Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

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azhong
Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby azhong » 2021-01-19, 1:00

Yasna wrote:So you're saying 只 modifies both 打扮光鲜 and 在门前帘儿下站着? Did I understand you correctly?

Yes, I might have meant that. However, it is palpably not the situation in the text.
How about this one below, trying my best in English:
She JUST 在门前帘儿下站着 in her state of 打扮光鲜.

I think this version goes better.

妇人在家,别无事干,一日三餐吃了饭,打扮光鲜,只在门前帘儿下站着,常把眉目嘲人,双睛传意。
The wife stayed at home with nothing to do but, after every daily meal, just standing under the shop sign at the door, dolling herself up, and more often than not seducing men with her (pretty) facial features and signaling with her eyes.

And BTW, thank you for your on a daily basis.

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby Saim » 2021-04-04, 0:12

What is the correct stroke order for 万?

Visualmandarin gives the following:

Image

But all the other sources I've looked at say to write the bottom-right element first and then the "stalk" to the left of it. Is this an error?

azhong

Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby azhong » 2021-04-04, 1:48

This order is correct to me.
Basic rules of the strike order: from left to right, and from top to bottom.

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby Saim » 2021-04-04, 2:16

azhong wrote:This order is correct to me.
Basic rules of the strike order: from left to right, and from top to bottom.


What about the order other websites give?

Image

I've seen it on a couple of different sites so I find it hard to believe it's an error, unless they're all copying the English Wiktionary. :hmm:

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby Yasna » 2021-04-04, 2:26

Saim wrote:What about the order other websites give?

Image

I've seen it on a couple of different sites so I find it hard to believe it's an error, unless they're all copying the English Wiktionary. :hmm:

That's the stroke order I learned for the character in Japanese.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby linguoboy » 2021-04-04, 3:08

azhong wrote:This order is correct to me.

Same. It’s what I learned for both Korean and Traditional Chinese.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

azhong

Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby azhong » 2021-04-04, 8:04

A minor but interesting issue. I found a website whrer there was a discussion about the stroke order of "方" similar to the simplified chinese character “万". It said:
由此,根據以上的書寫規則,「方」字的正確筆順應是:點,橫,撇,橫折鉤。

(Thus, according to the writing rules above, the correct strike order of "方" should be [Azhong and linguoboy's order].)
然而事實上許多人在書寫這個字時,都習慣於先寫橫折鉤,最後才寫一撇。而且,「方「字這種「倒筆順」的寫法,反而往往更寫得順手和好看。

(However, many people used to write [in Saim and Yasna's order]. Although it reversed the order, the character can be written more easily and prettily.)

And then the author spoke his opinion. Basically he thinks it unnecessary to be strictly bound by the rules, nor to argue seriously for some special characters, for the rules accumulated from historical experiences are exactly to help people write characters easily and prettily.
這就告訴我們,漢字的筆順規律,雖然確實是歷代前賢們在實踐書寫過程中累積出來的經驗之說,儘管我們必須要承認,絕大多數的漢字遵循筆順的規則來書寫,會更容易得心應手,輕鬆自然,周正漂亮,但我們也用不著教條僵化;適合你書寫習慣,而寫出來又不彆扭難看的無論何種筆順,都沒有對或錯的非要爭論不休的必要。我們要正視到確實有一部分的漢字,人們在書寫習慣上,與筆順的規律或要求存在差異,但寫出來的效果也很好,「方」字便是典型的例子。當然,如果要說方字本來就是先寫橫鉤折才是對的筆順,也無可非議。有些字,我們本就不必拘泥於教材或書本上的筆順,你習慣的那種寫法,而且寫起來也順手輕快,寫出來也端莊瀟洒,對你來說,就是正確的筆順。
總之,漢字筆順的意義,就是為了使我們在書寫漢字時,既能把字寫得美現漂亮,輕鬆迅速,整體勻稱;又能使我們為了這一目的,在書寫每一個漢字時,而少走些彎路。因此,從這一點上說,不管是哪個字,寫得漂亮才是王道。筆順的價值主要也就在這裡,而筆順也是因更多人的習慣而形成的。
所以,僅就「方「這個字來說,正確的筆順,就是哪種寫出來能夠更便捷而漂亮的一種習慣。

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby linguoboy » 2021-09-07, 17:27

Woods wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Woods wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Woods wrote:And about the phonetic component - do you know if it tells you always the end of the syllable, or the beginning, or it can be both? It has nothing to do with the tone but only the vowels, or something like that?

So it pretty much always tells you the rhyme (i.e. the syllable minus the initial consonant)

Excluding the tone or was it that two thousand years ago the tones were different?

Excluding the tone, as you said already. You can see this from the phonetic series: the tonal differences arose from differences in initial consonant (voiced vs unvoiced) and in final consonants. Note, for instance, how 調 has three different reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciations listed: *dɯːw, *dɯːws, and *tɯw. Each of these corresponds to a different modern pronunciation: respectively, tiáo, diào, and zhōu.

I find this very odd since the tone is supposedly an essential part of the syllable.

It is now; it wasn't when the Chinese writing system was first created. Chinese--like many other languages--has undergone a process of tonogenesis by which lexical tone developed from other sounds.

Woods wrote:No idea how these Old Chinese transcriptions were pronounced, but if they were different, wouldn't then the rhyme be different and need a different phonetic component for each variation?

The system was never meant to be perfect and exhaustive. The phonetic elements are just hints to help speakers guess which character was meant. There used to be a good deal more variation. A lot of variants were eliminated in the standardisation of the script under Shihuangdi; others have been abandoned more recently.

Woods wrote:So the tones were the evolution of different final consonants? Interesting. I heard something similar about Tibetan recently - that they write countless consonants that don't get pronounced (a little bit like French), but when the reader sees them, they know that they should pronounce the preceding vowel differently (talking about vowel quality, not tone).

Tonogenesis is what's called an area feature in this part of the world. Standard Tibetan developed it (there are still varieties of Tibetan which are not tonal), as did Vietnamese, Burmese, and Thai. Thai script is like Tibetan script in that it was created before tonongenesis has begun (or was just in its early stages). It now has many consonants which are pronounced exactly the same but are associated with different tones on the following syllables.

Chinese tonogenesis is a bit more complex than Thai or Tibetan because both the initial consonants and the final consonants play a role in determining what the tone of a syllable will be. Originally, there were eight tonal categories, based on two classes of initials and four classes of finals. Standard Mandarin simplified these eight categories to four; Standard Cantonese expanded them to ten (according to some accounts; according to others, there are really only six underlying tones with ten different phonetic realisations).
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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby do_shahbaz » 2022-01-09, 4:36

Does anyone know of any keyboard layout / software allowing one to search and input characters through the Four-Corner method?

四角号码法, 有键盘输入法吗?

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-02-11, 2:24

Doesn't the Cangjie input method use the four-corner method or something similar?

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby do_shahbaz » 2022-02-11, 2:39

vijayjohn wrote:Doesn't the Cangjie input method use the four-corner method or something similar?


The Cangjie method does disect characters into four parts, but I had a different input method in mind when I said "Four-corner Method":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-Corner_Method

Never mind all of the hustle about that though; I have largely moved to Wubi (and might consider returning to Cangjie).

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Re: Questions about Chinese / 关于中文的问题 / 關於中文的問題

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-02-12, 18:37

Oh, okay! I forgot about Wubi! Does that use the four-corner method?


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