6 ms·

Chinese writing is phonetic, just not for your first 1000-2000 characters. I can usually guess the pronunciation of new characters, because things get dramatica

by msvan 12y ago

Chinese writing is phonetic, just not for your first 1000-2000 characters. I can usually guess the pronunciation of new characters, because things get dramatically easier when you have learnt a lot of them. These are all pronounced "ding": 丁订盯顶钉, because they all have that T-like phonetic component. Ask any Chinese person if they think English spelling is logical and they will say no. I will agree though that it is daunting to get started with.

SeanLuke 12y ago
> These are all pronounced "ding" Sort of. The characters you're describing are commonly known as radical-phonetic characters, where part of the character indicates the sound, and the other part implies the meaning or category. It is my understanding that Communist China's push towards character simplification has broken a great deal of phonetic relationships inherent in this class of characters, making the language much more difficult to learn than it used to be, even if it is marginally faster to write. Additionally, there remain the 10% of characters which don't fit into this mold, a great many of which are very common.
- jliechti1 12y ago
  I don't know if simplification has broken a great deal of the relationships, but it certainly has broken some. Here is a specific example: Traditional Chinese 車禍 [che1 huo4] (car accident) 不過 [bu2 guo4] (however, but) Simplified Chinese 车祸 (same meaning/pronunciation) 不过 (same meaning/pronunciation) Notice the 咼 in the Traditional 過 and 禍. This phonetic component gives you some indication that is is pronounced like "luo, huo, guo, wo". In the Simplified, you lose that relation, because you have the 寸 and 呙 units, respectively. The phonetic components of Chinese characters don't always give you an exact reading, but they can help you get a good idea of what a character should sound like. There are exceptions, of course.
  - kusimanse 12y ago
    But even in that case the relationships weren't completely broken. While 过 changed, 娲wa, 祸 huo，涡 wo，窝wo，锅 guo，蜗 wo，etc. still share the radical to the right, and 过 is a very common character, you shouldn't need to guess how to read it.
- kusimanse 12y ago
  I found that simplified characters are much easier to learn than traditional, it is just that much simpler. Enough of the phonetic relations are still there (and some new phonetic relationships were created, I think), and memorizing the base characters is much easier. On top of that, memorizing the characters still requires a lot of practice writing them, and simplified saves enough time that its definitely worth it. For example, for the character for far: 远（yuan), its traditional is much more complicated: 遠. On top of that, a sound relationship is still there, and it is much simpler. I studied three and a half years of traditional characters, switched to simplified when I went to China, and then started studying Japanese, which uses a mix. I definitely am glad I studied traditional characters, but I feel at least for me, they are much much harder to learn, but that could be different for different people. Out of curiosity, have you tried learning both simplified and traditional?
  - SeanLuke 12y ago
    Only traditional. My knowledge of simplified, and the debate in Chinese academia about their real value, actually stems from discussion with Chinese linguistic experts, but I have no personal experience with simplified Chinese myself, except casually.
wisty 12y ago
It's not that easy. 灯 is pronounced "dang", not "ding". 汀 is "ting". Phonetic components only indicate "sounds like". And not all those examples you gave had the same tone. Having phonetic components makes it easier (if you like cryptic crosswords), but not easy.
- dferlemann 12y ago
  As a Chinese, I thought 灯 is pronounced "deng." If it makes "dang" sound, my mom would beat the shit out of me.
  - wisty 12y ago
    Sorry, you're right. Deng. I have trouble telling eng / ang apart.
thaumasiotes 12y ago
This is a pretty unfortunately uninformed comment. But I especially want to point out this piece: > Ask any Chinese person if they think English spelling is logical and they will say no. I've seen people from all different countries complain about English spelling. But not China. No Chinese person has, in my experience, ever even considered the idea that there's anything to complain about. Rather, they rely on the spelling of English words as a crutch to get English speakers to understand them when their accent gets in the way, for example, by saying something like "Poss. <blank stare from the English speaker> Poss P-A-U-S-E Poss." And to add to what everyone else is saying, here are some characters using the 丁 component, but not pronounced ding: 打 (da "generic verb", extremely common) 厅 (ting "hall", common) 宁 (ning, used in names, common) 灯 (deng "lamp", common)
- autarch 12y ago
  My wife is from Taiwan and she complains about English spelling all the time.
  - blencdr 12y ago
    She should try French, she won't complain anymore about english spelling ^_^
    - ithkuil 12y ago
      sure, in English the exceptions are so frequent you cannot possibly forget that you are supposed to learn each word separately. in French you can fall to a few traps, but most of the vocabulary follows complicated yet regular rules.
    - jnbiche 12y ago
      French spelling is quite regular. Once you know the system, you know how to spell almost any word. The only issue is that some letters are not pronounced.
      - S4M 12y ago
be5invis 12y ago
Not Exactly. Phonetic radicals (like 丁 in 钉) represents the pronounciation in Early and Middle chinese, not modern. For example, 塊 contains 鬼, but their pronounciation in Mandarin are different.
- ithkuil 12y ago
  indeed many western writing systems such as English or modern Greek capture an archaic pronunciation, which is basically the reason why they are difficult to learn even if they claim to use phonetic scripts.
  - bhaak 12y ago
    Probably the worst western example for this would be French. Spelling of French is based on the pronunciation of Old French (from ~900 years ago!) and sometimes mixed with spelling based on the original Latin word from which the modern French word derives (from ~2000 years ago). AFAIK modern Greek orthography is not that bad, if you disregard the madness that polytonic script (which is solely based on how Greek was spoken/written in Antiquity) was used until the 80s.

