相似shi4，似si4乎
paracaz
May 04, 2010 at 01:55 AM posted in General DiscussionHi, everyone
I'm confused by these two words. ‘似’ has 2 different pronuncations but I always pronounce '似' as 'si4', no one point it out. So I think it's interesting of Chinese to give the same character different pronunciations. Do you agree with me?
\\O
ali_ali
May 05, 2010 at 06:23 AM
Hi, akalamdug
i agree with u. it's so interesting, but so difficult for us to learn, right?
i always read "几乎 ji1 hu1"(almost, nearly, practically) as "ji3 hu1".
buybuy123456
May 05, 2010 at 06:02 AM
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changye
May 04, 2010 at 04:15 AM
The colloquial reading "shi4" is almost exclusively used in the phrase “～似的” (shi4de), which means "seems as if". In the case of “相似”, its reading is "xiang1si4", but not "xiang1shi4". "si4" is a formal reading.
lovechn
May 04, 2010 at 02:12 AM
Hi, akalamdug
In fact, many Chinese characters have two different pronuncations. It is not interesting but necessary. Like
女红（gong1）：women who do embroidery，红（hong2）色:red。
Different pronuncations have different meanings.
You should read more words and you will find learning Chinese is much more difficult than you ever thought.
jen_not_jenny
May 05, 2010 at 01:50 AM
Learning Chinese is difficult, but don't give up hope! The context will often help you to distinguish between the different meanings of characters that have two separate pronunciation patterns. Personally, the more I study, the more I come to appreciate how very logical the language is.
pipo
May 05, 2010 at 11:52 AMA character consists of a radical,which points out a kind of direction/essence. One could see it as the key towards the meaning. There are about 200 radicals which you can find most of the time in the beginning of a dictionary (chinese-english). You will need to find the radical first in order to look up the character in the dictionary, when you do not have pin yin. Sometimes there are more radicals in one character.
To give an example:
Radical 140 ( 艸 艹 = cǎo =gras ) This radical is often positioned in the top of the character.
茶 =chá = tea or tealeaf
花 =huā = flower, blossom
菌 =jūn, jùn = mushroom,germ, microbe
菜 = cài = dish (type of food) / vegetables / vegetable / cuisine
Beside the radical, there is often a part in the radical that indicates the sound.
SOUND indicators: Here I am still trying to find the clue, but it works a little bit like described hereunder.
女红＝nǚhóng ＝ needlework,
工= gōng = work /worker/skill/profession/trade / craft/labor
Here the sound component is given by the 工. Which happens to be radical 48, indicator for work/craft. You see it on the right side in 红.
Best way is check http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php. Look under translate and try all the clicking options.
HAVE FUN!