Thread by @eagletusk, Once upon a time I thought it was a good idea to [...]

Once upon a time I thought it was a good idea to study Mandarin....

Then I went to China

And I realized it's the worst language ever.

Meaning is obfuscated to the point that

My name in mandarin:

su yue yue

First off is a girl's name cause yue sometimes means moon 月...

And lunar stuff is womanly in China...

But yue could also mean to go over something...

It all depends on tone

That graph only shows 4 tones... There is actually a 5th tone...

The tone 1 but shorter ... It's used to signify a question.

Ni3 yo1 ma1yo3 ma5 this is from memory... So could be wrong...

The above is memory pinyin for: do you have?

But the direct translation is ...

You have no have ?

* The word do actually only exists in to languages English and gaelic...

It's often why English as a second language people sound rude **

**Unless they are native gaelic speakers...

I think there are like ten native gaelic speakers on earth now? Could be off by two factors it ten? But maybe not...

There is a Scottish documentary where a man learns Gaelic... then goes around Scotland speaking gaelic and nobody gets it, even though it's taught in school.

Chinese is so much worse than that....like a Borges Number worse...

Literally two Chinese people could look at a sign above a store front and argue about not only how to pronounce the business's name.

But then argue what the business actually is...

Um? What?

A classic example the insanity of Mandarin ot Po ton qua the people's language ... Is to ask chinese speaker to write "knee" most adults can't actually do it. 膝

It's like a squished 月 and some fireworks... Or maybe da wa ... Big water plus a bit more...below the da?

Then there is simplified and traditional Chinese...

Mandarin and Cantonese

And new and old versions of Cantonese ... And then super old versions of Cantonese... Like in those paintings in 中国 restaurants...

If you ask a native Chinese speaker to read to you what is written on a painting that they hung up... They most likely can get close but can't actually read it...

Plus each symbol is a syllable but there are no spaces?

And two symbols will add together to make a different meaning...

And each symbol is actually a composite of other symbol building blocks.

Like
Radical 162 meaning "walk"

Is 辶

But it's just a component of more complex version of walk which is actually 步行 ... And doesn't have the radical 辶 in it at all...

But ...

Some versions of path

... have the radical 辶 in it...

And but not all

And then when writting simplified Chinese there is a stroke order which you also need to know...

For example when I tried to write 辶 from memory I got it wrong ... And probably the stroke order wrong.

And from memory the symbol is just drew it wrong... In accident even though
辶 is a simple radical...

Then in each region of China they speak different dialects of Chinese but dialect is the wrong way of understanding... It's basically different languages...

So if two lower class Chinese people meet in a Shanghai elevator on their way to a trial...

They won't be able to speak to each other... and the government in mainland speaks " the people's language" mandarin, which the normal people might not understand...

And you can't really type in "simplified Chinese" cause you would need a 10,000 to 20,000 key keyboard...

So you type by entering sounds and then picking from a drop down menu...

So I don't think blind people can type words like a blind person in English easily could?

And some how Japanese is this plus another written language kanji... Omg

Please stop!

But some how I still decided memorize 500+ Chinese symbols and can still speak a few phrases...

Which I've only used almost never...

Then there are the problems with jokes and inflection...

In English we express emotional content with tones ...

In Chinese is a part of the structure... So it's even more hard to understand if a sentence is a joke or not...

中文太复杂了!

Zhōngwén tài fùzále

Oh! There are different romanizations too pinyin is only one of like ten styles...

I imagine Cantonese has more too...

Then there is this:

"This story consists of characters all in one pronunciation (some tones vary) and makes good sense on the paper but sounds absolutely insane if you try to read it…. " https://www.google.com/amp/s/theslittyeye.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/only-in-chinese-shi-shi-shi-shi-sh%25C7%2590/amp/

Only in Chinese: Shī Shì Shí Shī Shǐ

Today something really interesting came out of my random internet browsing. I have found a story written in classic Chinese extremely amusing, not because of its content but the way it was delivere…

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theslittyeye.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/only-in-chinese-shi-shi-shi-shi-sh%25C7%2590/amp/

<施氏食獅史>

“石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。施氏時時適市視獅。十時，適十獅適市。是時，適施氏適市。氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。食時，始識是十獅，實十石獅屍。試釋是事。”

Which is pronounced

<Shī Shì Shí Shī Shǐ>

“Shí Shì Shī Shì Shī Shì, Shì Shī, Shì Shí Shí http://xn--sh-zoa.Shshī.Sh ì Shí Shí Shì Shì Shì Shī. Shí Shí, Shì Shí Shī Shì Shì. Shì Shí, Shì Shī Shì Shì Shì. Shì Shì Shì Shí Shī, Shì Shǐ Shì, Shǐ Shì Shí Shī Shì Shì. Shì Shí Shì Shí

Shī, Shì Shí Shì. Shí Shì Shī, Shì Shǐ Shì Shì Shí Shì. Shí Shì Shì, Shì Shǐ Shì Shí Shì Shí Shī. Shí Shí, Shǐ Shí Shì Shí Shī, Shí Shí Shí Shī Shī. Shì Shì Shì Shì.”

Plus I skipped a Shī... Can you find where the missing Shī belongs?

And Shī I think is equivalent to shi1 it's a different way oof writting pinyin...

Then there is stuff like this:

Zuckerberg speaking Mandarin which is probably all memorized and still full of errors...

Basically you have two options to learn Chinese, be born there or be a super bored autodidact...

And persistent autodidact...

Even then you won't be able to communicate effectively with most normal Chinese people...

Yea... It's hard.

Yet it's the most popular language on earth?

Latest Threads Unrolled: