study-to-rule-the-world

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Can you read any writing system that isn't the Latin alphabet?

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‘Elephant Chess’ and Persian loanwords in Chinese

In Chinese, the word for chess is ‘elephant pieces’ (象棋 xiàng qí，‘象’ elephant and ‘棋’ meaning a piece in a board game). This is because the game was once played with ivory chess pieces.

Originally the game only had four different pieces. During the Northern Song dynasty (北宋 Běi Sòng (960-1127)) they added the elephant piece, equivalent to bishops in Western chess*. But China never had war elephants, so where did this piece come from?

Persia.

Persia had war elephants, and Persian chess, and Persian chess had war elephant pieces.

At the time there was a roaring trade between Persia and China, as there had been for centuries, and the exchange was not only in material goods but inevitably it was also a cultural exchange. Chinese adopted words from the Persian language some of which are still in common use today:

狮子 shī zi lion, is ‘shir’ in Persian, and lions have been a symbol of the country and its royal family from ancient to modern times. Note that though the Asiatic lion (Panthera leo leo) was native to Persia, the only surviving population is in India.

葡萄 pú táo grape, comes from the word for wine, pronounced ‘baa-der’ in Persian

枸杞 gǒu qǐ wolfberry, ‘goji’ berry (fruit of the boxthorn, Lycium chinense)

石榴 shí liu pomegranate (Punica granatum), native to Persia and northern India. Note that the word ‘grenade’ comes from the French for pomegranate, and the Chinese word for hand grenade does too: 手榴弹.

(These last two, goji berry and pomegranate, are Persian in origin according to Chinese sources, though I can’t find corroboration in English).

So with all this cultural influence, it’s not a great stretch to see they’d introduce a chess piece too.

* Only on the black side, on the red side they added the ‘minister’ piece (相 xiàng) which is a homonym for elephant.

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What’s the difference between 巢 cháo and 窩(窝) wō?

In modern Chinese, not much.

They both mean ‘nest.’

(鳥巢 niǎo cháo and 鳥窩(鸟窝) niǎo wō both mean 'bird nest’).

But if you look at the characters’ origins, the differences become clear.

In oracle bone script (the earliest Chinese characters, written 3000 years ago), 巢 was a picture of three little birds sitting in a nest on top of a tree. It meant a home that an animal builds itself: A bird nest built of twigs; a wasp nest made of wood pulp; or a nest dug by ants.

蟻(蚁)巢 yǐ cháo ant nest

But look at 窩(窝)  wō，it’s the radical for 'cave’ (穴 xué) and the phonetic guō (咼(呙)), and meant a 'lair’: A naturally occurring cave, pit or hole that an animal has found and made its home.

It can also mean something shaped like a pit or cave, such as

胳肢窩(窝)  gā zhi wō armpit, or

酒窩(窝) jiǔ wō dimple (in the cheek, etc), literally 'alcohol lair.’

Please note that the phonetic in 窩(窝)  wō, 咼(呙) guō, you’ll most likely encounter as a last name, but it’s also pronounced 'wāi’ and means 'lopsided’, originally describing a lopsided mouth (hence the 口字旁 mouth radical). But a much more common wāi character for lopsided is 歪，which is an extremely satisfying character, made up of '不正.’

@liu-anhuaming

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The vast majority (around 80%) of Chinese characters are made up of a radical (the general meaning) and a phonetic.

Radical 女 nǚ (woman) and phonetic 馬 mǎ (horse) = 媽 mā, mother (your mum sounds like a horse).

But a small minority are pictograms, that is to say a picture of the thing they represent.

Pictograms are the earliest characters, thousands of years old, but many are still used every day.

If you look at the oracle bone script for rat, tiger and elephant you’ll see they are clearly pictures of the animal they signify.

But if you look at the modern versions, you’ll notice something odd, they’re all rotated 90 degrees onto their sides.

Why? Why are all these characters written with the animals balancing on their tails?

Well, it’s for a straight-forward, practical reason.

For a couple thousand years before paper was invented writing materials were limited. We had silk (expensive), bronze (expensive and impractical), and oracle bones (religious use only).

And one more…

That was cheap, plentiful, durable, and easy to erase and rewrite characters. The wonder that is…

Bamboo!

It was cut into strips, and tied into books. Long thin strips of bamboo contributed to the Chinese custom of writing vertically, from top to bottom (and right to left).

But it also meant that it’s much easier to write some characters length-ways so that they easily fit onto the strip.

So that’s it, mystery solved. That’s why a lot of Chinese picture characters are written at a right angle.

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Source: https://twitter.com/dudenverlag/status/1307614225175662592?s=21

[Series: x Sprache, schwere Sprache]

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A: How are you coping?

B: Me? Oh, I restarted learning Chinese and Korean, but another *major life event* happened so now I'm studying Chinese, Korean and Japanese altogether.

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Obligatory

Reblog if people may BOOp spam you

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Reblog if your blog is boopable-safe so you can get all the (probably new) achievements. I don’t care about notes I just want boops

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I can't believe I haven't ranted about this one yet.

If that's the Chinese word for wok

What fucking language does wok come from?!

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I'm so sad and anxious. My sister gave me the flu (on the day of my birthday, yay) and I had to reschedule the appointment with my therapist (the only available spot was two weeks after the original date).

And I feel so tense, on the verge of exploding, but I'm alone, as I always am. And I felt like that already, even before rescheduling the appointment, I needed that hour, and now because of the flu I have to wait so much. When I'll see my therapist it will be more than a month after I saw him last.

