General Chinese v. English Thoughts

[Ascendancy9]

I have always found it interesting that Chinese is very much objective and English is very subjective. For example, Chinese has radicals which refer to similar properties in nouns - these include 桥 which has the wood radical and 学校 which has the same radical. So it is obvious that any noun with the wood radical will refer to an object made from wood.

English however is very much subjective with prefixes like 'de' and 'in' being our version of Chinese radicals. For example we have the words 'decreasing' and 'increasing', where the object is subject to the prefix.

Of all the differences between these two languages, this one caught my attention the most. It struck me as my Chinese teacher was talking about radicals in class a couple of weeks ago.

[asura]

You could appreciate it much better if you learn traditional chinese charaters. All the chinese charaters can be classified into 6 categories by their constructions. they are 象形、指事、形声、会意、转注、 假借. it is the so-called 六书. For instance,

馬(马), the four dots are the four legs of a horse.

橋(桥),the radical refers to the meaning, the rest part refers to the pronouceation.

[owen]

I dig what yer sayin' but i'm not sure i understand or buy the prefix/suffix, radical analogy.

[nipponman]

Yeah, I'm not sure what you're tryin' to say either. Could you expound a little more?

[asura]

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E6%9B%B8

http://www.chinataiwan.org/web/webportal/W5088732/A5111808.html

You can learn something from these websites. I will try to explain it in English. but some of the words do not have standard or official translation. hope not to cause misunderstanding.

In traditional etymology, Chinese characters are classified into six different methods of character composition and use. these six categories are called the Liu Shu.

1.象形xiang4xing2(pictographs), characters written to describe its original object. for instance,馬(马), the four dots are the four legs of a horse. 日 is a circle with a dot in the center to describe the sun.

2.指事zhi3shi4(ideographs), similar to pictographs, the biggest difference is the characters have some abstract strokes. for instance 刃(blade), the dot designates the blade of a knife.

3.形声xing2sheng1(compounds with both phonetic and meaning elements),橋(桥),the radical refers to the meaning, the other part refers to the pronunciation

4.会意hui4yi4,(compound ideographs) 鸣(warble), 口means mouth, 鸟 means birds

5.转注zhuan3zhu4, characters which are assigned a new written form to better reflect a changed pronunciation. 窍、空 both mean aperture but have different pronunciations.

6.假借jia3jie4, characters used to represent a homophone or near-homophone that are unrelated in meaning to the new word they represent

I should point out that maybe it is a bit difficult to learn the things above so please do not feel frustrated or I will be very sad. I just want to show you an interesting aspect of Chinese characters which can help you learn and memorize the writings.

[nipponman]

....1.象形xiang4xing2(pictographs), characters written to describe its original object. for instance,馬(马), the four dots are the four legs of a horse. 日 is a circle with a dot in the center to describe the sun.

2.指事zhi3shi4(ideographs), similar to pictographs, the biggest difference is the characters have some abstract strokes. for instance 刃(blade), the dot designates the blade of a knife.

3.形声xing2sheng1(compounds with both phonetic and meaning elements),橋(桥),the radical refers to the meaning, the other part refers to the pronunciation

4.会意hui4yi4,(compound ideographs) 鸣(warble), 口means mouth, 鸟 means birds

5.转注zhuan3zhu4, characters which are assigned a new written form to....

Heh, I remember learning this from Japanese. Anyway, I'm not sure about owen, but I was asking Ascendency9 what he was talking about. I get what you're saying though.