I found a new online Chinese dictionary called nciku today, via Sinosplice. The interface is in English and Chinese. It includes a handwriting recognition system which you can use to enter characters by hand, and which seems to work well, though was a bit slow for me. There’s a handy auto complete function which suggests words and expressions when you enter individual characters. The results include pinyin, sound files, words that feature the characters, and examples of usage, including idioms. There’s also some discussion of various Chinese-related topics. Unfortunately you have to sign up (for free) to use some of the functions.
Category: Chinese (中文)
Shanghai Metro
There’s apparently a plan to train the staff of the Shanghai Metro in basic phrases in five major Sinitic languages in order to provide information about fares and directions to non-Mandarin-speaking domestic tourists and visitors, according to a blog post on the Shanghaiist.
In response to this plan, the director of the Shanghai Language Works Commission said:
“We have contacted the Metro management today, stating that the program could violate the country’s language policy to promote the use of Putonghua.”
“There are at least 1,000 regional dialects in China, not including more branch dialects in different regions. The right way to solve communication barrier is to speak Putonghua.”
“What about passengers who speak other dialects? Using only the five dialects would not solve the problem.”
Inspite of this, Shanghai Metro plans to continue with the training scheme and are thinking of extending the service to Shanghai South Railway Station Metro stop. The languages in question are Cantonese, Wenzhou-hua (Zhejiang), Wuhan-hua (Hubei), Changsha-hua (Hunan) and Fujian-hua (a.k.a. Hokkien). Presumably these are the most common languages spoken by visitors to Shanghai, though the post doesn’t discuss the reasons for choosing these particular ones.
Word of the day – 差不多 (chàbuduō)
The phrase 差不多 (chàbuduō) is one of my favourite phrases in Chinese. It literally means “lacking not much” and can be translated as “more or less”, “near enough”, “almost” or “about”. It’s used frequently in Taiwan, and also in China I think, and seems to embody quite a common philosophy, i.e. there’s no need to do everything perfectly, as long as things get finished, so don’t worry too much. That’s my impression anyway.
A longer version of this phrase is 差不多就可以 (chàbuduō jiù kěyǐ), which means “near enough, that’ll do”. Quite good English equivalents are “close enough for government work” and “near enough for jazz”.
You can see a good example of chabuduoism from Taiwan on Pinyin News.
I found an equivalent expression in my big book of Welsh idioms: yn rhywle o’i chwmpas hi (lit: “somewhere around it”).
Do similar phrases exist in other languages?
Chinese names
The Chinese versions of candidates’ names in some Massachusetts ballots apparently have some unfortunately comical or negative meanings, according to an article I came across today. For example, one candidate’s name could be translated as “Sticky Rice” or “Uncooked Rice”, another’s as “High Prominent Noble Educated” or “Stick Mosquito”.
I’m trying to work out what character were used for these names. Any ideas?
Which Mr Wang do you mean?
On the news this morning they mentioned that China is suffering from a chronic shortage of names, which leads to many cases of mistaken identity. They gave an example of one man who was arrested by mistake – it was one of his neighbours with the same name who the police were after.
The ordinary people of China are traditional known as 老百姓 (lǎobǎixìng), which means ‘old 100 surnames’. This comes from the ancient tradition that citizens adopt one of a hundred single character surnames. Today there are up to 450 surnames in use in some areas of China, such as Beijing – though fewer in other areas. Here is a list of the current top 100 Chinese surnames.
According to an article on this topic in the Telegraph, the most popular surname in China is 王 (wáng), closely followed by 李 (lǐ), which between them account for 14% of the population or some 185 million people.
One solution being considered is to allow children to take the surnames of both parents. The Chinese government is also considering allowing a greater range of characters to be used as surnames, and also for the use of ethnic minority surnames, which are usually replaced with Chinese surname with a similar sound.
Word of the day – 衛星
The Chinese word for satellite, 衛星 [卫星] (wèixīng) means literally ‘guard(ing)/defend(ing) star’. When I came across this word the other day while working on a Chinese version of a website, it took me a few moments to work out what it meant. Eventually I deciphered it from the context and the second character, which I knew meant star. The same characters, 衛星, are used in Japanese, but they’re pronounced eisei.
One of the things I like about Chinese is that when you encounter an unfamiliar word, you can often guess its meaning from the meanings of the individual characters.
