptodon 10mo agoEnglish does construct things this way, maybe just not with the frequency of Chinese. In fact, "not bad" is a common expression. That said, it's true that certain flavors of US English, like marketing speak, will avoid many phrases in this family. This is because many American English speakers will see expressions like this, particularly when not used in a directly complementary way, as either bureaucratic and avoidant or slightly pedantic or both. Because for many Americans, leaving ambiguity implies lack of confidence in the statement or evasiveness. (At the same time Americans also know not to trust confident statements - they are separately known to be "snake oily" - but we still tend to see marketing that avoids directness as even less trustworthy.) So this mode of expression is much more common in personal speech.
- Telemakhos 10mo agoKids in the Pacific Northwest use litotes constantly, to the point of annoyance, and possibly more often than they use the straightforward positive. Everything is "not bad" or "not great" or, if really bad, "super not great." I've always taken it to be a kind of avoidance of confessing one's real feelings.
- thedrexster 10mo ago"super not great" IS a real feeling :) (fellow PNWer, I'd never before thought of this as a regional thing!)
- thedrexster 10mo agoalso, TIL the word "litotes" -- thank you, brother!
- mbg721 10mo agoThe verbal construction words you learn in Classics are excellent. Litotes, chiasmus, synecdoche...
- gsf_emergency_6 10mo agoBest examples of litotes can be found in social media, Chinese or English or any language My guess is that "bu chuo" _was_ a litotes (or originated as one) but the ironic component evaporated with familiarity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes#Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes#Chinese The literal English translation still seems to be a litotes
- mylesp 10mo agoIn Australia from my experience "not bad" = "good", "pretty good" = "amazing", "bit shit" = "really shit". I don't think its as much that everything positive is just a non-negative, but that everything (especially emotions) is shifted towards the medium. Maybe it comes from a desire to not be abrasive and always soften everything, but I'm not sure.
- PlunderBunny 10mo agoRelated also to the way Australians and New Zealanders use understatement for humorous effect, e.g. that last example you gave could be used to describe any condition up-to the point of death.
- stared 10mo agoI find the original post confused. What it has to with code? Why putting the US as "the West"? Why the Eastern void is bad? (Oftentimes it's the Western void which is oblivion, Eastern which is nirvana.) In Polish, 'niezły' (literally 'not bad') means 'very good'. Even in English there are many such things, e.g. 'indestructible', 'immortal'. When it comes to labels on food there is "no preservatives" or similar. It even has its parodies, e.g. "asbestos-free oat cereal" (https://xkcd.com/641/ https://xkcd.com/641/).
- pezezin 10mo ago> Why putting the US as "the West"? This line of thought seems to be extremely common among Americans, and honestly it is quite annoying for the rest of us.
- kruffalon 10mo agoTrue, but on the other hand they always give themselves away so it's very easy to spot and adjust expectations. I found this article and discussion valuable anyway. I would also encourage you to stop using "Americans" as synonymous to "US:er", there are many countries, cultures and peoples in the American continents that are not from the USA and quite a few that geographically exist within it too. By pointing out that they are US:ers we can help each other to remind ourselves and them that they are not in fact the only version of human that exist.
- pezezin 10mo agoFair enough. I am Spanish, so I am very much aware of the situation, I have plenty of friends and acquaintances from LATAM xD. If I am speaking Spanish I would say "estadounidense" or "gringo" depending on my mood, but I have yet to find a satisfying word in English...
- kruffalon 10mo agoGringo works in en_US too and imo conveys the feeling we seem to share quite well. I'll try it out for a bit and see how it feels. US:er is kinda clunky.
- samus 10mo agoThere are some direct ways to express agreement in Chinese, like 對 or 好. At the same time, the negative statements described are not unique to Chinese at all. It's not that deep, really.
