User Comments - bababardwan

Posted on: Pay Verbs

ok,well if old chinese had no tones does that mean we can consider homophones without reference to tones?

Let me break down this question a bit.

Firstly would you consider say fa1 ,fa2,fa3,fa4,and fa5 to be homophones? Obviously two fa1's are closer homophones.

Secondly,does this imply that originally say a fa2 and fa3 had as much chance of being a homophone as two fa1's.Changye has above explained that of course the pronunciation may well have changed over time though so I suppose it's going to come down to a case by case basis without any fixed rules.

Posted on: Pay Verbs

changye,

Thanks heaps to you too mate.In your first set of examples I take it that 文 refers to formal and 白 to colloquial,对不对？Further,would I be right in supposing that formal words preceded their colloquial counterparts.Is it a bit like how in English we have words like "yes" that are then corrupted to "yeah" through a kind of laziness of speech? I do note that in your example bao looks like it has a bit more too it [even if just in the pinyin,hehe] than the colloquial bo.

Back soon.

Posted on: Pay Verbs

哇，非常感谢朋友。I have so much to say to this I don't know where to start and I don't think I'm going to have time to address it all now,but I definitely want to get back to it presently.But firstly let me say a couple of things.I have noticed these 六书 being referred to in yellowbridge when I've been looking up etymology and I have heard of this original Han dynasty shuowen,but what I was truly lacking were the details,and so I really appreciate examples..thanks again.

Secondly I knew when I made the statement that I would be asked if I had any examples to give,and while I have frequently suspected connections I have thought at times there probably is a connection and at other times it may be well mere coincidence.But I will give you my most recent example of when I wondered if there was a connection in meaning between homophones.In todays QW and came across 罚款【fine]的罚 and noted that it refers to punishment.It did make me wonder whether there was an ancient connection between this fa and 法律的法,but the tones are different and fa is such a common little sound I concluded this was probably a coincidence and thus not the best example.I have on a few occasions actually posed the question on these homophones but only on a fraction of the occasions that I'm noticing the connections.I'll let you know next time I spot one.I'll be back anon.Thanks again :)

Posted on: Pay Verbs

Thanks mate for directly answering my question.That's really helpful.All good examples.I particularly liked:

"In ancient times, there were not as many characters. Therefore, multiple meanings were assigned to a single character"

...and ,as I'm interested in the etymology of the characters would love to get further insights as to how they assigned different meanings to the same character and examples of this.

I'm also nearly convinced there are connections between many homophones...I have noticed countless examples of similarity in meaning between homophones but no one seems to be able to comment on this or the origin of it all.I presume that spoken language came way before written language but I also suppose there has been quite some evolution of the language since oracle bones times.It's difficult to get much insight into this evolution except some scratching at the surface,but any further insights would be both intriguing and appreciated.Thanks again mate,that was great. :)

Posted on: Funny Rice

btw,I was chatting to a Chinese friend yesterday and I suddenly rembered this joke.It's amazing how much he really seemed to get a kick out of the joke.So I was hoping we could get some more lessons with jokes.Heaps of fun.It'd be good to have a few up my sleeve. :)

Posted on: Designing the New Apartment

呵呵，

“or, as the case may be, everything your spouse wants”

。。怎么说：打钉子上头。。。也许你可以说？：

击中了要害

Posted on: Pay Verbs

thanks mate.Yeah,I realised that it is common;I have noticed countless examples of this.I should have been clearer in my question.I was really wanting to know how this came about.Why is it so?

Sorry,I'm not sure I'm currently up to digesting your Chinese links,but thanks for providing them...I just might have more of a gander some other time when I'm feeling a bit more switched on.

Posted on: Pay Verbs

谢谢汤姆从【或者你宁可体面包车？】朋友，

也就是说，没有区分这两个？

这事想起来在英文有人不可以区分adult pony and foal.

Posted on: Introduction to Pinyin

"You can easily skim Japanese texts by scanning only Chinese characters."

。。谢谢。。很有意思。

Posted on: Pay Verbs

btw,what's the story with characters like 还 that can represent two different words...different in meaning and in pronunciation?

Ok,another request.It's great that we now have a dialogue tab for QW. I know you can click on a word there to get it added to your vocab,but would it be possible to have a little box down the bottom to tick to get 'em all added to your vocab.Once again no biggie,but it would be handy and more efficient.