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| bio | website | easyhanzi.com |
|---|---|---|
| location | ||
| age | ||
| visits | member for | 1 year, 5 months |
| seen | Apr 18 at 1:28 | |
| stats | profile views | 25 |
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Mar 22 |
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What are the most common mistakes when pronouncing Pinyin? This question is too subjective unless a proper source is provided. Personally I don't mistakenly pronounce "shuo" but often confuse "cu" and "shu", but that's just me, and it's irrelevant to a Q&A website. |
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Mar 19 |
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的-地-得, when do you use which? A grammar book I read recently suggests that it's not so important which is which and that you can use 的 in all the cases (maybe not in an important exam but in everyday use). That was confirmed by a Chinese friend who told me to use 的 where it should have been 得. To be confirmed though, but check out recent grammar books. |
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Feb 8 |
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Did phonological systems (namely bopomofo) standardize Chinese phonemes? In fact, the earlier system seems to be the fanqie (300 AD), which was used to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese characters (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanqie ). This is an interesting question though - can a romanization system influence how the language is pronounced? In theory, it shouldn't, in practice, that seems possible (since pupils learn with it). |
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Jan 28 |
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How did 东西 come to mean “something” in the expression “吃东西”? It's not just for food, it's to say "something" in general. It's quite a convenient word when you don't know how something is called - eg. 我要这个东西! Really don't know about the etymology though. |
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Jan 24 |
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Is there a lot of value in learning to write Chinese characters? Hmm... this is an interesting answer though not sure I agree with it. I know nothing about linguistic research but the fact that physically handicapped people can comprehend a language doesn't mean that writing doesn't help (or that it's not more difficult for them to learn). I've asked a question on Cognitive Sciences about this. There's an interesting answer although it doesn't include direct references to linguistic research articles - cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/68/63 |
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Jan 16 |
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Is there a traditional Chinese New Year greeting? A translation of all this would be useful :) |
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Jan 15 |
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How do we choose the correct characters for a westerner name? @Petruza, to add to Huang's comment, I read that today names are limited to what can be input on the computer. This is because ID cards now are printed digitally so if the official cannot type your characters, they will ask you to change your name. Here's an article about it: "Name Not on Our List? Change It, China Says" - nytimes.com/2009/04/21/world/asia/21china.html |
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Jan 10 |
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Characters which have several different shapes @Szabolcs, sometime there's only a small difference between two characters but it doesn't mean it's the same character. So as Huang said you need to learn them. They are different characters with different pronunciations and meanings. |
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Jan 10 |
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Characters which have several different shapes This question seems to be about a browser bug, which incorrectly chooses the wrong font, and not about the Chinese language. There's a thread about this font problem on meta. |
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Jan 3 |
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Where can I find a downloadable database of English to Chinese words? The OP asked for "the data file, such as a commas-separated file or spreadsheet, not the front-end software used to view it", and I don't think any of these links provide this kind of data. |
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Dec 27 |
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Why were some letters like Q, X, C, chosen for Pinyin which confuse non-Chinese speakers? Since you are from Argentina, you should know that roman letters are not pronounced the same in all the roman letter-based languages. "r" in Spanish is very different from "r" in French, which itself is different from "r" in English, etc. |
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Dec 24 |
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Where can I find a list of commonly mistaken characters? I doubt such a reference exists as there are plenty of characters that only differ by a few strokes. Just curious as to why you would need such a list? |
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Dec 22 |
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Etymology of 他妈的 Interestingly, there's the same swearing in French - "ta mère" ("your mother"), which means "f.. off". |
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Dec 18 |
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How to practice reading for beginners? Yes +1 for mentioning Tatoeba, didn't know about it. |
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Dec 18 |
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How to practice reading for beginners? Thanks, will have a look at the Chinese Breeze Graded Readers books. |
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Dec 15 |
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Is it easier to learn Chinese after learning Japanese or vice versa? @NullUserException, you can understand a few things if you can read Chinese characters, even if you only know simplified ones. I remember I could guess where was the bathroom because the name had the characters "洗手间" (although in a different order). |
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Dec 14 |
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Is there an authoritative reference for the stroke order of simplifed characters? hmm... I'm not seeing any mention of a disagreement on Wikipedia's page. It's written that some people forget the correct stroke order but it doesn't mean there's no correct stroke order. You're right that 现代汉语通用字笔顺规范 is most likely the reference although it's quite old, so I was hoping a more up to date one would be available. |
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Dec 14 |
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Is there an authoritative reference for the stroke order of simplifed characters? I heard about this book before but it's 15 years old. Sometime I show stroke orders from this book to Chinese people and they told me they learn something different at school. Is this book still current or is there a more recent edition (can't seem to find any)? Thanks for the traditional Chinese reference, I'll have a look. |
