Blog has moved!

Hi there. If you're looking for my blog on Chinese, this is where it used to live. It has since moved. The new address is https://simplified-traditional.com. Enjoy^^

New URL

Hi all. For those of you who are trying to access the blog using http://simplified-traditional.blogspot.com, it won't work. I have changed the URL for two reasons. One, I now own a domain, so it will be much easier to type the site, and 2, I had a little pest problem, so changing the URL will fix that.

So here's the new address.

http://.ryper.org

A lot easier, eh? :)

Who knows if I'll ever get back to writing posts or not. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing with the blog. I may start writing things if I don't have to make up little lessons each time. I don't know. I'll think of something. In the meantime I am trying to learn more about DNS and LAMP (Linux stuff). So yeah...

And I suppose be careful with whom you share this site. I don't need people who are not open-minded viewing my blog.

See ya :)

Mandarin Radio

Well, I don't have too much to post at the moment. Been very busy working full-time again. But I've been listening to the radio in Mandarin again. Because I am interested in Taiwan, I have been listening to Taiwanese radio stations.

http://hichannel.hinet.net/radio.html

However, since I am using Linux I cannot use the site properly since there is DRM-protected material there. So I have made 2 scripts to listen and record the online radios.

TWradio

TWrecord_radio


Please leave some comments with ideas as to what you would like me to make posts about.

敖 vs. 敫

So I've had this finished for quite a long time now, I just haven't posted it because I wanted the picture to be better. In the end however, I decided that I didn't care and I'll just post what I've done...which isn't much^^;

So I've always had trouble remembering how to pronounce characters with the graphemes 敖 and 敫. I have never found a good mnemonic device for remembering them. So I took the most used characters and grouped them all together by pronunciation.

Click to enlarge

So that's about it. Just a little helpful chart just as much for you as it is for me. I'll hopefully be writing more soon. I just started a new job so I don't have as much time as before.

Anyways, enjoy!

Etymology of 載

Many Chinese characters are difficult for learners to remember, especially those with many strokes. However, if you learn them properly, i.e., you learn their origins, memorization becomes much simpler.

Today we are looking at 載.

載(zǎi/zài) means "to load" or "to carry", among several other meanings. It is a 形聲, below are its components.

So we can see it is made up of 車(car), its semantic value, and "zāi"(to cut), its phonetic value. We can break "zāi" down even further to see where its origin.

"zāi" is made up of 才(cái) for the phonetic component, and 戈(gē, halberd/spear) for the semantic component.

As we can see 才 has become 十 through the evolution of the characters and scripts. The center character at the top is an authentic scan of 載 from the 說文解字; you can see the top has a 才 and not a 十.

Knowing that at its origin it was a 才 will help you, however, to remember the pronunciation of both of these characters.

Burst of Motivation

So I haven't been very motivated recently. I moved back home to the U.S. and haven't continued much with my Mandarin since then. I have since changed operating systems and have been learning a lot more about GNU/Linux and a bit about programming, so that has kept me busy enough.

I am happy to say that I have found a new source for fun and learning Mandarin, in the shape of an official Final Fantasy game. That's right, this time it's an official translation, not a fan translation.

Click to enlarge

I have the first in this series, and am really looking forward to playing this one in Chinese as well. The only problem is finding a way to get it. I could buy it here, Dissidia 012 (Chinese version), which seems to be the only place I can find to buy it, but alas, I have no money.

If anyone knows a place where I can get it, most likely 下載ing it, please let me know. I am still looking, but I haven't had much luck as of yet.

I may add a Paypal link if anyone would like to donate for this, for Mandarin books, or for anything you wish the money to do go, but I doubt anyone would donate to begin with. I'll think it over.

寧→宁

Here is a character that I initially had trouble remembering, but after learning its etymology I have never forgotten it.



This beautiful character is a 會意.


For fun let's look at 小篆 version. (These are real versions of the characters scanned from the 說文解字 if I'm not mistaken, except for 宀 because I couldn't be arsed to crop it out of a normal character)


So what does all of this mean? 宀 means roof, 心 means heart, 皿 means plate, 丂 here is something like 示(alter). Over time the 丂 changed to 丁. So where heart in is the home (under the roof), and where food is on the table/alter is where it is peaceful or serene. And that is the meaning of this character, serenity, peace; peaceful.

It makes perfect sense.

Now let's take a look at the simplified version of this character.


So all of the meaning has been stripped from this 會意, and it remains nothing more than 2 graphemes, one on top of the other. One could go so far as to say that it is now a 形聲, however, the fact that 丁 rhymes with 寧 is a lucky coincidence and no dictionary would call it so.


So while you do remove 9 strokes, you also remove the meaning of the character. If you are THAT worried about the number of strokes, then why not remove the Chinese characters altogether and make the written language an alphabet?

Explaining how easy Chinese is to others pt.2

Spoken Chinese

Ok, so you've seen how a sound in Mandarin (and other Chinese languages) can mean many things. You have also seen how when written there is no confusion as to the meaning of each sound. However, how does this all work when you're speaking? Surely native speakers don't draw each syllable that is not understood and show it to the listener.

In Ancient Chinese and/or Classical Chinese monosyllabic words were no problem. There were enough sounds for the amount of words that they had in existence. However, with time and evolution the number of possible sounds (in Mandarin at least) came down to about 400. With tones this brings us to approximately 1600 distinct sounds, (English has many more than this, thus most words are easily distinguished from one another).

Let's take a look at how Sinophones have overcome this hindrance.


The answer is simple: bisyllabism, i.e. using two syllables for one word.※ Two morphemes with either identical or similar meanings are used to create a word, whether it be a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, etc. With two syllables the chances misunderstanding a word are much lower.

例子 Examples

事情
(thing, affair, matter)
=
事(thing, affair, matter)
+
情(emotion, situation)

There are literally hundreds of "shì"s in Mandarin (not to mention the hundreds of others that have different tones). Yet 事 is still used in its monosyllabic form. However, to distinguish it from the countless others this bisyllabic form is used and is the only word in Mandarin with the pronunciation "shì qíng".

驚訝
(astonished)
=
驚(to startle/frighten; to be startled/frightened)
+
訝(to be surprised)

Not only are synonyms used, but descriptive characters are also used.

視窗
(window)
=
視(to look at)
+
窗(window)

There are several words that are pronounced "chuāng", however there is only one "shì chuāng".



I just realized I had planned on writing this for people who are not (yet) learning Mandarin, but I ended up writing it toward those who are learning the language. I didn't focus on "easy to understand" either... oops, my bad.



※There are other methods used to do this, but I am focusing on the most common. Another common method is adding a nominalizer, e.g. 子、頭、阿. While 孩 may be ambiguous if used alone, 孩子 is always understood. Same with 木/木頭 and 姨/阿姨.

Sorry for the lack of posts

Hey guys, I'm sorry for the lack of content on the blog. I moved back to the United States about two and a half weeks ago, so I'm still getting settled in. I'll try start posting again very soon. I may try to finish the second part of my last post today. I hope I still have followers :P

Explaining how easy Chinese is to others pt.1

Written Chinese

The written Chinese language is very intimidating and/or confusing to most who do not know how it actually works. Here is a very brief explanation of how Chinese characters are a very efficient and easy system, arguably easier than languages that use the Roman alphabet.

Over 97% of all Chinese characters have only 2 parts, a meaning part and a pronunciation. When looking at a character that you don't know, you can use these parts to know a lot more about it.

Imaginary example

Let's pretend that the words "maple", "mother", "river", "hate", "silver", "shout", "grab", and "leg" are all pronounced "foo" in an imaginary language. They are all homonyms. However, when written each one has a little note next to it giving you a hint to its meaning.

Maple = wood-foo
Mother = woman-foo
River = water-foo
Hate = emotion-foo
Silver = metal-foo
Shout = sound-foo
Grab = hand-foo
Leg = bodypart-foo

This is essentially how Chinese works. Each character has a specific sound, which is given to us by a specific group of strokes that is known to the reader. In addition, there are 214 standard meaning parts which give us hints to characters' meanings.

Real-life example

The phonetic part 辟 (bì). I'm going to ignore the tone for now, but just know that all of characters that follow are pronounced the same way and with the same tone.

(Click to enlarge)

This phenomenon is much like suffixes in the English language, except that it is only used in the written language. Imagine if almost all words in the English language used a list of standard suffixes.

New Tong Wen Tang 新同文堂

Would you like to view this page in Simplified Chinese? Want to see Baidu in Traditional Chinese? No problem! Get New Tong Wen Tang (新同文堂) for your browser and you will be able to read any website in your preferred script.

Firefox
**Click on the 繁 and 簡 to convert webpages, and the "S" and "T" to convert the clipboard.

Chrome/Chromium
**Click on the 同文 icon to toggle between Simplified and Traditional, right-click for more options.

Safari
**I have no experience with this browser, if you have tried it please let me know how to use it and I will update the post.

All other browsers
**Drag the 繁 and 簡 characters into your bookmarklets (tabs), then click on either one when on a webpage to convert it.


SPECIAL NOTE: As with all automatic converters, New Tong Wen Tang is not without fault. With characters that have multiple conversions, such as 斗 in SC, is both 斗 and 鬥 in TC, I believe it either uses the most common version or it has specific vocabulary in its database.

Either way you should learn these characters by heart, as you will encounter this problem all over the Internet. You can find a very complete list of these characters, here, 簡繁一對多.

More examples of 被

Here are 2 more examples of 被 that I have found in my daily studying.

海綿寶寶(Spongebob Squarepants)

(Click to enlarge)

線被切斷了，好討厭哦

"The wire has been cut, how annoying."(lit. very annoying)

龍騎士(Eragon)

(Click to enlarge)

「在他身後，也就是鹿群之前待的地方，一大圈的樹和草都被燒焦了，許多松樹光禿禿的立著，在焦黑圈子外面的草都被壓平了。」

在…後 → behind ...
他身 → his body
也就是 → is also
鹿群 → deer herd
之前 → before
待 → to stay (first tone)
地方 → place
一大圈 → a large ring, a large circle
樹和草 → trees and grass
都 → all
燒焦 → to burn, to scorch
許多 → many, a lot of
松樹 → pine tree
光禿禿 → bald, naked
立著 → standing (站立著, but when object has no feet, you use 立著)
在…外面 → outside of ...
焦黑 → burned black
圈子 → circle, ring
壓平 → to flatten

So literally this gives us, "Behind his body, is also previous deer herd staying place, a large circle of trees and grass all been burned, many pine trees nakedly standing, grass that is outside of burned black circle all been flattened."

In normal English we have...

Behind him, where the deer herd had just been, a large circle of trees and grass had been burned. Many pine trees stood bald and outside of the blackened circle the grass had been flattened.


There you go, as requested a longer sentence from Eragon, as well as 3 real-life examples of 被. I hope you have enjoyed this post.^^

Fun ways to learn

I know a lot of you out there think, "If I'm not learning from a textbook, or studying with flashcards, then I'm not learning." Well I've got news for you, you don't HAVE to learn that way!

You are not learning a foreign language to be able to take a test well, you are learning it to be able to communicate with others. Have fun with it! Don't just sit there mindlessly memorizing vocabulary, taking tests, and killing yourself when you forget something. Go out and do something IN the language. You'll be surprised, you can learn a lot from doing that.

Click to enlarge

I learned 2 new 成語 today from 海綿寶寶.




I've already beaten this game, but playing video games is a great way to learn.

Click to enlarge

I don't often play MMOs, but you can learn a LOT of characters from them. What's more, you can speak with native speakers in a fun environment.

Click to enlarge

Put your Facebook in Chinese. With the help of a Chinese Reader, you can learn a lot of very useful vocabulary, as well as sentence structures. But why stop there? Put your Skype in Chinese, put your MSN in Chinese. Put your entire computer in Chinese!! If you're on Mac or Linux, it's very easy to do :) If you're on Windows, you can make it happen with a little money or a bit of unlawful activity.

Do everything that you love to do normally, but in Chinese. If you're learning another language, do it in that language then. This is a great method of learning for any language!

Passive voice with 被

There are a few ways to make the passive voice in Mandarin. We are going to focus on the most common way, by using 被.

I thought I would try something new in this post. Instead of writing my little lesson for 被 here, I decided to make a PDF explaining it. I made a simplified and traditional version, so choose whichever you like.

After clicking on the link click on the "Download" button on the top-right of the window. You cannot use Chinese Readers on the preview, you actually have to download the PDF.

Traditional Chinese

Simplified Chinese

I did not include any pronunciations because I expect all of you to be using some sort of dictionary or Chinese Reader. If you are not currently using one, get one HERE!

※ A little side note, the conjugated forms of the verb "to be" in the PDF should actually be considered part of the verb, but I chose to make them blue to help beginners get the concept of creating and understanding the passive voice.

Windows, Mac & Linux Chinese Readers!

I think this post is needed for all of you learners out there. I have already written about MDBG Chinese Reader, however for those who do not use Windows the program is useless. Therefore, I will show you a few tools that will be useful to you.

(These are all FREE!!)

MDBG Chinese Reader (Windows only)

Perapera-kun (Firefox) (All OSes)

Zhongwen (Chrome/Chromium) (All OSes)

Stardict (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Stardict isn't as good as MDBG Chinese Reader, but it's pretty much the only tool available for Linux, and one of the few for Mac. That being said, it does have many of the same features that MDBG Chinese Reader. You can highlight any word and a pop-up will appear with the definition. You can download it from the link above or from your distribution's repositories.

Unfortunately, the website has not be kept up to date, so the dictionary files are out-of-date. However, I have created a Chinese-English dictionary for it using the same dictionary from MDBG.

Debian-based GNU/Linux: I made this bash script to simplify things. It will install Stardict if you don't already have it and it will compile the dictionary straight from the source. Run it whenever you would like your dictionaries to be up to date.
Stardict CC-CEDICT script (Last updated 06/16/2011)
(Open it and change what is necessary for it to work on your system. It should be pretty straightforward if you read my comments.)


For Mac users and other GNU/Linux systems:

Downloading the CC-CEDICT dictionary: You can download it from the link below. I will update it periodically so it does not go out of date.
Stardict CC-CEDICT dictionaries (Updated pretty much daily)
(Note: There are actually 2 dictionaries included. You need to install them both to be able to read both simplified and traditional scripts)

Installing the dictionaries: Extract the archive and move both the Simp_CC-CEDICT and Trad_CC-CEDICT folders to /usr/share/stardict/dic/ for Linux or /opt/gkt/usr/share/stardict/dic/ for Mac.

Eragon Ch.2 pt.4

We are looking at sentences from 龍騎士：飛龍聖戰(Eragon). Today we will look at the fourth and final sentence of this paragraph.

艾瑞岡跪在被踐踏過的蘆葦草上，用他那熟練的眼神掃視著。足印告訴他那群鹿半個小時前才在這草地上，牠們很快就會停下來休息。他的目標——一隻跛了左前腳的小母鹿，仍跟在鹿群中。他很驚訝她竟然走了那麼久都沒有被一隻狼或熊抓到。


第四句

Click to enlarge

他 → He
很 → very
驚訝 → surprised, astonished
她 → she
竟然 → unexpectedly, to one's surprise, actually
走 → to walk
了 → aspect particle showing completion
那麼久 → that long (THAT long)
都 → all, everyone, everything. Here the 都 plays the same role as the contruction 連…都/也, however, the 連 cannot be used here in the passive voice.
沒有 → have not, quite literally.
被一隻狼或熊抓到 → been snatched by a wolf or bear. Using 被 makes a sentence passive. The construction is 「被 + Noun(if there is one) + Verb (+ some sort of aspectual marker)」 and it means "(By noun [if there is one]) verb[in passive form]."※

So putting this all together, we get a sentence that literally says, "He very surprised she unexpectedly walked that long even have not by wolf or bear been snatched." In our modern tongue we would say...

"He was surprised that she had actually come this far without having been snatched up by a wolf or bear."


That's it for this little paragraph. Let me know if you have enjoyed it and if you would like to see more sentences from the book in the future. If so, I will try to vary the difficulty of the sentences so everyone can profit.

Also, if you have any requests, please don't hesitate to make them. I have video games and a few books in Chinese, so I could take from those as well. Leave a comment and share the site with your friends^^


※ I will go over 被 in more depth in a later post.

Eragon Ch.2 pt.3

This is a continuation of my last two posts. We are looking at sentences from 龍騎士：飛龍聖戰(Eragon). Today we will look at the third sentence of this paragraph.

艾瑞岡跪在被踐踏過的蘆葦草上，用他那熟練的眼神掃視著。足印告訴他那群鹿半個小時前才在這草地上，牠們很快就會停下來休息。他的目標——一隻跛了左前腳的小母鹿，仍跟在鹿群中。他很驚訝她竟然走了那麼久都沒有被一隻狼或熊抓到。


第三句

Click to enlarge

他的目標 → His target
一隻小母鹿 → a small doe. 母鹿 (mother deer) is a female deer, or "doe" in English. We add 小 to say a small doe. You CAN add a 的 after 小, but you usually only add 的 when the adjective is bisyllabic. With monosyllabic adjectives, the 的 is optional. The classifier for most mid-sized animals is 隻. So putting it all together it gives us "one small doe" or "a small doe" depending on the context.
跛了左前腳的 → whose front right foot is crippled. 跛 means "lame" or "crippled". Adding the aspectual particle of completion 了 shows us that the crippling has already been completed. 左前 means "front right", in Chinese the word order is usually the opposite of English. 腳 means foot. Wrapping it all up is a 的, which allows us to modify the following noun with all that comes before it.
仍 → still, the same use as in English.
跟 → to follow
在…中 → inside (of)
鹿群 → deer herd

So putting it all together, our literal translation would be, "His target——one crippled front-right footed little doe, still follow inside deer herd." Proper English gives us something like...

"His target——a small doe whose front-right paw was crippled, still following inside the herd."


That was a small sentence, but I'll leave it at that for today. I'll post the last sentence tomorrow. I can see how this might be rather boring, so the next sentences I post will be more interesting and more difficult. :)

Eragon Ch.2 pt.2

This is a continuation of my last post. We are looking at sentences from 龍騎士：飛龍聖戰(Eragon). Today we will look at the second sentence of this paragraph.

艾瑞岡跪在被踐踏過的蘆葦草上，用他那熟練的眼神掃視著。足印告訴他那群鹿半個小時前才在這草地上，牠們很快就會停下來休息。他的目標——一隻跛了左前腳的小母鹿，仍跟在鹿群中。他很驚訝她竟然走了那麼久都沒有被一隻狼或熊抓到。


第二句

Click to enlarge

足印 → footprint
告訴他 → tell him
那群鹿 → that group of deer, 群 is the classifier for groups of animals. 鹿 means deer.
半個小時前 → a half an hour ago, 半個... means half of (whatever noun you're using). 小時 means hour. 前 come after the time you want to use when saying "... ago".
才 → just
在…上 → to be on ...
這草地 → this meadow
牠們 → they, 牠 is used for animals.
很快就會 → will soon, 很快 means very quick/soon. 就 means then. 會 expresses possibility. Don't worry too much about this construction, it's rather advanced.
停下來 → to stop, 停 means to stop. 下來 is a complement of direction, you will very often see it with this verb.
休息 → to rest

So the literal translation would be, "Footprints tell him that group of deer half an hour ago just on this meadow. They very quickly will stop to rest. In proper English this would give us...

"The footprints told him that the herd of deer had been in this meadow a half an hour ago. They would soon stop to rest."


More to come tomorrow. Once again, please leave your comments letting me know what you think.

Eragon Ch.2 pt.1

Here is 龍騎士：飛龍聖戰, otherwise known as "Eragon" in English. A friend brought this book back from Taiwan for me, I think it is about time I started reading it. I am going to use sentences from the book that I found easy to read and understand to teach a little bit of Mandarin. I will also be posting sentences that I find particularly interesting or difficult even (who knows!)

These next four posts will be dedicated to the first paragraph of the second chapter of the book. Each post will contain one of the sentences, and I will try to break it down. Also, since I love this font so much, we're going to have pictures of each sentence written in it!

艾瑞岡跪在被踐踏過的蘆葦草上，用他那熟練的眼神掃視著。足印告訴他那群鹿半個小時前才在這草地上，牠們很快就會停下來休息。他的目標——一隻跛了左前腳的小母鹿，仍跟在鹿群中。他很驚訝她竟然走了那麼久都沒有被一隻狼或熊抓到。


第一句

Click to enlarge

艾瑞岡 → Eragon
跪在…上 → kneel on ...
被踐踏過的蘆葦草 → here 踐踏 means to trample. With 被 we now have the passive tense, "been trampled". Next, add a 過 particle to mark an experience, so "has been trampled". Now let's wrap it all up with a 的 so the entire phrase is modifying the noun that comes after it. Often you can translate this by the relative pronoun, "that". 蘆葦草 means "reeds", so all together this part means "the reeds that have been trampled on".
用他那熟練的眼神 → use his THAT skilled eyesight. The 那 adds a greater degree to 熟練. It's like the difference between "he is skilled" and "he is THAT skilled". 熟練 means practiced, proficient, or skilled. 眼神 means eyesight.
掃視＋著 → to glance, to sweep ones eyes over + particle showing progression of action.

So the literal translation would be, "Eragon kneels down on the reeds that have been trampled on, use his THAT skilled eyesight sweeping over (the area)" or in more plain English...

"Eragon knelt down on the trampled reeds, using his honed eyesight to scan the area."


Please comment and let me know what you think of these. Would you like to see more of them? Were my explanations clear enough? Would you like me to explain things differently? Please let me know^^

連…也 by itself

For those who don't already know the 連…都/也 structure, it means "even". E.g., 「連蘋果都很好吃」= "Even apples are delicious".

Today I learned something new; it can be used without a verb. Here is the context I saw it in.

Click image for full size

吉坦
「啊！連嘉妮特也！」

Translation:
Zidane (The speaker)
"Ah! Even Garnet!"

Basically everyone fainted/fell into a deep sleep, and he was surprised that Garnet did as well.

I did not know that you could use this structure without the verb, however, since it is implied/understood, it is not necessary. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle! G.I. Joe!!

Everything you need to learn Mandarin!

I have to say, I freaking love this website. The association is called OCAC(Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission) and it targeted at overseas Taiwanese/Chinese people wishing to improve their Mandarin.

Check out this link here, OCAC Digital Publishing System. It is EXCELLENT. It has soooo many resources for learning Mandarin, and they are all EXTREMELY good.

The main website is http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/home_en.htm.

Listening comprehension

Unfortunately, my headset broke recently so I cannot chat on Skype with native speakers at the moment. Therefore, I am watching Taiwanese variety shows. You can find a TON at Sugoideas. They are all posted on Youtube, and you can either watch them online or download them using a website like KeepVid.

康熙來了 is a good one for listening. They do interviews of famous people in Asia. 天才衝衝衝 is very funny, but there is less conversation.

Aside from variety shows, the website also has Taiwanese dramas. So if that is what you prefer, they have a bunch of those as well in the same format.

I'll leave you with this video from 娛樂＠亞洲. It may be a bit girly, but I find the woman's voice very easy to understand and it is great practice for me.

Increasing Vocabulary

So I've been using Ubuntu in Mandarin for quite a long time now, and one thing I have yet to master is OpenOffice. My OpenOffice Word is in Chinese but I don't understand a lot of the vocabulary just because I haven't taken the time to look them up. Therefore, I am going to learn all of it in one fell swoop.

Click to enlarge

I have taken pictures of all of the words in the menus for both the English and Mandarin version. I am working now on putting each picture side by side with it's equivalent in the other language as seen in the picture above. It's taking forever, but hopefully I can learn some more technical vocabulary from it.

OpenOffice remains one of the few programs on my computer that I have yet to master in Mandarin. Most of my programs do not have too many options, so it usually doesn't take very long to learn the new vocabulary used in them.

Putting your computer in the language you are learning is a great way to increase your vocabulary and grow accustom to the sentence structure. However, you MUST take the time to look up the words that you do not know, otherwise you will never advance.

Mandarin progress

Seeing as I do not make posts often enough, I have decided to make blog posts about my progress in learning Mandarin. I got the idea from the language blog of a friend, here.

So I suppose I will show some of the methods that I use to learn Mandarin and maybe post some sentences from video games that I play or books that I read that I find interesting. Let me know what you think and what you would like to see more of on my blog.

No more pinyin!!

Ok, so I met another pinyin-only learner today and I've finally had it. I'm making a post about it!

I'm not going to go over all of the reasons why learning Mandarin with pinyin only is a bad idea, but I'm going to look at one reason in particular today: Pinyin ambiguity.


So you think you can learn Mandarin by only learning the spoken language and getting by with just pinyin? Ok, so let's try it.

What does "shi" mean? ......
......
......
Go ahead, take your time. CNS11643 shows 193 different characters for the pinyin combination "shi".

Ok, so with single characters, it's not possible. Let's try something else...

"Wo de niao shi lüse de."※
How about this one? What does this translate to? Could it be 我的鳥是綠色的, "My bird is green" or could it be 我的尿是綠色的, "My urine is green"? We don't know. There is no way to tell.


Does "hanyu" mean "the Chinese language"(漢語) or "the Korean language"(韓語)?

Is "lianxi" 練習、聯繫、連繫、or 憐惜?

Does "mao" mean "cat"(貓) or "hair/fur"(毛)?

Does "gaochao" mean "excellent"(高超) or "orgasm"(高潮)? (O_o)

Does "yinhe" mean "The Milky Way"(銀河) or "clitoris"(陰核)? (囧)

The tones change the meanings of these words. There are so many of these that I can't even begin to count them. If you know any good ones please leave a comment and I may add it to the list :)

Using pinyin to type in Mandarin is ambiguous and leads to mistakes and misunderstandings. Not only that, but you lose out on all of the culture and understanding of the language. Learning Chinese characters is not hard unless you make it hard.

......plus if you learn them, you'll be regarded as a genius in the eyes of most East Asians. Everyone loves attention :)

※ You'll probably see the "ü" written as "v" or simply "u" by most people.