Asian confusion

[bosco]

...and then there are Americans who constantly invent new ways to spell our words.......

Edited March 19, 2007 by Ling-Curt (see edit history)

[TootTaLu]

...and then there are Americans who constantly invent new ways to spell our words.......

 

I believe "PinYin" was invented by the French.

French people I meet in China have very good pronouncifications of Chinese words,maybe because its easy for them to speak the PinYin.

I can't even say "PinYin" properly!

[David&Wendy]

I only know this from living there.

Pinyin isn't known by all Chinese.

Even saying mostly younger Chinese who are office personnel that work for international companies is stretching my generalization.

 

To my point, Pinyin is not the only way to enter Chinese on a computer. It is the common method for non-native Mandarin speakers to learn and type Mandarin Chinese.

On a actual Chinese version of Windows XP there is at least 2 other input methods besides Pinyin.

One looked somewhat phoentic and the other one just confused me even more.

 

 

 

If anybody reading this post really doesn't care then skip the rest of the post.

 

This is what I got from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_input...s_for_computers

 

Keyboard input methods can be classified in three main types:

 

by encoding

by pronunciation

by structure of the characters

 

There is Hanyu Pinyin ººÓïÆ´Òô commonly called PinYin and also Wubizixing Îå±Ê×ÖÐÍÊäÈë·¨ often referred to just as the Wubi method.

Both of these were predated by the Wade-Giles ÍþÍ×ÂêÆ´Òô method which was created in the mid-19th century.

Wade-Giles was the main system of transliteration in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century, used in several standard reference books and in all books about China published before 1979.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, guy, but there is at least one Chinese PhD here in the office who can't - he doesn't do Pinyin, either (from near Shanghai).

 

I doubt that my wife could, either.

[jim_julian]

Americans are so damn ignorant

 

I prefer the term "provincial"

 

Having or showing the manners, viewpoints, etc., considered characteristic of unsophisticated inhabitants of a province; rustic; narrow or illiberal; parochial: a provincial point of view.

 

Dictionary.com

[tsap seui]

The first time my girlfriend used the word pinyin to me it sounded like she said pee-in, so I answered "nah, I'm okay"...she looked at me with a question mark on her face and I spelled out the word urinate on her pocket translator.

 

I only had to run a half a mile before she finally threw down the mop and laughingly hugged me.

 

tsap seui

 

Ignorant hillbilly

[IllinoisDave]

Americans are so damn ignorant

 

I prefer the term "provincial"

 

Having or showing the manners, viewpoints, etc., considered characteristic of unsophisticated inhabitants of a province; rustic; narrow or illiberal; parochial: a provincial point of view.

 

Dictionary.com

 

Exactly the word that's come to mind reading a few posts here. Unfortunately, it fits some, only some, to a tee. And I find that incredibly ironic given the reason we're all here.

[tywy_99]

My wife is fluent in both simplified and traditional Chinese. She also knows pinyin.

Her daughter only knows simplified Chinese characters and not traditional and her mother only knows traditional and not simplified. There's a difference in pinyin characters between modern and traditional. My wife says the modern, is of course, english letters but the traditional pinyin, she says, looks Japanese.

Where she and her daughter know modern pinyin, my wife and her mother both know traditional pinyin.

My wife is a scholarly lady!

[Randy W]

A lot of people I know can't tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean writing.

 

. . . including Chinese people !!

 

No way. Part of the Japanese writing and Korean writing came from the Chinese.

 

 

I'm not kidding - they don't recognize the Japanese Hirakana and Katakana alphabets, the Korean characters are totally different.

 

Randy, the Chinese may not be able to read some of the Japanese characters or the modern Korean characters, but literate Chinese certainly know the difference between all three written languages. Now if you're saying that there are some illiterate Chinese people who can't tell, I can believe you as there are indeed some rural illiterate Chinese people in China who can't even read Chinese but Tony is right that all educated and literate Chinese people who can read and write Chinese can tell the difference between written Chinese, Japanese or Korean.

 

 

Sorry, guy, but there is at least one Chinese PhD here in the office who can't - he doesn't do Pinyin, either (from near Shanghai).

 

I doubt that my wife could, either.

 

 

Okay - this is the text I showed her, and asked her which was Chinese, Japanese, or Korean:

 

http://i12.tinypic.com/2ciijur.jpg

 

She answered correctly "No Chinese", but did not recognize the others as Korean or Japanese.

 

The only computer input method she knows is the writing pad (handwriting recognition).

 

She graduated high school in 1979 (I think).

 

I think the only language consistently taught as a second language is (or was) Mandarin.

Edited March 20, 2007 by Randy W (see edit history)

[bosco]

...and then there are Americans who constantly invent new ways to spell our words.......

 

I believe "PinYin" was invented by the French.

French people I meet in China have very good pronouncifications of Chinese words,maybe because its easy for them to speak the PinYin.

I can't even say "PinYin" properly!

 

I was referring to your poor spelling of English words in your prior post. I found great humor in reading a criticism of other's ability to recognize characters while misspelling the word "character" so atrociously.

[bosco]

Americans are so damn ignorant

 

I prefer the term "provincial"

 

Having or showing the manners, viewpoints, etc., considered characteristic of unsophisticated inhabitants of a province; rustic; narrow or illiberal; parochial: a provincial point of view.

 

Dictionary.com

 

 

Nah.....ignorant applies just fine.

[david_dawei]

I'm more inclined to know the difference than my wife.. she'll only care if it's chinese or 'not'...

 

which language is this character ?

 

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/1954/fbookmarktf2.jpg

[Randy W]

I'm more inclined to know the difference than my wife.. she'll only care if it's chinese or 'not'...

 

which language is this character ?

 

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/1954/fbookmarktf2.jpg

 

 

Chinese! - looks like the script style of Chinese that my wife uses

Edited March 20, 2007 by Randy W (see edit history)

[david_dawei]

I'm more inclined to know the difference than my wife.. she'll only care if it's chinese or 'not'...

 

which language is this character ?

 

Chinese! - looks like the script style of Chinese that my wife uses

there's a debate on another site over what the character or language actually is.. no one could be conclusive...

Edited March 20, 2007 by DavidZixuan (see edit history)

[Randy W]

I'm more inclined to know the difference than my wife.. she'll only care if it's chinese or 'not'...

 

which language is this character ?

 

Chinese! - looks like the script style of Chinese that my wife uses

there's a debate on another site over what the character or language actually is.. no one could be conclusive...

 

I'd say definitely Chinese because of the way the radicals are connected - and especially the box at the top. Where is the debate?

 

My wife says traditional Chinese

Edited March 20, 2007 by Randy W (see edit history)

[david_dawei]

I'm more inclined to know the difference than my wife.. she'll only care if it's chinese or 'not'...

 

which language is this character ?

 

Chinese! - looks like the script style of Chinese that my wife uses

there's a debate on another site over what the character or language actually is.. no one could be conclusive...

 

I'd say definitely Chinese because of the way the radicals are connected - and especially the box at the top. Where is the debate?

 

My wife says traditional Chinese

debated because there was no agreement on what actual character it was... ergo, some speculated it could be other than chinese. I had not asked my wife [yet]...