01-17-2004, 09:23 AM | #861 |
The Elvish Temptress
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Vienna, Austria
Posts: 3,055
|
Are you now starting to show off with your german knowledge, Lin?
Do the Chinese have the same ? as we?
__________________
What I am and what I would are as secret as maidenhead. |
01-17-2004, 09:42 AM | #862 | |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
Quote:
Yes, we use the same question mark [?] and exclamation mark [!]. The other punctuation marks are different, though. The full stop is hollow, the comma is a bit larger, and they are both in the middle of a line, not at the bottom (like this: . ,) We also use square brackets for quotations. (I can't seem to work out how to type them right now though). |
|
01-17-2004, 09:50 AM | #863 | |
The Elvish Temptress
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Vienna, Austria
Posts: 3,055
|
Quote:
Did they have that for a long time or is it a rather new thing?
__________________
What I am and what I would are as secret as maidenhead. |
|
01-17-2004, 07:54 PM | #864 |
Spammer of the Happy Thread
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Posts: 3,512
|
Chinese looks so beautiful! I was trying to pronounce them too, it sounded pretty funny.. And the direct translations are the best!
And poor Jonathan. He's no torsk! What's torsk in chinese?
__________________
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. " - C. Sagan My (photography) website My Flickr page |
01-17-2004, 08:05 PM | #865 | |
Entmoot Attorney-General,
Equilibrating the Scales of Justice, Administrator ♎ Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posts: 3,891
|
Quote:
Please post some more Chinese, Linaewen. How many Chinese symbols does the average Chinese know to write?
__________________
An unwritten post is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and it immediately becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it’s halfway to being just like every other bloody entry that’s ever been written. ☻ |
|
01-17-2004, 08:11 PM | #866 |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
I would love to hear all of your pronunciations.
I've only just checked the 'now' sentences and realised that I put the wrong character in. Here is the new 'Now'. Before that I had put in the 'zai' that means 'again' instead of the 'zai' that means 'currently' in this context (and 'at' in another). I believe 'zai' is pronounced as per German, except with Chinese tone, förstås. I take it I didn't butcher your language too much, Nerdanel? Not too many corrections? To show you the difference in pronunciation between my main dialect & Mandarin, here is approximately how those sentences are pronounced in De Jieu: Le ji jung mwoah mi gai? Wo ji jung seng dian nau. (I have a habit of pronouncing 'dian nau' the Mandarin way, because they have different tones). That spelling is really bad, by the way. Last edited by Linaewen : 01-17-2004 at 08:13 PM. |
01-17-2004, 08:18 PM | #867 | |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
Quote:
I don't know when they started using it, but I'll find out for you. Nerdanel- thanks for loving my languages(s). I think they're beautiful too. Would you like me to scan my writing next time? Writing it comes naturally for me; it seems strange for me to hear about learners who don't know stroke order and such! Jon- I believe it's about 8000 characters, perhaps. And of course you have to learn how to pronounce every single one. Sometimes there are hints though. See the 'ma' I wrote before? The presence of the radical on the right always means a word is pronounced 'ma' (With different tone- don't want to mix up 'horse' with 'mum' ). The radical (word part) on the left, by itself, means 'mouth'. The radicals are very interesting to learn! |
|
01-17-2004, 08:23 PM | #868 | |
Entmoot Attorney-General,
Equilibrating the Scales of Justice, Administrator ♎ Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posts: 3,891
|
Quote:
__________________
An unwritten post is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and it immediately becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it’s halfway to being just like every other bloody entry that’s ever been written. ☻ |
|
01-17-2004, 08:35 PM | #869 |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
|
Chinese sounds really difficult. The dialects alone are enough to confuse me. Does Chinese has a phonetic alphabet?
As I've said, I'm learning Japanese, and I wouldn't be able to write much at all without hiragana! |
01-17-2004, 08:39 PM | #870 |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
Yes, it does. Check out this attachment. It's got the Roman and Chinese Pinyin (phonetic alphabet) at the bottom. I'm used to the Chinese one, which explains why I'm so crap at writing the Roman one. It evens shows the tone. I just realised that you can sort of pronounce the other sentences with wrong tone, but if you say simple 'Ni hao' wrong, it sounds awful. Something for you to ponder.
Hehe. The dialects are fun! Jon's just seen me write the pronunciation for that last sentence out in 3 dialects- tell me, do they differ much? I found a fantastic site about the Chinese characters. Zhong Wen. It's literally 'Chinese [language]' dot com. Last edited by Linaewen : 01-17-2004 at 08:43 PM. |
01-17-2004, 08:45 PM | #871 |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
|
Yeah, the whole tone thing sounds hard. I'd be afraid of making a horrible mistake. I remember hearing something about how in French "please repeat after me" is "please pass gass again" if you leave out an accent.
|
01-17-2004, 08:45 PM | #872 |
Spammer of the Happy Thread
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Posts: 3,512
|
Lin, you treat my language very well! Not many corrections at all.