- decimalenough 10mo agoThe author states outright that this is not unique to Chinese, it's just much more prevalent than in American English. 不错 is literally "not bad", but it's more positive than the American English equivalent, being basically semantically equal to 很好 (lit. "very good", although in practice just plain old good/OK). You can even say seemingly absurd things like 很不错 "very not bad" (= excellent); or you can tamp it down with 还不错 "also not bad". Funnily enough, in British English, "not bad" is high praise; but you still wouldn't say "very not bad".
- kittywantsbacon 10mo agoAs a native speaker of both, "he didn't miss" is my adaptation.
- bitwize 10mo agoEnglish does this kind of thing all the time, as others have pointed out, but often to understate things somewhat. "Not bad!" actually means pretty good, but the speaker does not want to sound as if gushing. (Maybe it wasn't "fantastic", but still more than acceptable.) Even the opening example—like if Alice said something truthful but offensive or bombastic, and Bob objects, Carol can say "Well, she's not wrong..." Back when Americans economically feared the Japanese rather than the Chinese, there was a myth that the Japanese were so conformist that the same word meant both "to differ" and "to be wrong"—chigau (違う). Well, Japanese society is pretty conformist, ngl, but the reality is a bit more subtle. In Japanese it's incredibly rude to tell someone they're wrong so instead they say chigaimasu, "it's different".
- Glyptodon 10mo agoIn English it's rude to say there's something wrong with somebody's child, so people will say "Jane sure is different." Though it's generally still considered saying too much.
- patcon 10mo agoAs someone who thinks about the co-evolution of language and culture quite often, I love this sort of think-piece. Gives me a bunch of my own threads to pull
- squirrellous 10mo agoGiven the site where this is posted and the screenshot, is the author an engineer turned fiction writer? Kudos if true. Posting these must take a lot of courage.
- dgoodell 10mo agoEvery single example given under “In Chinese, affirmation is often compiled through negation:” sounds completely natural to me, as a midwestern American English speaker. However the direct affirmations are also acceptable. Maybe the difference is more that both are pretty acceptable in English, but that is less true for Chinese. Or at least the version he speaks.
- squeefers 10mo agowhen the guy is making sentences like "affirmation is often compiled through negation" you know hes just trying to sound clever. the entire premise of the article is bunk, we DO use these patterns in English. He also treats (in that wide eyed western admiration for the orient) the Chinese like a simple monoculture where everyone has the same speech patterns.
- emporas 10mo agoInserting negation to words is a very bad practice. Instead of saying: "Not cloudy at all today", say "Clear sky today, some scattered clouds though". In general, always speak in a positive straightforward way, even when you want to confuse someone.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- dmoy 10mo agoAh ha, so.... come to Minnesota, there's talk with !False all the time. It fits very naturally brain-wise coming from Chinese. Just, hope you're from Dongbei or similar 'cus lol weather. Actually in Minnesota it goes way past just !False construction, in a way that also translates well from Chinese, because you get a lot of face saving phrases. Like "that's different" as a polite way of saying something is bad. I suspect you just learned a different kind of English.
- x3n0ph3n3 10mo agoI couldn't help but think of that classic "How to talk like a Minnesotan" video.
- p1necone 10mo agoI think the writers classification of this being a Chinese vs English distinction is a bit presumptuous - the portion of the USA OP is familiar with maybe, but I'll jump on the bandwagon to say this kind of negated negative language is very very common in New Zealand. Not bad, not wrong, no problem etc etc are all very common, and we have the following too: Nah yeah = yes Yeah nah = no Yeah nah yeah = yes Nah yeah nah = no ...extend outward to your hearts desire (yes people commonly say all of the above)
- FloorEgg 10mo agoSomething that occured to me years ago is we have a quirk in English language that gets in the way of accurately emapthizing with each other, especially when trying to design things well (like products and experiences). We don't say "unwant", and we don't clearly differentiate between a lack of want and a repulsion or unwant or negative want. Someone might say "I don't want x" or "I don't need x" and it's unclear if: - they see no value in x - they see small enough value in x that they don't care - they see negative value So much time and energy is wasted on misunderstandings that stem from this ambiguity. It ruins products, is loses deals, it screws up projections, it confuses executives, etc. It gets in the way of accurately empathizing with and understanding each other. Because "I unwant x" means something extremely different than "I don't want x". Unwant implies some other value that x is getting in the way of. Understanding other peoples' values is what enables accurate empathy for them. Accurately empathizing with customers is what enables great products and predictable sales.
- gsf_emergency_6 10mo ago"unalive" is an empathetic mood. Unwant could be too familiar, conjuring "unwanted".
- FloorEgg 10mo ago> "unalive" is an empathetic mood. Sure, I guess that's something people say. Though it's very new English. In case I wasn't clear. By empathy I mean the ability to accurately predict how someone else will feel about something. For me to do this, I have to set aside my own values and beliefs, to know the other person's values and beliefs, and then use theirs to simulate how they may feel about something. The point is I can't empathize with another person accurately unless I know their values and beliefs. So to be empathetic is to be curious about other people's values and then accurately predict how they will feel about something. So to me '"unalive" is an empathetic mood.' sounds something like "I am in an unalive mood (feeling apathetic and defeated), and people who can relate to my values beliefs and experiences will emapthize with me" > Unwant could be too familiar, conjuring "unwanted". This is a really interesting point on multiple levels. I've been so hung up on the ambiguity in the language I never even noticed the connection to "unwanted". Given you brought this up and I assume immediately saw the parallel, when you think of "unwanted" do you think of an absence of being wanted (apathy, ignored, indefference), or a feeling of being repulsed (negative want, hate, disgust, fear, loathing, etc)?
- layer8 10mo agoNow I’m wondering what the Chinese version of intuitionistic logic would look like.
- cycomanic 10mo agoI suspect these sort of differences, which exist not only between Chinese and English, but also between different western cultures/languages (and I assume similarly eastern ones as well, although I'm not so familiar with them), is one of the reason why multi-lingual children typically test higher on empathy and adaptability. They learn through language the inherent different perspectives/thinking processes.
- rotbart 10mo agoThis is not exclusive to the East, but any culture with a high cost of expression. Recent interview with a Russian CEO, talking about how they have "growth across the board, only in the negative direction"
- the_af 10mo agoThat's great, I love it. Let me try it: I think LLMs are advancing my career into the realm of nonexistence.
- kruffalon 10mo agoI really think this is it. And I suspect that in general more people (and sub cultures) in the US will start using more non-committal language in the coming decades. When repression grows harder it might become more important to not be noticed. It would be interesing to know if the regional differences in the US that people are talking about here could be traced back to those places having a more homogeneous population with regards to hierarchical religious practices, country of origin, single-ish way to make a living or similar so that it is very important to not be cast out of the group. Another perspective is also how this phenomenon relates to what I think is called "code switching" that individual persons from oppressed groups often use in contact with an individual from the oppressing group in daily life. Like how BIPOC interact with white people, women with men or young people with adults - where a not insignificant part of the interaction is about keeping the oppressive party calm and content. ---- English is not my language and I'd like to learn better. Please help me by correcting spelling, expressions and idioms.
- jhanschoo 10mo agoI really need to caution against looking too deep into taking these generalized words literally and deriving some insight from them that does not have independent evidence for the insight. "great" literally means big and is related to "gross", "perfect" literally means "completed", "passion" literally means "suffering", but people who use such words these days don't even have such imagery in mind at the point that they utter these words in everyday use.
