User Comments - changye
changye
Posted on: 请 (Qǐng) - Please and Beyond
November 24, 2008 at 2:51 AMHi connie,
我请客，你付钱。
Haha, it's a humorous expression. I love it!
Posted on: Argument over Garbage (1)
November 24, 2008 at 2:33 AMHi tvan,
Your new interpretation is not so bad, considering this current worldwide economic crisis.
Posted on: Chinese Characters and the History of Sex in China
November 24, 2008 at 2:20 AMHi mikenotinjubei,
Please click on the link and take a look at the picture located in the middle of the page. It’s a hand-written letter by Kawabata Yasunari (川端康成), who is a Japanese Nobel laureate in literature in 1968. The letter is written with both Chinese characters and Japanese phonograms (hiragana). I think hiragana scripts look beautiful when they are handwritten in cursive (flowing) style.
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4747bc0701008i7w.html
Japanese hiragana scripts were invented based on the cursive/flowing styles (草体) of some Chinese characters, and therefore they visually go well with Chinese characters especially in traditional brush calligraphy. Let me show you some examples of “etymology” of hiragana. The following hiragana scripts are originated in the parenthesized Chinese characters located after them.
あ (安), い (以), う (宇), え (衣), お (於)
か (加), き (幾), く (久), け (计), こ (己)
On the other hand, katakana scripts, which are used mainly for foreign words and names now, were invented by borrowing a part/radical of a Chinese character, which is the reason why they usually have a rectilinear/square shape. Katakana scripts were originally invented/used as auxiliary symbols for reading Chinese Buddhist scriptures. Katakana is generally not suitable for calligraphy.
ア (阿), イ (伊), ウ (宇), エ (江), オ (於)
カ (加), キ (幾), ク (久), ケ (介), コ (己)
Posted on: Catch the Train
November 23, 2008 at 12:37 PMHi rjberki,
Thanks for your invitation.
My dictionary says that the original meaning of 劳驾 is "Thank you very much for your coming all the way." Probably "劳" (= 劳动) connotes "麻烦您，辛苦您了" and "驾" means "驾到，驾临" (arrival) since a guest usually comes in a cart as you pointed out.
I hear that this phrase is very widely used especially in Beijing dialect when asking something, in the senses such as "Excuse me", "Would you get out of the way?", "Would you do me a favor?", and etc. It's basically a polite phrase to ask something.
Posted on: Chinese Characters and the History of Sex in China
November 23, 2008 at 11:52 AMThe shape of the character “卜” (bu3, divine) clearly indicates two cracks in a bone, and this simple shape has remained almost unchanged in China for more than three thousand years. The reconstructed ancient sound of “卜” is something like “puk/pok”, and it apparently represents a sound heard when a bone cracks with heat. For the record, the character “占” (zhan1, divine, tell fortune) consists of two parts, i.e. “卜” (divine) and “口” (mouth), which makes sense very well.
Posted on: Chinese Characters and the History of Sex in China
November 23, 2008 at 8:06 AMHi mikeinewshot,
P/S. correction
日语古音…........万叶假名…汉字中古音…汉字现代音
は (pua/fua)….…..波…….….….pua…..……. bo
Posted on: Chinese Characters and the History of Sex in China
November 23, 2008 at 7:35 AMHi mikeinewshot,
To write Japanese using Chinese characters was not very difficult for ancient Japanese people owing to the simple pronunciation system of their mother tongue. Japanese syllables usually have open vowels, and therefore it was relatively easy to find Chinese characters that have sounds similar to them especially in ancient times, when Chinese had the pronunciation system more similar to that of Japanese than modern Mandarin has now.
Below are some examples of 万叶假名, which were used around the 7th century before the invention of Japanese phonograms, i.e. hiragana and katakana, between the 8th and the 9th century. Ancient people used these Chinese characters (万叶假名) to transcribe their own Japanese sounds, which consequently led to the invention of hiragana and katakana. Both phonograms were created by modifying these Chinese characters (万叶假名).
