Comments by "神州 Shenzhou" (@Shenzhou.) on "NativLang" channel.

  1. Yes, 女 is pronounced Nu (Mandarin), Neuh (Cantonese), Neng (Teochew) and On'na (Japanese). But in all cases it still means "women".
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  2. + Captain Davy Wow, it already sounds more complex than Mandarin. Mandarin characters have only a single syllable so there is no stressed syllable (since there's only 1 syllable and 1 of 4 tones or no tone). Mandarin doesn't have many nasal sounds but many non-Mandarin speakers say that it sounds "sharp" compared to some other languages. Its funny how many people regard Chinese as a hard language because of memorization and tones but I'm sure other languages have their own special emphasis on pronunciation words correctly. Also, when we sing songs in Mandarin, we totally disregard the rules for tones! Each syllable fits to whichever note that it's on. So you can sing Mandarin songs perfectly without knowing proper tones for normal speech!
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  3. Chinese is among world's oldest most 'continous' languages still alive today, whereas other great ancient languages like Latin and Egyptian hieroglyphics have been classified as "dead" languages long ago.
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  4. +Najmah Chant You could use Google translate or learn some Chinese ^^
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  5. As a spoken language, most words have only 1 or 2 syllables (sounds) so you can cram lots of words into a certain sound limit (i.e. How many ideas can you express in a 8-syllable limit in English? You can probably squeeze in more words in Mandarin or Cantonese) As a written language, complex words occupy roughly the same space as simple words. So if you're getting a tattoo, the word " 智 " is more space efficient than "Wisdom" (although getting a tattoo is not wise!) Chengyu (成语) are 4-character idioms that compress an entire story into a few words. For example, 井底之蛙 means the frog at the bottom of a well, which refers to someone who ignorant of anything aside from the world of their own. However, in terms of writing speed, Chinese characters tend to suffer because of their complexity. For example, the Chinese word for police is 警察 which has 34 strokes in total, so yeah, it's a pain to write.
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  6.  @WreckItRolfe  That's exactly what I wrote.
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  7.  @Anonymous-df8it  Kinda like that. Except that many Chinese characters are more complex than the figure 8, so following the wrong stroke order can make Chinese characters look very weird.
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  8. +Tibor Malinsky Chinese Characters were derived from Oracle Bone Script long ago. They were initially carved into bone, but eventually people starting using brushes with ink to write them. You can google for pictures of Oracle Bone script to get an idea of what they looked like. New characters are formed by combining parts (called radicals) to form words with meaning. For example, papa, sounds like 巴巴(baba), Add father(父) on top and it becomes 爸爸 (bàba). Uranium, sounds like 由(yóu) and is a metal (金) so it becomes 鈾(yóu). Florine sounds like 弗(fú) and is a gas (气) so the word is 氟 (fú). Second, you can use two characters to represent the meaning of a new word. Telephone is called 電話(Electric Voice) and Computer is called 電腦(Electric Brain). These are just some examples of how new words are created.
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  9. +Tibor Malinsky Well, it depends on whether you want Chinese people to be able to recognize your new words or not. Other than that, you can make Chinese characters as complicated or as simple as you want.
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  10. 你已经懂了汉语，为什么还说学日语难了？
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  11. +Otto 那为什么学日语很难？你已经懂了三千多汉字。比那些没学过汉语的学生好。
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  12. Ancient Korea used to use Chinese characters (Hanja) but they found it too difficult so they came up with a new language (Hangul). Ancient Vietnamese also used Chinese characters in the past. Nowadays they aren't used at all but you can find ancient texts written in Chinese characters.
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  13. Hangul may be easier to learn but I heard that there more ambiguities generated with Hangul compared to Hanja (Chinese characters).
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  14. I think you mean ancient Japanese is written from top to bottom, right to left so in a sense, yes it is read backwards. Manga books opens in the opposite direction from English books if you noticed.
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  15. If you compare Japanese to English then Hiragana is like lower-case alphabets ( a, b, c ... x, y, z). Basic form. Katakana is like upper-case alphabets (A, B, C ... X,Y,Z). For foreign words. And Kanji is all those symbols, emoticons, abbreviations; LOL, OMG, ;), &, $, ♂, etc So if you apply Japanese sentence structures to English you will get this: 2day, I met this HAWT ♀! & I was like (0_0)? OMG I'm so GONNA ask her 4 her phone #! LOL JKJK ;) Anyway, CYA L8R @ school V(^.^)V & peace out! Just a little joke guys, don't take it too seriously.
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  16. +Joey Ouyang That's not a good name to use.
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  17. The problem with the English alphabet is that they are based on "sounds". People can mispronounce and the whole word changes over time. For example, Dog was originally a subset of "hund" or hound and probably derived from French "dogue" or German "Dogge". Nowadays people spell it as dawg or doge(that dumb meme) so who knows what it will be in a few hundred years from now.
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  18. If you are a hardcore learner, you can learn both. Try Hiragana and Katakana first which are simpler, then learn Chinese Characters and then finally Kanji which are harder. It's definitely easier when you know how the Kanji words are derived from Chinese characters.
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  19. Kanji and Chinese Characters are visually indistinguishable (although Chinese has some simplified characters) However, the difference lies in how they are pronounced and used. For example in Chinese. 木 -> tree, 爫 -> represents a hand grasping. So 采 -> Pick up (Hand plucking grass/shrub) 采 is pronounced Cai in Mandarin. Vegetable is also called Cai so they denote using 艹 -> grass to form 菜 -> Vegetable Kanji also uses.菜 called sai (as in yasai). But because it is borrowed, the history of the word may not be taught. Here's another example 子 -> Child, 老 -> Old person So 孝 -> Filial (Old parent supported by Child) Add in 文 -> culture, we get 教 -> Teach (Elder talking to Child about Culture) Kanji uses the same characters with almost equal meanings. But the pronunciation is different Other words are very similar in pronunciation 失敗 -> Failure, Shibai (Mandarin), Shippai (Japanese) 電話 -> Telephone, Dianhua (Mand), Denwa (Jap) 準備 -> Prepare, Zhunbei (Mand), Junbi (Jap) Bottom line is that learning Chinese radicals (木,爫,子,艹,文) will help to understand why Kanji is written as it is. Suddenly the Kanji becomes less intimidating when you can see the links of its components. 
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  20. Ah, you're comparing English and Spanish written and spoken forms I presume? Yes, the relationship is similar, but I think an English or Spanish person can still recognize whether a word is English or Spanish i.e. "complicated problem" and "problema complicado". Hanzi and Kanji forms are indistinguishable by themselves i.e.( 漢字 and 漢字, 失敗 and 失敗 and so on) Its probably because alphabetical systems are there to help you pronounce words in a certain language like C - A - T or わたし(watashi). Kanji and Hanzi do not follow alphabets like Hiragana and Katakana. So we will have to follow different rules for them.
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  21. The earliest Chinese characters existed since 1200 BC, so throughout the passage of over 3000 years, the spoken languages are bound to change and evolve. Just like Shakespearean English sounds different from modern English.
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