- the_af 10mo ago> English would say: “He was right.” Or “He guessed correctly.” Direct. Affirmative. Landed. Right is right, wrong is wrong. You don’t say ‘not wrong.’ Is the article's assertion about English true, though? And specifically about British English and maybe a slightly outdated version of the language? Because George Mikes in the humorous "How to be an Alien" (which is a comical book giving advice to foreigners like himself on how to integrate into UK society) explains again and again that "the English" [1] never say things directly. For example (I'm quoting from memory) he explains how a man may refer to his fiancé affectionately: "I don't object to you, you know". And if he's mad with love: "in fact, I rather fancy you". He also explains that when an Englishman says you're "clever", he's disgusted with you, as being "clever" is a bad trait, very un-English. So it seems Chinese and (some versions of) English are not that different. Do note Mikes book was written in the 40s though. And of course it's a work of humor, but there's truth to it. [1] according to Mikes, when people say "the English / England" they sometimes mean the British Isles, sometimes Great Britain -- but never England.
- SuperNinKenDo 10mo agoAt the risk of committing the same error as the author, I am wondering if they may have been exposed almost exclusively to American English. Many of the examples of things you can't say feel perfectly natural to me, and many of the examples of what you "would" say felt a little outlandish, but certainly more "American coded". That said, the author isn't pulling this out of his ass, more like vastly overstating it and drawing some pretty questionable conclusions. When I'm both reading and listening to Mandarin, there does seem to be a much stronger preference for expressing positives as negated-negatives, or even sometimes expressing fairly neutral things as the absence of their opposite, than there is in any variety if English I know. But the author has latched onto that difference a little too hard I'd say.
- scooke 10mo agoThe author wrote,"Because there is a vast interval between “good” and “bad,” it accommodates complex relationships." which, to me, shows they don't truly grasp the cultural context of his Chinese environment. There is the same interval between good and bad in both Chinese and Western values and thinking and terminology. What makes it seem there is a difference is the hesitancy to be affirmative in Chinese culture. To affirm some thing is to claim knowledge and expertise, and in doing _that_ comes an expectation that those around the Affirmer acquiesce to their expertise. This is another facet of Face. Very few people will claim such a level of knowledge and expertise and experience, so the words used are purposely "vague". It's not a issue with the terms. I was once asked if I speak Chinese and I answered affirmatively, "Shi da" (very bad pinyin btw). Everyone thought that was hilarious! They were able to think it hilarious because, at the time, I was just a young single man, and my answer made it sound like I was affirming that I speak Chinese, _all of it_! But in my mind the conversation was in Chinese, I understood the question and gave an answer in Chinese, so of course I can speak it...just not fluently. I learned from that experience that a better answer is, "keyi", which is essentially "enough" but in a more humble mode and the breadth of that word itself is adapted to the context. If asked in a market about my Chinese, "keyi" means "enough to do shopping" with no claim to more than that. If in the context of a class at university, it meant "enough to do the work" but not claiming to be super smart, NOR, dumb (since it's at university). It isn't the words, it's the interpersonal culture, face, and both communicating and showing you know where you fit in.
- CorrectHorseBat 10mo agoI think your issue is just that your grammar was wrong. 是的(Shide) is the closest thing to yes in Mandarin, but it's as universal. Answering 是的 on the question 你会中文吗 is like answering "yes I am" on the question "do you speak English?". 可以 isn't correct either, unless they asked 你可以说中文吗？, which is more like "Can you switch to English?" And not "are you able to speak English?" if I'm not mistaken. Answering 我会 is perfectly fine, even if you don't speak perfectly Chinese. If you want to sound be more humble you can say（我会）一点点/丢丢. 还可以 doesn't fit the pattern either, but it is ok too I think. Not a native speaker though. More on topic: To me not bad/不错，no problem/没事 are just as positive in English, maybe even more in the case of no problem. But I'm not a native speaker of either.
- kazinator 10mo ago> In English, this feels bizarre. If something is good, you say: > Nice > Great > Perfect > Brilliant Flawless Spotless Impeccable (Latin: in (not) + pecare (to sin)) Immaculate (Latin: in (not) + macula (stain)) Unerring
- cttet 10mo agoIn modal logic sense, Chinese is inherently more □ oriented while the language in US is using ◇ more. so in Chinese ¬(□¬A) can be used to represent a possibly concept ♢A
- fodkodrasz 10mo agoMandatory reference tonthe Sapir-Whorf hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
- Zacharias030 10mo agook but Germans also use not bad as their highest praise and are from the west etc.