by msvan 12y ago

SeanLuke 12y ago

> These are all pronounced "ding" Sort of. The characters you're describing are commonly known as radical-phonetic characters, where part of the character indicates the sound, and the other part implies the meaning or category. It is my understanding that Communist China's push towards character simplification has broken a great deal of phonetic relationships inherent in this class of characters, making the language much more difficult to learn than it used to be, even if it is marginally faster to write. Additionally, there remain the 10% of characters which don't fit into this mold, a great many of which are very common.

jliechti1 12y ago
I don't know if simplification has broken a great deal of the relationships, but it certainly has broken some. Here is a specific example: Traditional Chinese 車禍 [che1 huo4] (car accident) 不過 [bu2 guo4] (however, but) Simplified Chinese 车祸 (same meaning/pronunciation) 不过 (same meaning/pronunciation) Notice the 咼 in the Traditional 過 and 禍. This phonetic component gives you some indication that is is pronounced like "luo, huo, guo, wo". In the Simplified, you lose that relation, because you have the 寸 and 呙 units, respectively. The phonetic components of Chinese characters don't always give you an exact reading, but they can help you get a good idea of what a character should sound like. There are exceptions, of course.
- kusimanse 12y ago
  But even in that case the relationships weren't completely broken. While 过 changed, 娲wa, 祸 huo，涡 wo，窝wo，锅 guo，蜗 wo，etc. still share the radical to the right, and 过 is a very common character, you shouldn't need to guess how to read it.
kusimanse 12y ago
I found that simplified characters are much easier to learn than traditional, it is just that much simpler. Enough of the phonetic relations are still there (and some new phonetic relationships were created, I think), and memorizing the base characters is much easier. On top of that, memorizing the characters still requires a lot of practice writing them, and simplified saves enough time that its definitely worth it. For example, for the character for far: 远（yuan), its traditional is much more complicated: 遠. On top of that, a sound relationship is still there, and it is much simpler. I studied three and a half years of traditional characters, switched to simplified when I went to China, and then started studying Japanese, which uses a mix. I definitely am glad I studied traditional characters, but I feel at least for me, they are much much harder to learn, but that could be different for different people. Out of curiosity, have you tried learning both simplified and traditional?
- SeanLuke 12y ago
  Only traditional. My knowledge of simplified, and the debate in Chinese academia about their real value, actually stems from discussion with Chinese linguistic experts, but I have no personal experience with simplified Chinese myself, except casually.

wisty 12y ago

It's not that easy. 灯 is pronounced "dang", not "ding". 汀 is "ting". Phonetic components only indicate "sounds like". And not all those examples you gave had the same tone. Having phonetic components makes it easier (if you like cryptic crosswords), but not easy.

dferlemann 12y ago
As a Chinese, I thought 灯 is pronounced "deng." If it makes "dang" sound, my mom would beat the shit out of me.
- wisty 12y ago
  Sorry, you're right. Deng. I have trouble telling eng / ang apart.

thaumasiotes 12y ago

This is a pretty unfortunately uninformed comment. But I especially want to point out this piece: > Ask any Chinese person if they think English spelling is logical and they will say no. I've seen people from all different countries complain about English spelling. But not China. No Chinese person has, in my experience, ever even considered the idea that there's anything to complain about. Rather, they rely on the spelling of English words as a crutch to get English speakers to understand them when their accent gets in the way, for example, by saying something like "Poss. <blank stare from the English speaker> Poss P-A-U-S-E Poss." And to add to what everyone else is saying, here are some characters using the 丁 component, but not pronounced ding: 打 (da "generic verb", extremely common) 厅 (ting "hall", common) 宁 (ning, used in names, common) 灯 (deng "lamp", common)

autarch 12y ago
My wife is from Taiwan and she complains about English spelling all the time.
- blencdr 12y ago
  She should try French, she won't complain anymore about english spelling ^_^
  - ithkuil 12y ago
    sure, in English the exceptions are so frequent you cannot possibly forget that you are supposed to learn each word separately. in French you can fall to a few traps, but most of the vocabulary follows complicated yet regular rules.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    French spelling is quite regular. Once you know the system, you know how to spell almost any word. The only issue is that some letters are not pronounced.
    - S4M 12y ago

be5invis 12y ago

Not Exactly. Phonetic radicals (like 丁 in 钉) represents the pronounciation in Early and Middle chinese, not modern. For example, 塊 contains 鬼, but their pronounciation in Mandarin are different.

ithkuil 12y ago
indeed many western writing systems such as English or modern Greek capture an archaic pronunciation, which is basically the reason why they are difficult to learn even if they claim to use phonetic scripts.
- bhaak 12y ago
  Probably the worst western example for this would be French. Spelling of French is based on the pronunciation of Old French (from ~900 years ago!) and sometimes mixed with spelling based on the original Latin word from which the modern French word derives (from ~2000 years ago). AFAIK modern Greek orthography is not that bad, if you disregard the madness that polytonic script (which is solely based on how Greek was spoken/written in Antiquity) was used until the 80s.