fobbiness

[SunWuKong]

in my effort to fully regain my chinese reading ability, i have decided to not read any english books, newspapers, or magazines, and only read chinese ones. i don't think i can do that for the web yet because i don't really know many chinese websites, and the ones that i do know of are only about what's happening in HK... and sadly i'm not in HK anymore for them to be very useful to me.

so i found myself strolling around chinatown this weekend with a cigarrette hanging out of my mouth and a chinese newspaper under my arm and i thought... "holy shit i must look really fobby right now."


:P

[ChinaLama]

yuppp....looks like you're still S.O.B. :)

[angel nympho]

If you read stuff in English do you really think you'll forget how to read stuff in Chinese?

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 01:27 PM
yuppp....looks like you're still S.O.B. :)
i'd like to think of myself as BOB, because i had been white-washed before so i'm not really SOB.

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by angel nympho@Nov 11 2002, 02:21 PM
If you read stuff in English do you really think you'll forget how to read stuff in Chinese?
well let's put it this way, everytime i'm reading an english book, i could be reading a chinese book instead. the written chinese language is not phonetic. each word must simply be memorized. if i see a chinese word, i can't try to "figure out" what it is like i could if it was korean, japanese, vietnamese, or just about any other written language. so it's important for me to force myself to be exposed to as much written chinese as possible. you have to have roughly 3000 to 5000 words in your head if you want to read and fully understand a standard newspaper.

[ChinaLama]

but since you came back from hong kong and i'm supposing want to retain some stuff that was reinforced in hk, then you're also SOB.

BOB, SOB, FOB. why don't we settle and call you a chink? :rolleyes:

*runs away as the rocks and eggs start flying my direction*

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 02:44 PM
but since you came back from hong kong and i'm supposing want to retain some stuff that was reinforced in hk, then you're also SOB.

BOB, SOB, FOB. why don't we settle and call you a chink? :rolleyes:

*runs away as the rocks and eggs start flying my direction*
well see, since "chink" is an american derived term, i wouldn't really use that. :)

honestly i think at this point i identify more as being an overseas chinese than a chinese american or asian american.

[angel nympho]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 11 2002, 07:44 PM
Originally posted by angel nympho@Nov 11 2002, 02:21 PM
If you read stuff in English do you really think you'll forget how to read stuff in Chinese?
well let's put it this way, everytime i'm reading an english book, i could be reading a chinese book instead. the written chinese language is not phonetic. each word must simply be memorized. if i see a chinese word, i can't try to "figure out" what it is like i could if it was korean, japanese, vietnamese, or just about any other written language. so it's important for me to force myself to be exposed to as much written chinese as possible. you have to have roughly 3000 to 5000 words in your head if you want to read and fully understand a standard newspaper.
Too hard for me. I'll stick with English.

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by angel nympho@Nov 11 2002, 02:46 PM
Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 11 2002, 07:44 PM
Originally posted by angel nympho@Nov 11 2002, 02:21 PM
If you read stuff in English do you really think you'll forget how to read stuff in Chinese?
well let's put it this way, everytime i'm reading an english book, i could be reading a chinese book instead. the written chinese language is not phonetic. each word must simply be memorized. if i see a chinese word, i can't try to "figure out" what it is like i could if it was korean, japanese, vietnamese, or just about any other written language. so it's important for me to force myself to be exposed to as much written chinese as possible. you have to have roughly 3000 to 5000 words in your head if you want to read and fully understand a standard newspaper.
Too hard for me. I'll stick with English.
hahahh ok
well i don't know about korean (something i want to learn), but written chinese is so much more flexible than written english, or most germanic or latin-based languages that i can think of. chinese literature can be really beautiful, especially those written in the classical style and tang poetry. it would be such a pity if i never fully regain my reading ability. right now i can recognize about half the words in a trashy romance novel. :P

[ChinaLama]

ahh but if you REALLY understood Chinese well, would you be able to guess words or their meanings based on shang xia wen (Chinese for context, right? i hope my freshman chinese course wasn't a TOTAL waste), or based on the radical and the sub-character next to the radical (the radical usually hints what the word would mean, and the sub-character hints the sound)?

[angel nympho]

Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 07:55 PM
ahh but if you REALLY understood Chinese well, would you be able to guess words or their meanings based on shang xia wen (Chinese for context, right? i hope my freshman chinese course wasn't a TOTAL waste), or based on the radical and the sub-character next to the radical (the radical usually hints what the word would mean, and the sub-character hints the sound)?
Wait a minute. To know know to understand what you're reading in English, don't you need to know the definitions of the words, too?

I'm confused. I was under the impression that Chinese was not phonetic. Because if you don't know any words in English, you can still probably read some stuff outloud. Like with Korean. I can read some stuff out loud and still have no idea what the hell I'm saying. You can't do that with Chinese, right?

[enygma]

Originally posted by angel nympho@Nov 11 2002, 11:21 AM
If you read stuff in English do you really think you'll forget how to read stuff in Chinese?
i don't think that that's possible. won't you still retain some memory? maybe it's different for koreans. i never read korean that often but when i was in korea this past summer, all i did was read comics and the words came back to me pretty easily. but on the other hand, korean is made up of different letters and vowels, as opposed to chinese characters. :huh:

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 02:55 PM
ahh but if you REALLY understood Chinese well, would you be able to guess words or their meanings based on shang xia wen (Chinese for context, right? i hope my freshman chinese course wasn't a TOTAL waste), or based on the radical and the sub-character next to the radical (the radical usually hints what the word would mean, and the sub-character hints the sound)?
yes actually that's one way that i've been learning (or rather, re-learning) many words. but too bad there's not an exact system for this.

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by angel nympho@Nov 11 2002, 02:58 PM
Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 07:55 PM
ahh but if you REALLY understood Chinese well, would you be able to guess words or their meanings based on shang xia wen (Chinese for context, right? i hope my freshman chinese course wasn't a TOTAL waste), or based on the radical and the sub-character next to the radical (the radical usually hints what the word would mean, and the sub-character hints the sound)?
Wait a minute. To know know to understand what you're reading in English, don't you need to know the definitions of the words, too?

I'm confused. I was under the impression that Chinese was not phonetic. Because if you don't know any words in English, you can still probably read some stuff outloud. Like with Korean. I can read some stuff out loud and still have no idea what the hell I'm saying. You can't do that with Chinese, right?
there's no exact system for it but many chinese characters contain contextual information in and of themselves, because many characters are actually made up of other characters. it's still not a phonetic system though.

[ChinaLama]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 11 2002, 08:05 PM
Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 02:55 PM
ahh but if you REALLY understood Chinese well, would you be able to guess words or their meanings based on shang xia wen (Chinese for context, right? i hope my freshman chinese course wasn't a TOTAL waste), or based on the radical and the sub-character next to the radical (the radical usually hints what the word would mean, and the sub-character hints the sound)?
yes actually that's one way that i've been learning (or rather, re-learning) many words. but too bad there's not an exact system for this.
ehhh there's no exact system for English, either. A lot of Chinese speakers or readers argue that Chinese is actually a MORE precise and logicallanguage than English; therefore, it should actually be easier to learn or something. Like in English, you can't just phonetically gues "laugh" is spelled that way rather than "laf."I can't think of any other "augh" pronounced as "af" words off the top of my head. But in Chinese, the word for laugh, "xiao" has these two "mouth" (kou) signs on topic, so it's kinda like a dude opening his mouth twice as if opening and closing it to laugh.

Plus while English is phonetic, you have basically NO hint of what some words mean when it comes to their meanings unless you actually KNEW the meanings, whereas you can guess a lot of Chinese words' meaning by looking at the character.

i'm not disagreeing w/ anyone or anything, just adding on.

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 03:26 PM
Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 11 2002, 08:05 PM
Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 02:55 PM
ahh but if you REALLY understood Chinese well, would you be able to guess words or their meanings based on shang xia wen (Chinese for context, right? i hope my freshman chinese course wasn't a TOTAL waste), or based on the radical and the sub-character next to the radical (the radical usually hints what the word would mean, and the sub-character hints the sound)?
yes actually that's one way that i've been learning (or rather, re-learning) many words. but too bad there's not an exact system for this.
ehhh there's no exact system for English, either. A lot of Chinese speakers or readers argue that Chinese is actually a MORE precise and logicallanguage than English; therefore, it should actually be easier to learn or something. Like in English, you can't just phonetically gues "laugh" is spelled that way rather than "laf."I can't think of any other "augh" pronounced as "af" words off the top of my head. But in Chinese, the word for laugh, "xiao" has these two "mouth" (kou) signs on topic, so it's kinda like a dude opening his mouth twice as if opening and closing it to laugh.

Plus while English is phonetic, you have basically NO hint of what some words mean when it comes to their meanings unless you actually KNEW the meanings, whereas you can guess a lot of Chinese words' meaning by looking at the character.

i'm not disagreeing w/ anyone or anything, just adding on.
oh yeah, i know what you mean. non-phonetic languages has its advantages and disadvantages. one advantage being that it kept the chinese empire intact over so many years! otherwise we'd have ended up like the roman empire. phonetic languages are almost completely dependent on their verbal counterparts. i mean i guess you can always memorize what a phonetic word means the way that you would with a non-phonetic word, but then the whole phonetic system would be useless. :P on the other hand, technically, you don't even have to be able to speak chinese to learn to read chinese.

but yeah, there are so many exceptions to the rule even in exact systems. i heard that it's really bad in korean. i hope it won't kick my ass when i get around to learning it.

[Hiroshi2]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 11 2002, 12:33 PM
Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 03:26 PM
Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 11 2002, 08:05 PM
Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 02:55 PM
ahh but if you REALLY understood Chinese well, would you be able to guess words or their meanings based on shang xia wen (Chinese for context, right? i hope my freshman chinese course wasn't a TOTAL waste), or based on the radical and the sub-character next to the radical (the radical usually hints what the word would mean, and the sub-character hints the sound)?
yes actually that's one way that i've been learning (or rather, re-learning) many words. but too bad there's not an exact system for this.
ehhh there's no exact system for English, either. A lot of Chinese speakers or readers argue that Chinese is actually a MORE precise and logicallanguage than English; therefore, it should actually be easier to learn or something. Like in English, you can't just phonetically gues "laugh" is spelled that way rather than "laf."I can't think of any other "augh" pronounced as "af" words off the top of my head. But in Chinese, the word for laugh, "xiao" has these two "mouth" (kou) signs on topic, so it's kinda like a dude opening his mouth twice as if opening and closing it to laugh.

Plus while English is phonetic, you have basically NO hint of what some words mean when it comes to their meanings unless you actually KNEW the meanings, whereas you can guess a lot of Chinese words' meaning by looking at the character.

i'm not disagreeing w/ anyone or anything, just adding on.
oh yeah, i know what you mean. non-phonetic languages has its advantages and disadvantages. one advantage being that it kept the chinese empire intact over so many years! otherwise we'd have ended up like the roman empire. phonetic languages are almost completely dependent on their verbal counterparts. i mean i guess you can always memorize what a phonetic word means the way that you would with a non-phonetic word, but then the whole phonetic system would be useless. :P on the other hand, technically, you don't even have to be able to speak chinese to learn to read chinese.

but yeah, there are so many exceptions to the rule even in exact systems. i heard that it's really bad in korean. i hope it won't kick my ass when i get around to learning it.
Yeah, the same way that "ghoti" could be pronouced as "fish". The "gh" would be pronounced like the "gh" in "enough", the "ti" would be pronounced like the "ti" in "action".

I'm not sure how the "o" works in there, but you get the point. :)

[angel nympho]

Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 08:26 PM
Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 11 2002, 08:05 PM
Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 02:55 PM
ahh but if you REALLY understood Chinese well, would you be able to guess words or their meanings based on shang xia wen (Chinese for context, right? i hope my freshman chinese course wasn't a TOTAL waste), or based on the radical and the sub-character next to the radical (the radical usually hints what the word would mean, and the sub-character hints the sound)?
yes actually that's one way that i've been learning (or rather, re-learning) many words. but too bad there's not an exact system for this.
ehhh there's no exact system for English, either. A lot of Chinese speakers or readers argue that Chinese is actually a MORE precise and logicallanguage than English; therefore, it should actually be easier to learn or something. Like in English, you can't just phonetically gues "laugh" is spelled that way rather than "laf."I can't think of any other "augh" pronounced as "af" words off the top of my head. But in Chinese, the word for laugh, "xiao" has these two "mouth" (kou) signs on topic, so it's kinda like a dude opening his mouth twice as if opening and closing it to laugh.

Plus while English is phonetic, you have basically NO hint of what some words mean when it comes to their meanings unless you actually KNEW the meanings, whereas you can guess a lot of Chinese words' meaning by looking at the character.

i'm not disagreeing w/ anyone or anything, just adding on.
True. But with English, you can look at things in context (which I'm sure you can do with Chinese, too), and also, in English, you can look at the latin breakdown of the words. But it sucks that there are a few words you just have to memorize the spellings to 'cuz they're all fucked up.

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by angel nympho@Nov 11 2002, 11:58 AM
I'm confused. I was under the impression that Chinese was not phonetic. Because if you don't know any words in English, you can still probably read some stuff outloud. Like with Korean. I can read some stuff out loud and still have no idea what the hell I'm saying. You can't do that with Chinese, right?
Depending on how well you read, you can figure out how something sounds and most likely what it means. Plus, there actually is a phonetic system for Chinese. Not that commie pinyin (haha that was just for you Lama) but something very similar to furigana in Japanese. It's almost like a Chinese pronounciation alphabet. They don't mean anything by themselves.

