Newbie to group

[Cobie]

As a Dutch speaker, trying (unsuccessfully) to learn some Chinese; I now think the language is extremely hard to learn for me. I think the same goes for Chinese speakers learning English, extremely difficult for them too. 

So I have lots of respect for the English of @Mango

 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Cobie

[Mango]

29 minutes ago, Cobie said:

I think we can forget about the 道徒 meaning ‘Semi-Taoist’.  
 

 

New words are created with definitions to be understood by adding them to your memory bank for keeps. 

[Mango]

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

 

 

Yes. Number 8 of the Chinese zodiac is 羊 yang2 - caprinae.

 

 

Please show me where the mistake is.
caprinae is 鹿
https://translate.yandex.com/?lang=zh-en&text=鹿
https://translate.yandex.com/?lang=en-zh&text=caprinae
 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Mango

[Nungali]

Whatever happened to   Xxandra    ?   

 

 

 

 

[Cobie]

33 minutes ago, Mango said:

New words are created …

Only by consensus.

[ilumairen]

26 minutes ago, Nungali said:

Whatever happened to   Xxandra    ?   

 

 

 

 

They have yet to return after making their initial post.

[Cobie]

31 minutes ago, Mango said:

Please show me where the mistake is.
caprinae is 鹿
https://translate.yandex.com/?lang=zh-en&text=鹿
https://translate.yandex.com/?lang=en-zh&text=caprinae
 

It’s a mistake in this database, as 鹿 lu4 - deer (cervidae).

[Cobie]

6 minutes ago, Cobie said:

It’s a mistake in this database, as 鹿 lu4 - deer (cervidae).

@Mango This type of dictionary, I always switch language a few times. If the translation does not stay the same (as in your ‘deer’ case), it indicates a mistake in the database.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Cobie

[Mango]

10 minutes ago, Cobie said:

@Mango This type of dictionary, I always switch language a few times. If the translation does not stay the same (as in your ‘deer’ case), it indicates a mistake in the database.

 

As a native speaker, I don't quite follow what you are telling me. It has known that 鹿 is a deer all my life. Do I need a third party to tell us what it is?

Edited October 23, 2022 by Mango

[Cobie]

12 minutes ago, Mango said:

… 鹿 is a deer …

 

Yes, 鹿 is deer … but ‘caprinae’ is not ‘鹿’.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Cobie

[Mango]

1 minute ago, Cobie said:

 

Yes. 
 

But ‘caprinae’ is not ‘deer’ (contrary to what your dictionary says).

 

 
It seems to me that 'Caprinae' is a technical term for the subdivision of the dear class. The Chinese term for 'Caprinae' is "羊亞科". I think the first character '羊' in the term caused confusion to a non-native speaker.

[Cobie]

14 minutes ago, Mango said:

 … 

 

Please use Google: 

antlers and horns belong to two different biological families: bovidae and cervidae. 
 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Cobie

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, Cobie said:

Only by consensus.

 

Oh no .  They just have to appear in here ;

 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/

 

Update ! Or yo be gettin a cornobble bro !

 

 

Now lets see the good English speaking people of China , convert this one to Chinese   ......  on an online translator   

 

 

"  Child: " But I don't wanna clean my room and take out the trash!"
Adult: " That's cool. The 'skeleton on the gelatin' may just come and haunts your ass then."

[Nungali]

1 hour ago, Mango said:

 

As a native speaker, I don't quite follow what you are telling me. It has known that 鹿 is a deer all my life. Do I need a third party to tell us what it is?

 

Its okay ...... even in English , with English only speakers .... they call a tomato  a  'vegetable '  . 

[Nungali]

'Caprinae'

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

 

Please use Google: 

antlers and horns belong to two different biological families: bovidae and cervidae. 
 

 

 

Even if it was the same class a deer would be a subdivision of 'Caprinae'  not   'Caprinae' being a subdivision of deer  .

