著

[libertango]

"阿华，爸爸和妈妈呢？"天福叔在竹□笆外，一边走进来问著。

"爸爸到山上工作，妈妈在屋里。"我回答著，手里拿著小竹棒在追著一只大笨鹅。

I feel this is really basic, and I'm embarrassed to ask, but what exactly does 著 do in these sentences? When I come across it, I usually assume its the same as 着...an action in progress.. but I have no idea if that is right.

[skylee]

When I come across it, I usually assume its the same as 着...an action in progress.. but I have no idea if that is right.

Yes it is the same as 着 in this context, just different font type. It has other meanings such as to write as in 著書立説, and famous as in 著名, where it is not interchangeable with 着.

I think the writer of the text you quoted tries to express that the kid replies while he is chasing the goose. I don't think it is absolutely necessary here. It could be easily re-written as 我一邊回答，一邊手裏拿着小竹棒在追一隻大笨鹅。

[WangLongju]

.

Actually, it's not a font issue, it's a TradCHN vs. SimpCHN issue.

> 我一邊回答，一邊手裏拿着小竹棒在追一隻大笨鹅。

Except that 着 is SimpCHN. The proper parallel would be:

我一邊回答，一邊手裏拿

著

小竹棒在追一隻大笨鹅。

我一边回答，一边手里拿

着

小竹棒在追一只大笨鹅。

Kinda strange that the original question used TradCHN (著) in a SimpCHN environment. My guess is that, if it came from this site,

http://www.seawolfnet.com/forum/article.php?board_id=31&root_id=&id=49815&page=23&emote=no

or one like it, it might have been in TradCHN first, and rather than retype it, they ran it through a converter and didn't edit it carefully enough. This one looks cleaner:

http://69.56.133.114/china/chat/wenxue/messages/81384.html

> 著書立説

Perhaps to make the point a bit clearer, the presentation should be:

著书立说

.

[skylee]

I don't think it is a traditional chinese vs simplified chinese issue. I write in traditional chinese, and I always write 穿着, 着色, 着涼, 等着你回來 ...

[libertango]

So that I don't flood the board with these types of questions, I will post this inquiry in here.

面向小孩子的书大致看罢，就转去一般性书架

I want to know about the use of 罢 and different ways to use it. The way I am reading this at the moment is...看罢 being somewhat similar to 看完 .

Line is from the translation of Kafka on the Shore, by the way.

[kudra]

As you can see this has confused me too.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showpost.php?p=49603

Since you guys in this thread are obviously experts, maybe you can make sense of my post from last Oct that no one responded to.

[Jose]

I am also intrigued by this. Both 著 and 着 exist in traditional Chinese, but, for some reason, there seems to have been a trend towards ditching 着 altogether and replacing it with 著 during the last few years. This is the case in most electronic texts on the Internet, as software and fonts that use traditional Chinese apparently have deprecated the dear old 着 character. The outcome of this is that the distinction between 著 (as in 著名) and 着 (as in 下着雨) is strictly maintained in simplified Chinese, but it is being lost in traditional Chinese.

This is the only case I can think of where two simplified characters can be converted into the same traditional character. I am not sure about this, but I think 着 may originally have been a variant character of 著, and maybe, but this is just speculation, that is the reason why fonts in traditional Chinese have adopted the latter one as standard.

[skylee]

The outcome of this is that the distinction between 著 (as in 著名) and 着 (as in 下着雨) is strictly maintained in simplified Chinese, but it is being lost in traditional Chinese.

I am not aware that it is being lost in traditional chinese. There are cases that 着 must be used, as in 穿着, 着色 and 着涼. And there are cases that 著 must be used, as in 著名 and 著書立説. But somehow it is difficult to type 着.

I think in my Longman dictionary there are good explanations on how to use these two characters. Perhaps I would post a copy of them here later.

[nipponman]

but I think 着 may originally have been a variant character of 著, and maybe, but this is just speculation, that is the reason why fonts in traditional Chinese have adopted the latter one as standard.

Right on. A check on the etymology website shows that they are indeed variants of each other. The problem is that both were probably well used and neither one fell off so both are used.