Can anyone translate chinese?

[The_OG_Nelta]

BAI REN KAN BU DONG.

[Carmi]

lol

[Atreides]

Japanese uses traditional character. In fact, I think the character for kanji　漢字 is actually different in Chinese. If I remember correctly:

Everyone but China: Traditional
China: Simplified

Japan simplified characters on their own after World War 2, and it consisted of only a few hundred of the most commonly used kanji. Some of the simplifications are indistinguishable from/identical to their mainland Chinese equivalents, but there are a few differences as well.

And Singapore uses Simplified Chinese as well.

[The_OG_Nelta]

It depends where you are, I think thats kinda obvious, but simplified is used a lot more. Character's are character's, I think its based on Mandarin though. Cantonese doesn't have its own characters, we have to translate to Mandarin and then Mandarin to Canto. Think of Canto as the "Gangster" Mandarin, no joke.

[GRT]

why did a thread intended to hate on the chinese turned into a language discussion?


get back on topic!

[Yugl]

why did a thread intended to hate on the chinese turned into a language discussion?


get back on topic!

Hate the language obviously.

[Draylo]

Use babelfish!

[wop]

BAI REN KAN BU DONG.

您是猪

[archibaldcrane]

i just don't understand why they don't just write in english

[Kirbyprime]

i just don't understand why they don't just write in english

Stealing a sig

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f3...lu/ffxi/84.jpg

[Atreides]

It depends where you are, I think thats kinda obvious, but simplified is used a lot more. Character's are character's, I think its based on Mandarin though. Cantonese doesn't have its own characters, we have to translate to Mandarin and then Mandarin to Canto. Think of Canto as the "Gangster" Mandarin, no joke.

Actually interestingly enough, the pronunciation of Cantonese has changed very little in the past 2000 years, having many of the same pronunciations since the Tang Dynasty. Tang poetry will still rhyme when read in Cantonese, and the pronunciation of Japanese Kanji shares a lot of linguistic similarities with Cantonese (far more than Mandarin, since that's the time period when they were borrowed). I guess you could say Cantonese sounds antiquated, since it sounds so similar to how Middle/Ancient Chinese supposedly was pronounced.

Of course there are going to be changes to the way any language is pronounced over several millennium, especially a language whos writing system gives few hints as to pronunciation, but it's thought Mandarin only reached a relatively similar form to how it is now by the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) before becoming widespread in the Qing from the mid 1600's onward.

[Weiing]

Just curious.... are you a Chinese historian or something, Atreides? >_>

[Not not Mattaru]

Actually, Japanese uses some simplified Chinese, such as the word for "school".

Japanese also uses the simplified character for country I think.

The reason Chinese probably uses different characters for 漢字 is most likely because they just call it something else.　漢 = Chinese or Sino in Japanese, Chinese probably have a different reference for themselves? I don't know since I don't know Chinese.....yet.

[Weiing]

Japanese also uses the simplified character for country I think.

The reason Chinese probably uses different characters for 漢字 is most likely because they just call it something else.　漢 = Chinese or Sino in Japanese, Chinese probably have a different reference for themselves? I don't know since I don't know Chinese.....yet.

Yeah. 'school' was just an example. 'country' is another.

As for how Chinese people refer to themselves.. too many! Han (that left character in "kanji") is used, sometimes. Usually 'hua ren' (beautiful people, loosely translated) is used to describe the Chinese ethnicity/culture. Zhong guo ren (translated as "center country people") can be used to refer to Chinese people, though it specifically identifies as "China people". I know my family usually uses "hua ren" when referring to the Chinese culture/ethnicity as a whole, but then specifically says "country" + person like China + person or Taiwan + person. There are other words that can be used to refer to people coming from Mainland China and such... Growing up, I generally just used "zhong guo ren" to refer to Chinese people in general. Although I'm Chinese, I grew up here so shame my ancestors in not really knowing the use of words as well. Guess I've been taking it for granted! or granite

[Not not Mattaru]

Zhong guo ren (translated as "center country people") can be used to refer to Chinese people, though it specifically identifies as "China people".

Yeah, in Japanese they use that - 中国人。　Unless you are just another 外人 or my favorite Imperialist usage - シナ人 (think I remember watching an angry nationalist still using that one heyo). Just curious can you put up the characters for hua ren.

[Julian]

Atreides just became 50000x more attractive. (*'-')

[Weiing]

(simplified)华人 or (traditional) 華人 = hua ren

I hope you guys can see that. I personally like the traditional :D

[The_OG_Nelta]

Difference between liking it, and liking to write it. lol.

[Weiing]

I don't mind writing traditional...stop being lazy! Obviously...

[Kirbyprime]

To be perfectly honest, while I hate reading it since I grew up with traditional. Simplified is more useful in the long run, especially considering digitization. Consider this, even if you know how to read chinese, can you tell what this word is?

龘

The second you have too make strokes in a word it becomes unreadable on gadgets with standardized font sizes. Try zooming into that to see just how complex a character that is.

Here's a chart to see just how screwed up it can get...

http://www.omniglot.com/images/writi...e_strokes2.gif