Category: Chinese (中文)

Traditional v Simplified Characters (繁體或简体)

By Simon

This morning not long after I switched on my computer two people were wanting to chat to me on MSN messenger, one from China and one from Taiwan. I had to keep on changing from writing in simplified to traditional characters but occasionally forgot, much to their confusion. At the same time I was also writing email in English – multitaskingtastic! (now that’s a bit of a tonguetwister) I use pinyin input for both types of characters, so it’s easy for me switch between them.

This got me thinking about whether those familiar with simplified characters and read traditional characters, and vice versa. My impression is that it’s easier for traditional character users to read simplified characters than the other way round, but I may be wrong.

Which do you prefer, traditional of simplified characters? I can read and write both kinds and prefer the traditional ones. The traditional characters just look more elegant to me and preserve the semantic and phonetic clues that have been lost in many of the simplified characters.

如果你是用简体字的，你会不会看得懂繁体字？你觉得哪一种字比较好看？

如果你使用繁體子的，你會不會看得懂簡體字？你覺得哪一種字比較好看？

Word of the day – 崎 (qí)

By Simon

崎 (qí), noun = the banks of a winding river

This is an example of one of the very specific words in Chinese. I doubt if it’s used very often, but the fact that you pack so much meaning into a single syllable is quite impressive.

Pronounced with the first tone and combined with 嶇 (qū), this character means rugged, uneven or rough, e.g. 這條小徑崎嶇而多泥 (zhè tiáo xiǎojīng qīqū ér duō ní) – This path is rugged and muddy.

Word of the day – diphthong

By Simon

Diphthong, noun = a vowel sound, occupying a single syllable, during the articulation of which the tongue moves from one position to another, causing a continual change in vowel quality. For example, the ou in doubt.

Origin: from Latin diphthongus, from Greek δίφθογγος (diphthongos) – with two sounds, which is made up of δίφυες (diphues) – twofold and φθογγος (phthongos) – sound.

Related words
diphthongize, verb = to make (a simple vowel) into a diphthong

monophthong, noun = a simple or pure vowel

triphthong, noun = a composite vowel sound during the articulation of which the vocal organs move from one position, through another and ending in a third

The Chinese word for diphthong is 二重元音 (èrzhòngyuányin) or 雙元音 (shuangyuányin), which literally mean “two weight vowel” and “twin vowel”. 元音 (vowel) means literally “primary/fundamental/basic sound”. This demonstrates a fundamental difference between English and Chinese: many words from other languages are used in English, and technical, scientific and medical terms are often cobbled together from Greek and/or Latin roots. However in Chinese, there are very few foreign loanwords and most words are made up of native roots. If you didn’t know the meaning of diphthong you could only guess it if you knew Greek, whereas you could probably work out the meaning of 二重元音 even if you had never seen it before.

Word of the day – 龜

By Simon

龜 (guī) , noun = tortoise, turtle

This is my favorite Chinese character and one of the few that sort of resembles the word it represents. At the top you have the head, then the two bits sticking out on the left are the claws, the shell is on the right and at the bottom is the tail. If I hadn’t told you this though, I doubt if you would have guessed the meaning of this character.

The turtle is a symbol of longevity, strength, stability and prophecy in Chinese culture. The idea that the world is supported by a giant turtle appears in stories in many cultures.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, the Chinese character at the top of this page means character, letter or word and is pronounced zì in Mandarin Chinese, ji in Japanese and ja in Korean.