The top character is the traditional form, which I’ve heard has been in use about 2000 years.  Japan adapted it and it’s been simplified to an even greater extent in modern Chinese.  I like this example because it shows how it has changed in Japan slightly, and some words like hua (the 2nd character) haven’t been simplified to the extent they have been in China.

I’ve recently come across these words, and I was amazed at how subtle the differences are in pronunciation, but how different the final meanings are.  All three of these words start with “Lao” (3rd tone), which by itself means old.  From there you add the sound “Shi,” which is a very common sound in chinese.

Character	shi Tone	Meaning
老師	1st tone	Teacher
老實	2nd tone	Honest
老是	4th tone	Always

]]> http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/chinese-words-tone/feed/ 0 http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/chinese-measure-words/ http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/chinese-measure-words/#comments Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:26:19 +0000 admin http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/?p=74 So this is one of the first things that you start to learn after getting into chinese – “measure words.”  It’s basically a classifier that you should add onto a lot of nouns.

Image courtesy of this article on chinese medicine

Personally, one of the main things I’ve noticed in 8 months of studying is how many words there are with the same sound.  Ie.  There are more than 100 words with the sound “shi“  I would guess that using measure words helps to narrow it down a bit!  I particularly have trouble remembering another common sound in chinese “ji”.  On top of hearing the word, then you’ve got got to try and determine the tone, then hopefully you’ve got the meaning.  It can be laborious at times.

Below is an image from a handout in my class, with some descriptions of how measure words work in Chinese and some examples.

1. Stamp / Seal
2. Place
3. Peace
4. There / That

Clearly no meaning is connected.  I’m starting to see more and more characters “borrowed” for their sound, it’s nice because you don’t have to learn more characters and sometimes you can sound out the meaning.  After 7 months of studying Chinese characters, they are FINALLY starting to make some sense.

This is my also first blog post using wordpress. 

如果你從英文的國, 學中文學的困難. 英文跟中文真的不一樣. 我是美國人, 我不學習別的文. 我只會說英文. 我學完了, 就做工作. 這年, 我六年做工作.

今天, 又網路又最聰明的電機. 如果你要知道什麼,
就找得到什麼. 所以, 我想介世越來越小. 電腦很好,
很有用. 不過工作越來越用電腦. 人常常上網,
不見面. 我覺得以後, 找到工作常常跟人見面越來越小. 我要跟人見面,
所以我覺得學中文很有用. 聽說以後, 人用中文很多. 也聽說二零五零年大陸的經濟跟美國一樣. 對我來說, 大陸大概有機會得不得了.

Photo credit: X Mei Associates

我決定在台灣學中文. 我選台灣因為台灣有:

1. 說中文

2. 對日本人好

3. 根日本用一樣的字

4. 台灣人喜歡美國人,
對我們好

5. 台灣又便宜又好玩

6. 我喜歡喝茶

Picture of Taiwan Flag.  Photo Credit: Taiwan

I understood my first marketing tagline just the other day. Here in Taiwan toilet
paper and Kleenex are one and the same.
You buy big packs of them and you use them for just about everything in
your house. Also, you do not flush
toilet paper in Taiwan, so every
bathroom has a small trash can in it.

This is from a Kleenex pack. You can see the characters:

給家人最好的

給 = Give

家人 = Your family (lit. house + people)

最好的 = Very Good, the very best (lit. very + good + particle)

Alltogether this adds up to “Giving your family the very best”.  Sounds exactly like what is says in the USA.  BTW, as far as I can tell, all those characters in the lower right corner mean “3 ply”

All of the characters in the first line I’ve had to
learn for class individually, after less than 4 months of study.  Of course these are
basic terms, but it’s nice to see a connection between my classes and
the real world.  Here is a breakdown: