Does an online Chinese Character Pronouncer exist?

[yuchai]

All very good points in this thread, I would add a couple of my thoughts also:

1. In Chinese, a lot of times many characters share the exact same pronunciation. What I have found is that people who are out of practice with the language are prone to writing the incorrect character that have the same pronunciation. I can't say for sure but I think that's not something that happens as much in English.

2. Individual Chinese characters can have many different meanings and the specific meaning can often only be insinuated based on the context/usage. I would think that this is something that learners of the language would have a lot of trouble with that learners of the English language do not necessarily experience.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

1. In Chinese, a lot of times many characters share the exact same pronunciation. What I have found is that people who are out of practice with the language are prone to writing the incorrect character that have the same pronunciation. I can't say for sure but I think that's not something that happens as much in English.

It is. Read ten minutes' worth of text on these forums and you'll see the truth. Their/there/they're, to/too/two, its/it's, the list goes on and on. The only redeeming factor about English in this regard is that they all happen to be spelled similarly two so people know what the writer means.

(Did you see what I did there? )

2. Individual Chinese characters can have many different meanings and the specific meaning can often only be insinuated based on the context/usage. I would think that this is something that learners of the language would have a lot of trouble with that learners of the English language do not necessarily experience.

That's true. But then that's why a lot of people consider individual characters as 'letters' rather than 'words', because the context defines a lot of its meaning.

 

[xCxStylex]

I am aware of this. e.g. if you have the man/human "component (I don't know what else to call it), often, you can discern that the word will have something to do with humans/people. The same goes for "water" and the "fish" example someone previously gave, ect.

However, when it boils down to it, if you don't know the damn "picture," you don't know the damn character.

Yes, you might be able to understand a character from context, but I'm talking strictly about reading and writing.

One isn't going to be able to write a word that you just don't know, where as you could guess it in a language like English. If your attempt at writing the word was incorrect, you could confirm it through a dictionary, which I personally think is much simpler to use than a Chinese dictionary.

The difficulty is in reading and writing a random word, and my issue is with how the OP was ridiculed by the dipshit I quoted in my post. You show me a random Chinese character, and while yes, I know that you can look up the word in a Chinese dictionary by stroke count and "starting component," one is not going to randomly be able to write a word just without knowing the goddamn picture.

The example you're giving me here would be similar to knowing latin and how some english words are based off of them, like the examples here - > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_words_with_English_derivatives

My argument was that when it comes to reading and writing, if you don't know the damn picture, you don't know it.

Well..... this isn't completely true. Characters are most often composed of basic simpler and put together and slightly modified. Familiarity also helps, as well as context. You may be able to recognize certain words when they are put into a sentence, but singularly, you may have trouble or get confused.

In any case, if one is not exposed to a language like Chinese for extended periods, you will lose the ability to read it proficiently. This obviously isn't the case with English, or other Romantic or Germanic languages.

 

[Matthiasa]

Matthiasa, please stfu. It's apparent from your ethnocentric views that you're ignorant and stupid, and you probably only know of romanized languages with alphabets. You're probably a dumbshit that only knows English at that, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt.


The simplest way to boil down reading and writing Chinese is to equate each word is a fucking picture. Memorize the picture, then you know the word. Now try memorize a couple thousand pictures, that of the average vocabulary. Go on further for specialized and technical words.

Nice personal attacks...
/thinks about calling a mod...

But really Your right I have no need to know other languages as I live in well the US and English is the language of business, science, etc.

I know a few words in Korean, Mandarin (he really needs to give the dialect since Chinese covers a lot of dialects though many are written the same), German, Spanish, Japanese, French... and few others.
Also could have became fluent and literate in Cantonese(another Chinese dialect since you seem clueless) if I wanted to due to some girl I know from Hong Kong. Also could have picked up Russian from some guy I use to know and Ukrainian from some girl I use to know. Portuguese for the same reason as well. I could go on but by now I'm sure you are starting to get the point

So yeah... maybe work out a better theory next time kay?

 

[Mide]

The hardest part of Chinese I think is the fact that each character has a meaning but if you put them together they can combine to have a totally different meaning. Even if I was able to memorize 5000 characters, it would not mean squat. If I put 4-6 characters together they could mean anything from a restaurant name, a store name, or another word completely. So in order to be proficient you would have to memorize individual characters and many combinations of characters which would create words.

 

[Mide]

1. In Chinese, a lot of times many characters share the exact same pronunciation. What I have found is that people who are out of practice with the language are prone to writing the incorrect character that have the same pronunciation. I can't say for sure but I think that's not something that happens as much in English.

This reminds me of a game I enjoy playing with my wife because I ignore the fact that there are different tones. If you know Chinese you'll know what I'm talking about:

Policeman = Tight Tea
Be Careful = Little Heart
Pervert = Six Busy
North Korea = Fried Salty
Pants = Cry Word
"Check Please" = Buy Egg
Subway = Low Stick

And a word I hate pronouncing because they sound exactly the same to me is:

Rock and Tongue

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I am aware of this. e.g. if you have the man/human "component (I don't know what else to call it), often, you can discern that the word will have something to do with humans/people. The same goes for "water" and the "fish" example someone previously gave, ect.

That's a pretty abstract association, to be honest.

The example you're giving me here would be similar to knowing latin and how some english words are based off of them

That's why it's useful to learn at least a bit of Latin. Honestly, anatomy makes a lot more sense if you know where the words actually come from.

The hardest part of Chinese I think is the fact that each character has a meaning but if you put them together they can combine to have a totally different meaning. Even if I was able to memorize 5000 characters, it would not mean squat. If I put 4-6 characters together they could mean anything from a restaurant name, a store name, or another word completely. So in order to be proficient you would have to memorize individual characters and many combinations of characters which would create words.

To be honest that becomes second nature after a while. For a lot of Chinese phrases it's pretty easy to see where all the individual characters fit in once you get past the fact that Chinese have an annoying habit of shortening everything to make it sound more 'poetic'.

 

[Matthiasa]

You missed the talking in circles as well.

 

[gaidensensei]

Hey, OP. I used to be in the same boat when I forgot how to read and write after some years.

There's a site out there that converts the characters to pinyin. I was able to get by with this for awhile. I'm betting this is probably adequate enough for your needs.
http://www.chinesetopinyin.com/

Hope that helps .

 

[xCxStylex]

Lulz, you front son. You "know a few words" in xxx name whatever language. That's comedic.

I'm fully fluent in Cantonese, thank you, and can understand about 200 words of Mandarin. I've spent nearly 2 years of my life living in Hong Kong. However, like the OP, I can only read and write about 50 words in Chinese.

And yes, you are an uneducated hick, because you don't even know your own language, using "Your" right instead of you're.

Please don't make it sound like you know Chinese when you don't. Learning a written language like Chinese is much different from learning an alphabetized one, like English, so don't diss the OP for not learning how to read and write a language that he can speak. Asian American kids grew up with our parents speaking it, hence we understand to speak and understand.


It's funny how you use hypothetical situations such as "i could become fluent because i dated this girl" or "i could become fluent." Please astound us all with your grasps of the world's languages before you come back with your condescending insults. With your flawed logic, I could also be fluent in Shanghainese (another Chinese dialect for your ignorant ass), because all my relatives on both sides of my family speak it.

And finally, I know three phrases in Korean. Here's one for you

shibal nom <^>

Nice personal attacks...
/thinks about calling a mod...

But really Your right I have no need to know other languages as I live in well the US and English is the language of business, science, etc.

I know a few words in Korean, Mandarin (he really needs to give the dialect since Chinese covers a lot of dialects though many are written the same), German, Spanish, Japanese, French... and few others.
Also could have became fluent and literate in Cantonese(another Chinese dialect since you seem clueless) if I wanted to due to some girl I know from Hong Kong. Also could have picked up Russian from some guy I use to know and Ukrainian from some girl I use to know. Portuguese for the same reason as well. I could go on but by now I'm sure you are starting to get the point

So yeah... maybe work out a better theory next time kay?

 

[Matthiasa]

snip

... So that's why you are pissed,you are not literate in English?
I merely pointed out that someone he knew probably could read it to make sure it was correct, which you missed due to your lack of understanding of the English language.

Oh... and learning words in a foreign language simply in an attempt to insult someone with something you assume they don't understand is childish at best.
People have been banned for less.

Edit:
There is also a good chance I'm far more educated then you, or at least there would be if this wasn't a tech forum.