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I think it is a false statement that "there are so many homophones". In mainland system, I haven't found two elements with the same (pronunciation, tone). They
by muddyrivers 11y ago
I think it is a false statement that "there are so many homophones". In mainland system, I haven't found two elements with the same (pronunciation, tone). They could sound the same for non-native speakers, but they sound different for native speakers. I don't think this is hard to understand.
- jzwinck 11y agoHow do Chinese people differentiate 珠 "pearl" from 朱 "vermilion" in a spoken context such as "What material is best worn by an emperor?" These seem to be homophones, yet the words are similar enough in usage that it may not be clear from the context which one is meant (as opposed to 豬 "pig" which again has the same pronunciation but is less likely to be ambiguous).
- vysaga 11y agoThere are other equivalent words. For instance, 珍珠 for pearl (I actually never heard anyone use 珠 alone）. No idea what "vermilion" means in your question. If it refers to the color, then you can say “朱红” or “朱红色”. In fact, very few words in spoken Chinese are monosyllabic, so it is highly unlikely to confuse a chemical element with other things. Moreover, you can always say "chemical element" + 元素 (element) or 原子 (atom) if you are afraid of confusing people; for instance, 氢原子，碳元素, though it is hardly necessary, as I never encountered the problem the author described in my 5+ years of studying chemistry in Chinese.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoSimply a tone difference doesn't prevent confusion, though. Tones can be gotten wrong or misheard. If tones always solved this, then four would not be associated with death, surely?