日语古音…万叶假名…汉字中古音…汉字现代音
あ (a)…….……阿…….……...a ……..……..a
か (ka)…….….加……..…..…ka …....…….jia
さ (sa)……......佐……..….…tza …….……zuo
た (ta)……......多……..….….ta…….….… duo
な (na)….…….奈……..…….na…….….….nai
は (hua)….…..波…….….….pua…..……. bo
ま (ma)….……麻……..….…ma….…..…. ma
や (ya)…….….耶……..….…yia………….. ye
ら (la)…….…..罗……..…….la………...... luo
わ (wa)……….和……...……hua……...… huo
On the other hand, ancient Korean people had extreme difficulty utilizing Chinese characters for transliterating Korean sounds due to its rather complicated pronunciation system. It was not until the mid 15th century that Korean scholars gave up the idea of using only Chinese characters for transliteration and created their own phonograms “Korean characters, Hangeul” probably by reference to Phags-pa scripts used in the Mongolian empire in the 13th century.
As for the Vietnamese language, to be honest, I don’t know much about its history, but I guess that it was not easy for ancient Vietnamese people to use Chinese characters to transcribe the sounds of their language, ironically, because Vietnamese is also a tone language just like Chinese. Probably it was the primary reason why they created their own “Chinese characters” called “chu nom” by modifying authentic Chinese characters around the 14th century.
Posted on: Chinese Characters and the History of Sex in China
November 22, 2008 at 12:57 PMHi bababadrwan,
That’s a great photo of 甲骨文! Below is a rough translation of the text written in oracle bone scripts on the tortoise plastron. In the era of 商朝, there were officers who were in charge of fortune telling, and they were called “贞人”. They address questions about future events to the king of 商朝, and the king gives answers to them based on cracks appeared on bones and plastrons.
The text in the photo is a question to the king, and it consists of two parts, i.e. the right part and the left part. Both parts basically say the same thing. The right text is “Will the threat of the local king 正化 be solved (disappear)?”, and the left one is “Won’t the threat of the local king 正化 be solved?”. A set of two similar questions to the king was a typical pattern seen in texts at that time.
(The right part)
辛 (a character that indicates a date)
酉 (a character that indicates a date)
卜 (tell fortune)
宾 (the name of 贞人)
贞 (ask)
朕 (omen appeared on the bones and plastrons)
正 (= 冖 + 止) (正化 is the name of a local king…?)
化
灾 (threat)
解 (solve, disappear)
(The left part)
贞 (ask)
朕 (omen appeared on bones and plastrons)
正 (= 冖 + 止) (正化 is the name of a local king….?)
化
弗 (not)
其 (its)
灾 (threat)
解 (solve, disappear)
二 (two times, second time …. ?)
告 (tell)
This comment comes with no guarantee!
Posted on: Introducing Hotels
November 22, 2008 at 1:34 AMHi penhuizc,
That's a very good point. I also think that 肯德鸡 makes much more sense than 肯德基, even though KFC in China serve Hamburgers too, haha.
Joking aside, let me try to explain the reason. Firstly, the character "基" is very frequently used to transcribe the sound "ki" in foreign names, just like 基辛格 (Kissinger) and 诺基亚 (Nokia).
Secondary, as far as I can see, the words, phrases and sayings that contain the character "鸡" often carry a negative connotation, including a very vulgar word. Please look up it in your dictionaries.
Having said that, there is a word such as 鸡尾酒 (cocktail) in Chinese.
Posted on: Chinese Characters and the History of Sex in China
November 24, 2008 at 4:05 AMHi kesirui,
They stole our language!
Haha, I know your teacher is just joking, but I don’t think he/she knows much about the history of China.
In ancient times, learning Chinese and its characters was a must for leaders (and scholars) in neighboring countries, such as Korea, Vietnam, and Japan, since they had to write personal letters in authentic Chinese and address them to the emperor of China, who was the big brother in Asia at that time, when their envoys tribute to China.
Furthermore, Chinese people were very happy to teach their language and characters to those “barbarian” neighbors and enlighten them, just like the PRC is now eagerly trying to promote Mandarin all over the world. History repeats itself.