According to this Online Etymology Dictionary, the English word satellite first appeared in writing in 1548, when it meant “follower or attendant of a superior person”. It comes from, via French, from the Latin satellitem (nom. satelles) “attendant”. It was first used to mean “man-made machinery orbiting the Earth” in 1936, when such things were theoretical. The first artificial satellite, a name used to distinguish them from natural satellites like the moon, was Sputnik 1, which was launched in 1957.
The Welsh word for satellite is lloeren, which comes from lloer, moon. In most of the other languages I’ve checked, the word is satellite or something similar.
Practical Chinese Reader
The other day I found some useful sites: one that contains all from the lessons and other material from Practical Chinese Reader with sound files; another which includes tests from that same textbook; and an online version of the New Practical Chinese Reader (Books 1, 2 and 3).
In my first year at university, the textbook I used was the Practical Chinese Reader, which is quite a good introduction to spoken and written Chinese. A big box of character flashcards is also available to accompany the course and I had them stuck all over my walls at one stage. The textbook follows the adventures of Gǔbō (古波) and Pàlánkǎ (帕兰卡), who are from an unnamed Eastern European country and who go to China to study Chinese. It was first published during the communist era when that sort of thing was more common.
I think using stories in language courses can be quite helpful – it makes them more interesting and can motivate you to continue studying so that you can find out what happens. What do you think?
One idea I have is to write a story which starts in English, then gradually introduces words and phrases in another language until by the end, it’s entirely in the second language. The Power Glide language courses do something like this that they call a ‘diglot weave’.
Illiteracy in China
According to an article in the China Daily, the number of people in China who are unable to read or write increased by over 30 million between 2000 and 2005, inspite of government campaigns to eradicate illiteracy. Part of this increase is possibly a result of previous under-reporting.
In rural areas the ability to read and write 1,500 characters is sufficient to be considered literate, while urban dwellers are expected to master at least 2,000 characters. However, to read a Chinese newspaper you need to know at least 3,000 characters. Even with the bar for literacy set so low, many don’t make the grade.
An article in the Washington Post about this suggests that official figures on literacy in China are unreliable, and that local officials are pressured to inflate the statistics. All those who have graduated from primary school are counted as literate, even if they aren’t.
There’s some commentary on this article on Language Log, by Victor Mair, who believes that the number of illiterates in China is actually much higher than the Chinese government admits. He also suggests that China problems of illiteracy would disappear in a decade or two if China were to adopt a policy of digraphia using both characters and pinyin. There’s quite a bit of discussion about this on languagehat as well.
Sushi-go-round
Today I came across the term sushi-go-round for the first time. I’d been discussing Japanese restaurants with a Japanese friend and mentioned that I didn’t know what to call those sushi places where you sit a the counter and the dishes come round on a conveyor belt. He found the term sushi-go-round in a Japanese-English dictionary. The Japanese name for such restaurants is 回転ずし (kaiten zushi) – lit. ‘rotating/revolving sushi’.
Have you heard of the term sushi-go-round before?
In some Chinese restaurants the tables have a bit in the middle that rotates so that you can a reach dishes without stretching across the table. Sort of similar to the sushi-go-round, but on a smaller scale. I think this is called a lazy susan in English. Does anybody know what it’s called in Chinese? Or do you have any other names for it in English?
Teaching Mandarin
With the recent increase in the number of people studying Mandarin, I’ve been wondering where all the teachers are coming from. Most are probably from China, but there are some non-Chinese teachers of the language.
In the UK there are only a handful of training courses for those wanting to teach Mandarin:
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London runs a one-year part-time course that leads to a Certificate in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.
The University of Exeter offers a PGCE* in Modern Foreign Languages with Mandarin – a one-year full-time course. Interestingly, students on this course have to have some competence in a European language such as French or German because “there is normally insufficient timetable space on school-based work for an exclusively Mandarin programme.”
At the University of Sheffield you can do PGCE courses in Mandarin with a specialisms in French, German or Spanish – as at Exeter, you can’t specialise solely in Mandarin.
Goldsmiths College offers a PGCE in ‘Community Languages’ (Arabic, Mandarin, Chinese, Panjabi and Urdu).
*PGCE = Post Graduate Certificate of Education, one of the main teacher qualifications in the UK
Do you know of any similar courses and qualifications in other countries?