- gsf_emergency_6 10mo agoAll these languages! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes#Dutch_and_German https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes#Dutch_and_German Well, except American, I suppose
- geokon 10mo agonot a native chinese speaker, but couldnt this have to do more with requiring qualifiers? There seems to be a very strong preferrence to adding qualifiers, especially to single character words. And 不 is just one of them 很好 (very good) is strongly preferred to just a plain 好 (good). similarly youre seldom going to just say 錯 差 or 行. So if you want to say good, and not verrryyy good, youre left with "not bad" 不錯 it still holds for 2 character words. i was told that just saying 無聊 (boring) can have a very rude conotation, though i dont quite understand the subtext (maybe someone can elucidate). But if you say 很無聊 (very boring) it weirdly enough sounds better unqualified words as far as i understand also often look archaic. tied to the preference for 2 character words vs 1 character words (my guess is bc classical chinese is written and its hard to make out a single character word with tone when speaking) hopefully a native speaker can weight in...
- jesterswilde 10mo agoIn it, the author contrasts 无 (Wú) and 有 (Yǒu). For some extra context of that specific contrast, here are a couple excerpts from the first poem of the Dao De Jing. (spacing is mine) 无 名天地之始 有 名万物之母 --- 故 常无欲，以观其妙 ... 常有欲，以观其徼。 --- The duality of 'with' and 'without', existence / non-existence is central and embodied heavily by those 2 words. I am (slowly) trying to learn Chinese by reading the Dao, or possibly the other way around. I ran across this site (which I have 0 affiliation with) but it seems to be a small and unique site made by someone who just wanted it to exist, which very HN: https://dao-de-jing.com/ https://dao-de-jing.com/
- throwpoaster 10mo ago> Language itself is political; it forms a feedback loop that shapes both individual cognition and social order. The strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was disproved.
- classified 10mo agoA very interesting article hidden behind a cryptic headline. I almost didn't read it because the title makes no sense to me. That would have been my loss.
- Bjartr 10mo agoI found this article pretty interesting to think about. The ideas it discusses are adjacent to a lot of what I sometimes struggle with in communication. Meta note: my description was accidentally a great example of what I mean > Adjacent to (not exactly the same as, but the overlap could be nearly complete) > a lot of (not necessarily all of, but also not explicitly excluding all of) > what I sometimes (not necessarily always, but also not explicitly excluding always) Considering this more, I think my purpose in this intentional ambiguity is slightly different than the purpose of "not revealing one's true position" as described in the article. Rather, the problem I'm trying to pre-empt is responses that latch onto parts of what I say that aren't perfectly precisely true, but also aren't the point of what I'm trying to communicate. It's frustrating when I'm trying to communicate a very specific idea or message and the discourse that follows ends up not engaging with that idea, so I've come to make the specific idea clear, and keep any contextual information more ambiguous to encourage focusing on the more well-defined thing.
- ericol 10mo agoThis applies to many different things, depending on the pair of languages you are using. In Spanish the closes approximation would be "ni mal ni bien" (Not bad not wrong) but I understand the Chinese expression has a strong lean on "not being wrong". Not so long ago (I'm 50+, Spanish native speaker, and I've spoken English for the past 30 years almost daily) I learnt about "accountability". Now before I get a barrage of WTFs, the situation is that in Spanish we only have "Responsabilidad" and that accounts for both responsibility and accountability, with a strong lean on responsibility. So basically we recognise what is it to be responsible of something, but being accountable is seriously diluted. The implications of this are enormous, and this particular though exercise I'd leave for people that spend more time thinking about these things than I do.
- nuc1e0n 10mo agoSuch lingistic differences of phrasing are the source of much conflict in my opinion.
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