 

This is getting as 'bad' as Japanese    

 

- I asked a Japanese guy what a particular word meant and he said he could not tell , without reading  the whole paragraph . Then he said most Japanese  do not understand 15% of Japanese words    ???

 

" The majority of difficult kanji are keisei moji, which means you can often make a reasonable guess once you've understood the general pattern.  ....   So, in general you either know words or don't know them. The problem is at the words/vocabulary level, not at the kanji level. For this reason, we can say that recognizing the 2136 jouyou kanji is a necessary condition to be able to read a newspaper, but it is not a sufficient condition. You still need to know many, many more than 2000 words."

 

 

 

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, ilumairen said:

They have yet to return after making their initial post.

 

maybe they got scared off  ?

 

 

 

[Mango]

26 minutes ago, Nungali said:

The majority of difficult kanji are keisei moji, which means you can often make a reasonable guess once you've understood the general pattern.

Believe it or not. Kanji (漢字) is borrowed from Chinese characters. Sometimes, the meanings were twisted a little by the Japanese. Like their names, the Chinese have no idea what they meant. However, we should keep an open mind and learn from each other.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Mango

[ilumairen]

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

maybe they got scared off  ?

 

 

 

Doubt it.. many people have made an initial post and not returned over the years. 

[Master Logray]

14 hours ago, Cobie said:

That’s very interesting. What characters do you use for followers of Taoism? 
 

 

 

信徒 - believers, all kinds

教徒 - usually refer to believer of Christianities

道徒 - some sources say refers to believers in cults and superstitions, bad connotation

佛徒 - Buddhist followers

信衆 - mass believers

善信 - good believers, how temples' addressing believers

道友 - supposed to be friendlies following the Tao, now mostly mean heroine addicts

同道 - same belief believers, now can mean drug addicts too
 

[Master Logray]

14 hours ago, Cobie said:

As a Dutch speaker, trying (unsuccessfully) to learn some Chinese; I now think the language is extremely hard to learn for me. I think the same goes for Chinese speakers learning English, extremely difficult for them too. 

 

 

Why?  Is it mainly due to the writing characters?  I think foreigners learn speaking Mandarin reasonably.  But they drop out due to writing and reading.

 

There is an interesting development in recent decades.  Some Chinese kids prefer English as it is easier, though it is rare.  It doesn't happen in the old days when students need to rote learning and recite a whole chapter.  Taoist teachers frequently expect students to recite the DDJ.   Don't know what went wrong with those modern language teaching methods.

 

[Cobie]

13 hours ago, Nungali said:

… what a particular word meant … he could not tell …

My Chinese teacher used to say, “One cannot read Chinese without knowing the culture”.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Cobie

[Cobie]

 

13 hours ago, Nungali said:

… This is getting … 'bad' …

 

 Worse! 
 

Bernhard Karlgren wrote in 1911:

 

Even if you know the modern colloquial and recognize a couple of thousand Chinese characters, you cannot read a single line of Chinese literature. …

 

Once you after no end of toil have mastered the language used in the classics, you still cannot read the histories written at the same time.

 

If you master the two languages, you still cannot read a line of poetry.

 

If you master the three languages, you still cannot read novels.

 

If you master the four languages, you still cannot read newspapers.

 

If you master the five languages, you still cannot read imperial edicts, trade agreements, passports, etc.

 

And so on, and so on.

 

http://goranmalmqvist.blogspot.com/2015/09/bernhard-karlgren-man-behind-scholar.html 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Cobie

[Cobie]

13 hours ago, Mango said:

... Kanji (漢字) is borrowed from Chinese characters. …

Yep. Kanji means 漢字 han4 zi4 - Chinese character. 

[Cobie]

13 hours ago, Mango said:

… Sometimes, the meanings were twisted a little …

 Nothing new under the sun. 

 

16 hours ago, Mango said:

New words are created with definitions to be understood by adding them to your memory bank for keeps. 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Cobie

[Cobie]

13 hours ago, Nungali said:

maybe they got scared off  ?

 The OP scared me off.