8000?! Wow. I love the look of the characters and things like when computer means electronic brain! That's really special.
__________________
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. " - C. Sagan My (photography) website My Flickr page |
01-17-2004, 11:40 PM | #873 |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
Ok, I remembered wrong. Apparently an educated person would usually remember 6,500 characters. My bad.
This is the next part of conversation that I'm posting before I have a little break from the Moot and hopefully never return . Pronunciation/Translation: Ni you ta de shu ma?= Do you have his book? (You have his book ah?) Shi me shu? =What/which book? Yi ben zhong wen de shu= A Chinese (language) book. (One [classifier] Chinese book) A! You a!/Mei you le!= Ah! Yes, I have it! / No, I don't I have it. Ah! Have ah!/ Not have eh! |
01-17-2004, 11:47 PM | #874 |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
I was trying to think up of a very simple conversation that would explain some grammar points.
1) The genitive (Alex's book, Lin's friend) is expressed by putting a 'de' after the pronoun/owner. Hence; Alex de shu = Alex's book. (Whatever Alex is in Chinese). 2) Chinese uses 'classifiers' before nouns. 'Yi ben shu' - One (classfier) book. You cannot talk about objects (unless preceded by a possesive pronoun or the owner) without the classifier. 'Yi shu' (Without the 'ben') does not make sense. Different objects have different classifiers. I sure hope that made sense. I tried to explain to my cousin that it was interesting that Japanese 'ben' is book, when it is Chinese classifier for book, but he just got confused. 3) 'De' is also used for adjectives. (almost always when attributive but not necessarily in the predicate). 'Zhong wen de shu' = 'Chinese 'de' book. Sometimes it can be left out, like in names of things. 4) Negation of verbs- most of them are negated by 'bu' but some are negated by 'mei'. Sorry if I made that more complicated than it is, and that I didn't confuse anyone with linguistic jargon. Last edited by Linaewen : 01-18-2004 at 12:01 AM. |
01-17-2004, 11:58 PM | #875 |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
Here's some more stuff. (I want you all practising your Chinese and knowing this all by the time I get back )
The numbers, written exactly the same as Japanese, but with pronunciation differences. (apart from number 3) -Yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba, jiu shi [2nd line]'Bu shi'= not ('Bu'- negative particle, 'shi' - 'to be') [3rd line] Wo ai Sweden hen Ao Zhou! = I love Sweden and Austalia! Ao Zhou = Australia. [4th line] Zai jian! = Bye! Again see! The most important line being the last one! Zai jian! |
01-18-2004, 12:03 AM | #876 |
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
Darnit, I can't edit it to put the attachment in.
|
01-18-2004, 03:13 AM | #877 | |
High King at Annuminas Administrator
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Wyoming - USA
Posts: 10,752
|
Quote:
Yi ge chi dan = one count chicken egg (my teacher used the word 'count' to describe a 'classifier') Thanks for the 1-10... for some reason, I could only remember 1-5 + 10. 'Shu' (book) - I remember that (or would it be 'shue') also meaning 'study'... or is it a different tone? As I understand it, any Chinese person writing the language would use the same exact characters... but with the dialects may be using entirely different sounds for the words. Is this correct? I imagine the written portion must be extremely old then... and that as people were cut off from one another, they began to speak things differently. Unless I'm way wrong, of course. |
|
01-18-2004, 03:30 AM | #878 | ||
Co-President of Entmoot
Super Moderator Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Canada
Posts: 8,397
|
Lin, are numbers in Chinese the same as Japanese kanji?
__________________
"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
Quote:
|
||
01-18-2004, 05:39 AM | #879 | |
The Elvish Temptress
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Vienna, Austria
Posts: 3,055
|
Quote:
Oh, all these characters and pronunciations scare me. I wonder if I will be able to learn it. That will be a task of a lifetime.
__________________
What I am and what I would are as secret as maidenhead. |
|
01-18-2004, 06:11 AM | #880 | ||
Fair Dinkum
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 2,319
|
Quote:
Yes, shue is part of the word for study. (Not shu) Quote:
Read more about it in the link I posted. I'm not a very good explainer. |
||
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
The Official Design Discussion Thread | Grey_Wolf | General Messages | 10 | 12-07-2005 04:59 PM |
The official "What's the Elvish?" thread | Gwaimir Windgem | Middle Earth | 12 | 02-03-2003 02:51 PM |
An Open Letter/apology | Lady Midnight | General Messages | 25 | 05-25-2002 06:18 PM |