Archive for October, 2006
Simplified Characters
The Chinese have been using traditional characters for several thousand years. About 50 years ago the Chinese Communist Party gained political control and changed the writing system. It was a stepping-stone towards their goal of eliminating characters and eventually replacing them with the Western Roman alphabet. Fortunately, this plan is no longer in place. However, […]
Posted: October 31st, 2006 under About Chinese.
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Chinese by the Numbers
1 Written language — Chinese characters — mutually intelligible by speakers of 13 mutually unintelligible Chinese languages, as distinct as French, Romanian and Portuguese.
2 Sides of the brain used in aural comprehension of Mandarin; non-tonal English utilizes only the left side for aural comprehension.
3 Mandarin’s ranking in the top 10 most commonly spoken languages in […]
Posted: October 13th, 2006 under About Chinese.
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Mao Xiong or Xiong Mao?
Among the Chinese there is much confusion about the most appropriate word for panda. Both Mao Xiong and Xiong Mao are commonly used. The character Mao means cat. Xiong (pronounced shee-ong) is a bear. Since the giant panda is a mammal classified in the bear family. Mao Xiong, literally a cat-looking bear (cat bear), is […]
Posted: October 12th, 2006 under Panda.
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