Comments on: A new phonetic writing system

By: Christoph

Christoph — Mon, 10 May 2010 01:51:34 +0000

Hi, interesting observation. Just did the experiment with my (Chinese) wife. She also didn’t have much trouble reading out the mirrored sentence I wrote. So, I kind of buy in to your character processing theory. We learn single characters in primary school but are soon programmed to recognize complete words. Schooling in Chinese probably disposes people to process single characters and they can easily apply the same method for reading latin script. This form of processing should slow their latin script reading speed down quite a bit I suppose.

Oh and props on your blog and your advances in Chinese language. I largely abstained from China blogs recently but will continue to tune into this one from time to time. Liked your post conservatives/progressives in the Chinese political landscape too.

By: Wukailong

Wukailong — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:34:40 +0000

Another thing to note is that the way Pinyin is input on computers have affected people’s way of using it. Even on signs on bus stops, that are pretty official, you can see spellings like “Lvdao” instead of “Lüdao”.

By: Geoff Gibson

Geoff Gibson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:01:47 +0000

I noticed a similar thing on a bus in Nanjing on the weekend and thought it odd at the time. I’m sure you’re onto something with your suggestion that it must be a different way of mental processing. As we know, the Chinese can read phrases any which way with no difficulty whatsoever, something about which I’ve long puzzled.

By: Wukailong

Wukailong — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:15:09 +0000

I agree, character tatoos can be quite horrible… But I think finding old wisdom in character combinations is even worse, like the example of 危机. I sometimes make a joke with this example and says that it really means “dangerous machine,” and that the explanation for this is so far ahead of crude Western thinking that we just can’t get it.

By: Uln

Uln — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:09:41 +0000

By the way this reminds me that there is a massive Inverted Pinyin Sign in that MaoZeDong bar in Luwan area, I forget the name now. I took a picture of it the other day when we went for a walk.

By: Uln

Uln — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:08:10 +0000

I think it is an example of WTF chinglish:)

This reminds me of Carl Crow, in his books he tells how the Chinese used to count the number of letters in the brand of the cigarette boxes, to make sure that they had the real brand, as counterfeits were already rampant in the early 20th c. It seems that as long as there were Latin letters, in the right size and quantity, the brand retained its prestige…

There is nothing surprising in this anyway. What do you think Western people do when they add Chinese characters for “coolness”, without knowing what they mean or even if the exist at all! Some tatoos I have seen in the West would make very funny examples in China

By: Wukailong

Wukailong — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:51:26 +0000

How do you explain this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wukailong/347420117/

By: FOARP

FOARP — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:51:46 +0000

My greatest problem with Chinese has been and probably always will be this: reading and writing are much moredifferent things in Chinese than they are in a language which uses a phonetic script. I can recognise plenty of characters and can read newspapers etc. with on;y a bit of difficulty, but when it comes to picking up a pen I find myself hopelessly lost. It doesn’t help that I do all my writing on a computer, and type Chinese using 全拼.

By: The Reading Method | CHINAYOUREN

The Reading Method | CHINAYOUREN — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:32:41 +0000

[...] schooled in Chinese from an early age have developed differently in this field. The post about reverse pinyin last week pointed me in this direction, and a few experiments I have done with my Chinese [...]

By: Arctosia

Arctosia — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:40:45 +0000

I immediately realised this is reversed pinyin, but I doubt there is difference between Chinese and Westerners though. I got it because the Chinese characters are also written from right to left.

Actually I didn’t notice “isgnog” bit at all. My attention was drawn to “naixuoy” as it looks more like a system I’m familiar with.

It’s more of a force of habit, as a Chinese educated in mainland China, I usually find it very difficult to read materials written from right to left. A single line like the picture above should be alright, but reading a whole book written in “reversed” direction is a nightmare for me.

By: Fons Tuinstra

Fons Tuinstra — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:47:56 +0000

You would see a variation of this in traffic, where those letters are focusing on car drivers who would see it through their rear mirrors. For example, ambulances have it on the front of their car. But then, you would also have to mirror the letters itself and putting it on the side would be very weird.
Looks like somebody who must have seen that system, but did not really get it.

By: Uln

Uln — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:19:38 +0000

Yeah, I was actually thinking of that kind of tests. There are many similar ones, proving that we read by looking at the whole shape of a word, and not each of the separate letters. So, for example “Uinervsty” looks almost like “University”, but “Ehciq” does not look at all like “Qiche”, it looks just weird and we start thinking this must be a very strange language.

Unless, of course, you read it looking at the letters one by one, as if they were Chinese characters. Which would explain why non-educated Chinese understand the message
“ISGNOG NAIXUOY EHCIQ UOYVL NAITGNEH GNIJ NAN” immediately, whereas educated Chinese or foreigners tend to have more trouble.