Though, I've met some mainlanders that can read bpmf and know about it. Don't know how common that is. Could be really common for all I know. *shrug*

[blue__blood]

Originally posted by Hiroshi2@Nov 11 2002, 04:47 PM
Yeah, the same way that "ghoti" could be pronouced as "fish". The "gh" would be pronounced like the "gh" in "enough", the "ti" would be pronounced like the "ti" in "action".

I'm not sure how the "o" works in there, but you get the point. :)
"o" as in women...

[ChinaLama]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Nov 12 2002, 01:24 AM
Originally posted by angel nympho@Nov 11 2002, 11:58 AM
I'm confused.  I was under the impression that Chinese was not phonetic.  Because if you don't know any words in English, you can still probably read some stuff outloud.  Like with Korean.  I can read some stuff out loud and still have no idea what the hell I'm saying.  You can't do that with Chinese, right?
Depending on how well you read, you can figure out how something sounds and most likely what it means. Plus, there actually is a phonetic system for Chinese. Not that commie pinyin (haha that was just for you Lama) but something very similar to furigana in Japanese. It's almost like a Chinese pronounciation alphabet. They don't mean anything by themselves.

Though, I've met some mainlanders that can read bpmf and know about it. Don't know how common that is. Could be really common for all I know. *shrug*
you mean the accursed Bo Po Mo Fo? Ehh...whatever is good for the Taiwanese is bad for the rest of the Chinese. ;) I thought that had the same intent as pinyin, a learning tool, not a substitute for the language. :)

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 12 2002, 09:56 AM
you mean the accursed Bo Po Mo Fo? Ehh...whatever is good for the Taiwanese is bad for the rest of the Chinese. ;) I thought that had the same intent as pinyin, a learning tool, not a substitute for the language. :)
yeah, you only see it in kids' books. oh yeah and Taiwanese windows comes with a font where each character has the zhuyin next to it. except you have to jack it up to a really big font size for it to be visible. I usually use that font to print out my speeches and stuff for Mandarin class B) ... but I know an ABC guy who actually used it as his display font, cuz he needed to use Chinese Windows at work but couldn't really read that well. So all the dialog boxes were displayed in size 48 font so he could see the zhuyin on the side ... hehe

Actually I know several mainlanders who have never even seen zhuyin. One guy who saw me taking notes in it thought it was Japanese :confused: :confused: :confused: my Mandarin teacher here cannot read it at all and doesn't even bother to keep a conversion table handy around the classroom, despite the fact that at least a quarter of her students are ABCs who went to Chinese schools using books from Taiwan, and so can only read zhuyin, not pinyin. personally I hate pinyin cuz it's so inconsistent. (I'm also convinced it's the reason why so many Japanese people studying Chinese pronounce words like "to eat" as "chee" and "to be" as "shee") ... maybe I'll learn gwoyeu romatzyh, just to annoy the hell outta everyone :P

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Nov 12 2002, 02:15 AM
in my effort to fully regain my chinese reading ability, i have decided to not read any english books, newspapers, or magazines, and only read chinese ones. i don't think i can do that for the web yet because i don't really know many chinese websites,
haha, you too huh? don't do what i did and try practicing by joining in malaysian chinese bulletin boards. skills gained: I can write curse words in hokkien. skills lost: normal written chinese grammar. though that might also be because my only exposure to standard written chinese here is in readings for my econ class. (and that's not a particularly complex writing style; it just uses lots of technical terms which I can read, pronounce, but not understand anyway). damn near everything else I see (okay, just magazines and newspapers, I haven't heard any recommendations for interesting books and novels lately, cuz I don't have any friends who read for fun) is written in Cantonese.

[SunWuKong]

by the way, i discovered that my OS actually has pinyin chinese input. there is a pinyin chinese input for the PRC locale, but i thought it was only for simplified. i found out that you can actually switch that to tradtional.

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by ChinaLama@Nov 11 2002, 05:56 PM
I thought that had the same intent as pinyin, a learning tool, not a substitute for the language. :)
Sure. But how else am I going to piss you off. Plus, if I described the use as similar to furigana only a few ppl are going to get that reference.

[blkazngirl]

All I know is that I can write pinying vs Chinese charactors. Which is hard as hell to write, let alone remember. And speaking Mandarin it is no picnic either, specially when your tones are not right.

God, you get around someone like my dad and he would just go ballistic. I can hear him saying to me now, "You're killing my language! Even your mother speaks better than you and she's American!" :cry:

[amietron]

I'm planning on taking Mandarin at the JC during spring semester.