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神無月 (kan-na-zuki) "October" (archaic)

神 = god 無 = not 月 = month

The modern Japanese word for October is 十月 (literally "10th Month), however in the old-fashioned calendar is was known as 神無月, or "the month with no gods". 

In October, all the gods in Japan (there are believed to be 8 million of them) go to Izumo Shrine in Shimane Prefecture for a meeting, thus leaving most of Japan with no gods.

The huge shimenawa (sacred rope) at Izumo Shrine.

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I think we need to stop aiming for native level accents when it comes to language learning

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A guide to Dream of the Red Chamber for English speakers

I've been posting about a book called Dream of the Red Chamber for a while. I'm kinda obsessed with it but the tags here on tumblr are pretty much barren. I want to get more people to be interested in it, so here's something more informative with minimal screaming.

Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) is a 18th century Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin. It isn't very well-known outside of the Sinophone aka the Chinese-speaking world, whereas where I come from it's considered a masterpiece and classic and is so well-known and holds so much cultural significance even the people who haven't necessarily read the book make references to it - like, basically everybody knows about the book. It certainly deserves to be known and loved by more people - that's why I'm making a post about it. This post is NOT going to be an attempt to cover everything, though, because there is just so, so much to the book; instead, I am creating a guide to make it easier for people to get started if they are interested.

What is Dream of the Red Chamber about? Why do people love it?

The best way to sum it up is calling it a family saga mixed with a bit of fantasy. It tells the story of the rise and fall of a big and powerful family, focusing on the story of the young girls, the maid servants, and the wives that all live together and run the household. The only male main character Jia Baoyu is a young heir of the family, who grew up among these women and girls. He loves and understands them, loves being surrounded by them, and deeply identifies with them. My dad, who is also a fan of the book, loves saying that Baoyu 'has the heart of a maiden'.

The book is funny and full of drama, and at the same time it's also poetic, tragic and profound, and the tragedy of the characters is written in such a kind way, as if the author wants you to love them and remember how wonderful and alive they are despite the fact that a gloomy fate will claim them all.

The book is also so queer in a way that no other Ming/Qing dynasty Chinese novels can compare. Obviously there are no modern queer labels because it was written in imperial China, but there are characters who are interested in both men and women, characters who are interested in no one, and affairs between boys and between girls; many main characters have the kind of relationships with their gender that make my Chinese transgender heart sing with empathy.

If you want to hear from English speakers who fell in love with the book and learn more about the context and literary/cultural value of the book, I recommend starting with 'Why is China’s greatest novel virtually unknown in the west?' by Michael Wood on The Guardian and 'Why you should read China’s vast, 18th century novel, Dream of the Red Chamber' by Josh Stenberg on The Conversation.

Dream of the Red Chamber is a long novel with many different versions and possibly hundreds of adaptations. How should I begin?

There are two translations that I know have received good reviews:

A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang. My partner is reading this version. It's a very faithful translation with footnotes to make up for the language and cultural barriers. (Note: the Yangs finished their translation in prison in China during the Cultural Revolution.)

The Story of the Stone translated by David Hawkes and John Minford. It's a translation that takes more artistic liberties than the Yangs version. For example it differs in the way it translates character names and its writing style. Hawkes wanted to recreate the experience of reading the novel in Chinese for English speaking readers, but it may also be harder for you to talk to those who read the book in Chinese about certain characters and details.

There is also a public domain translation by H. Bencraft Joly, which was first published in the 19th century, and you can find it on Project Gutenberg.

The 1987 36-episode TV adaptation Dream of the Red Chamber is well-loved and considered by many Chinese people to be the best adaptation of the book. Every later adaptation would be compared with the 1987 one and found lacking. I personally love this adaptation a lot, and I think out of all the adaptations I've seen (including TV series, films and Chinese opera) it has the best interpretations of the book and the characters. It also has the best songs, which were adapted from the poems in the book. You can stream the series with English subtitles on the Internet Archive.

If you want something shorter that covers the main romance plot line and includes a few iconic scenes from the book, I recommend the 1977 film adaptation The Dream of the Red Chamber casting legendary actress Brigitte Lin as Jia Baoyu (she also portrayed an iconic classic wuxia character as a trans woman in another film franchise, but I digress). You can find the film with English subtitles on Youtube.

This is not all, but it's a good start. If you ever decide to give it a go, it doesn't matter if you watch one of the adaptations first or read the book first. Don't stress, take your time, and enjoy the ride!

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Japanese Resources 2

Genki books google drive

Genki books and workbooks google drive

Japanese book google drive

Genki 2 slideshare

Forvo Japanese pronunciation

Japanese reading chrome extension

Learn Japanese Tae Kim’s guide to learning Japanese ; Introduction ; Grammar guide

Usagi-chan’s Genki resource page

JLPT Sensei Learn Japanese and pass the JLPT

Verb Chart 

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Hi! I'm looking for a language partner and/or a new friend to practice English with!

If you are an English learner we can practice together! If you are a native speaker I can help you with Italian or we can just write in English and maybe become friends!

If you are interested send me a message or leave a comment under this post!

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You don't need to go to the gym, assembling IKEA forniture will leave you out of breath the same .

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Help with Korean?

Can someone help me translate the text of this exercise?(And the answer options?)

I'm trying to solve it, but my Korean level is not good enough to understand what's written.