Comments by "神州 Shenzhou" (@Shenzhou.) on "Kanji Story - How Japan Overloaded Chinese Characters" video.

  1. +Shoes The fact that the kanji is crammed into a smaller space makes stroke order even more important. There is literally no room for mistakes when you are writing a complex kanji in a small space. If you follow the stroke order correctly then you will minimize any wrong stroke that may or may not mess up the whole word. These stroke orders have been refined by scholars and calligraphers for a long time to their present order.
    38
  2. Okay, lets assume line thickness doesn't matter while writing. Let's write 田 for rice field. If we write 十 first then 口, there are a number of things that could go wrong. Your 十 may not form a square, or one of the edges could protrude and you may end up with 由 or 甲. The correct order should be ㄇ then 十 then finally __ Then it is less likely for the inner lines to protrude.  Even starting and ending points are important. For example, compare the first stroke of 千 (thousand) and 干 (dry) . 千 first stroke is from right to left (slight tilt) and 干 first stroke is from left to right (horizontal). Similar characters include 天 and 夭, 壬 and 王 and so on. Ancient Chinese is written using brushes, so scholars can observe the starting point and ending point of the brush stroke (thicker at start point, thinner at end point). If you take into account line thickness, then even simple words like 女 (woman) can look like 大 (big). But if you follow the stroke order, you can determine which character it is.  Sorry for using Chinese not Kanji but I'm sure there are Kanji examples as well.
    38
  3. +Evan Tansimore 汉字 (Hanzi) is also used in Japanese as Kanji (漢字). But the usage could be different in Japanese and vice versa.
    9
  4. +Evan Tansimore Opps, my bad. Perhaps it would be funnier in Chinese? 用汉语来说比较好笑; “你们再讲什么漢字？看来看去都是汉字。 XD”
    5
  5. You are correct in that Kanji has meaning behind it. For Example, from the Chinese point of view: 子 -> Child, 老 -> Elder, 文 -> Culture, Child supporting Elder -> 孝 means Filial (good to parents) Elder talking to Child about Culture -> 教 means Teach 木 -> tree, 爫 -> represents a hand above so 采 means pick up (pluck vegetables) But some Chinese words use sounds to represent the word. For example 采 is called Cai. Vegetables is also called Cai so we add 艹 which means grass to form 菜 . In Kanji, vegetables also uses 菜 but is pronouced Sai instead as in Yasai. In short, some Kanji have meanings behind them while others are based on Chinese pronunciations. It depends on how the word originated.
    4
  6. Human beings are naturally complex creatures and naturally, their languages tend to be complex. Otherwise, we'll use baby talk all the time ^^
    3
  7. It seems that 胡 was usually a general term for "barbarians" or foreign folk. The moon character 月 is actually ⺼ which is a modified 肉 -> Meat In terms of sound, 胡 (Hu) sounds similar to 古(Gu) but my Chinese teacher says "Sounds change, Words remain". So there's a lot of speculation on the original pronunciations. The meaning, however is more difficult to interpret. Ancient Chinese probably defined civilized behavior as wearing silk clothing. Since most barbarians wear animal skins, they use 肉 to represent their clothing and 古 to represent their ancient customs. Of course many Chinese have their own interpretations. The most popular interpretations are interesting and poetic in nature, just like your interpretation of 蝴. It also becomes easier to memorize words when there's a story behind it. One of my favorites is 笔 -> Pen. It consists of 毛 -> Hair and 竹(on top) -> Bamboo. The Ancient Chinese pen is the brush, which was made from Bamboo and Horse hair. 笔(Bi) is also used for modern writing pens, giving a touch of modern flavor to an ancient word.
    3
  8. You're correct in that some Chinese words are tied to an idea.For example: 日 -> Sun , 月 -> Moon, 明 -> Tomorrow, (i.e. After one day and one night) 子 > Child, 乃> Woman, 老-> Old man 孕 -> Pregnant (Child in woman), 孝 -> Filial (Old man supported by child) If you include 文-> Culture, then 教-> Teach (Elder teaching Child about Culture) But languages are spoken first and written later. So sometimes similar sounding characters are used to write words. In Mandarin, the Hu people are written as 胡. Lake is also Hu, so it is written as 湖 with a water radical. Butterfly is also Hu, so it is written as 蝴 where 虫 is added to denote insect. And yes, you can read the characters based on what ever spoken form you choose and that's why Japanese are able to use Kanji. For example 子 -> Zi in Mandarin, Zai in Cantonese, and Ko in Japanese. 女 -> Nu in Mandarin, Neuih in Cantonese, and On'na / Jo in Japanese. 文-> Wen in Mandarin, Mahn in Cantonese, and Bun in Japanese. A picture has no sound associated with it and can be pronounced differently by different cultures. That's the beauty of Kanji and Chinese characters; They're just pictures which you can attach a sound to.
    2
  9. +Shawn 12 As far as I know, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs are also partially logographic. And if you want, you could even consider Sign language to be based on meanings entirely (since there is no "sounds") =X
    2
  10. Yes, 女 is pronounced Nu (Mandarin), Neuh (Cantonese), Neng (Teochew) and On'na (Japanese). But in all cases it still means "women".
    2
  11.  @WreckItRolfe  That's exactly what I wrote.
    1
  12. 你已经懂了汉语，为什么还说学日语难了？
    1
  13. +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。
    1
  14. 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.
    1
  15. 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.
    1