Thoughts
edit- /Chinese Etymology
- The CCP is genius in disendorsing democracy when it comes to choosing development strategies. Democracy at Wiktionary proves to be a highly inefficient and inappropriate process for dictionary building. The decision-making committee is a skewed population. A small group of active people can't all be multifield experts.
- Processing of phonographic writing systems: (mostly) Writing -> phonetics -> semantics -> comprehension; (some) Writing (logographic) -> semantics -> comprehension.
Processing of logographic writing systems: (mostly) Writing -> semantics -> comprehension; (some) Writing (phonographic) -> phonetics -> semantics -> comprehension.
reverted translation
editHi,
I disagree with some of your radical changes to my translations into Mandarin Chinese. The translations taken from Chinese literature and supported by a dictionary. 长椅子 a synonym for "sofa", not just "bench". 分不出 is OK as a predicative adjective, e.g. ...它给太阳拥抱住了,分不出身来. --Anatoli 14:05, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
- 1) Do these 長椅子s look like sofas?
- 2) 它给太阳拥抱住了,分不出身来。 literally means "It has been embraced by the sun and cannot separate its body (from the sun)" or "It has been embraced by the sun and cannot leave", which is not at all similar to "indistinguishable". 60.240.101.246 04:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
updating Mandarin character entries.
editWhen you update Mandarin character entries that have both simplified and traditional forms, can you make sure both entries are updated? We try not to prefer one writing form over the other and as a result we are currently stuck with this duplicate entry situation. Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 01:02, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
- Ideally, either only one is kept or such repetitive work is finished by bots. Pinyin should be completely deleted. It is no more than a transcription scheme. Ease for non-speakers in learning is not an excuse. 60.240.101.246 11:12, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- Botting is a good suggestion, but there are other intricasies involved. For example, everything on a traditional script entry needs to be written in that script (except for references to its simplified counterpart), including example sentences, synonyms and etc. To achieve this, we will need to provide the bot with a database of simplified/tradition character conversions. I am not sure how this can be achieved at the moment. Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 23:00, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
- Serbo-Croatian is being maintained in sync and by a very small number of people, if not one or two. If one version is done, the other doesn't take long to do, examples, synonyms, "see also" is the hardest bit. Not sure bot can do it well if at all. --Anatoli 23:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Chinese
editPlease never never use Chinese as a header. Don't make me block you, believe me when I say I don't want to. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:50, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- Whatever. You manipulate the rules and rule this place, even though you don't and don't want to understand anything written in there. 60.240.101.246 10:53, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- Whether I understand them or not, at least I respect them. Which is more than I can say for some editors. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:57, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- Of course comprehension doesn't matter. 就是你这样不懂装懂、自欺欺人、秉承官僚主义的人在这里让人大煞胃口地高视阔步、大摇大摆,才有如此荒谬和仅仅政治正确的有关中文条目的规则被制定出来,什么都冇知却肆意压制其他用户,导致最后是奉承拼音至上的巨魔横行,本来好好地可以被合并在一起的中文标题被分裂成不知多少个子标题,条目质量低劣而数量也停滞不前。60.240.101.246 11:04, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- Mglovesfun is right. The decision to use standard headers was made collectively by many editors, including native speakers, many, including me were against it but we must follow. Whether you speak Chinese or not is irrelevant in this case. Please respect the rules. Your contributions are welcome but they must follow standards, otherwise you'll create work for others. I'm sure you will learn quickly if you try. --Anatoli 11:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- Here are nice tutorial User:Tooironic/Chinese entry basic, User:Tooironic/Chinese translation. Some other rules: Wiktionary:About Sinitic languages.
- I'm Wjcd BTW. Wiktionary really hasn't changed. The ridiculous rules are still in place and the Pinyinisation advocate is still actively present. 60.240.101.246 11:21, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) Welcome back! I know you have good knowledge but it takes a bit more patience and flexibility. Things do change but they have to follow a pattern. --Anatoli 11:25, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- As for the abc123/Engirst, he keeps avoiding all blocks but the pinyin entries have been standardised and patrols can delete his entries if they don't follow standards. He has changed a bit (a bit more cooperative) but he is now pushing his Chinglish entries, as you know. --Anatoli 11:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- The only solution is to get rid of all Pinyin entries (not permitted at zh/ja/ko.wikt). Same goes for Japanese Romaji (not permitted at zh/ja/ko.wikt) and Korean romanisations (not permitted at zh/ja/ko.wikt), but I rarely edit those so don't really care. Because Pinyin has orthography rules and under those rules, forms directly importing Latin script names, such as "Thames Hé" are actually considered acceptable. I get irritated when I see Pinyin sentences and articles. 60.240.101.246 11:34, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
- That's an arguable point about pinyin. It all depends on the publisher or whoever uses it. Spacing, capitalisation, punctuation, even the actual tone marks and tone numbers are used rather incosistently but get better. Forms like "Thames Hé" do exist, for example when teaching Mandarin, person's or place names may not be taught in the first lessons (names are notoriously hard), so they will often be written in English - Tom, Jane, Mark, etc. even if the rest is entirely in Chinese characters. If they ARE written in hanzi, eg. as 汤姆, 珍, 马克, then it's only right to transcribe them as "Tāngmǔ", "Zhēn", "Mǎkè" in pinyin. Looks weird, I agree but pinyin is not a language. Here we transcribe each Chinese characters. "Thames Hé" is to match "Thames河", not "泰晤士河". For "泰晤士河" the correct pinyin is "Tàiwùshì hé". --Anatoli 23:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing citations. I did my translation in a hurry at work, while the boss wasn't looking. LOL. --Anatoli 06:05, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
- The last translation is not visible somehow? --Anatoli 06:07, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
- ? Visible here. 60.240.101.246 06:32, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
- I can see them now. --Anatoli 10:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
good work
editGood work on the new Mandarin entries - very well done. :) ---> Tooironic 10:29, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. 60.240.101.246 10:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
- I second what Tooironic says. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:32, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
- Just take note that adjectives don't need to be preceded by "to be" (on Wiktionary, "to" is used for verbs) and we usually separate translations by semi-colons (;) not commas (,). Thanks again for your contributions - I noticed you're going through a lot of my back log. :) ---> Tooironic 22:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
- OK, although I think many Chinese adjectives function like verbs (書貴得要命) and that colons may be effective in separating out some less closely-related senses (as in 再來), but anyway.. 60.240.101.246 23:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
- I think you mean commas? I get what you're saying, though - the line between verbs and adjectives in Chinese is often blurred - but either way we need to maintain consistency on Wiktionary in terms of the way we define parts of speech. ---> Tooironic 04:27, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
- OK, although I think many Chinese adjectives function like verbs (書貴得要命) and that colons may be effective in separating out some less closely-related senses (as in 再來), but anyway.. 60.240.101.246 23:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
"men" as classifier
editIf "men" is a classifier, why not add that information to the definitions at the "men" entries? There's nothing there about it being a classifier right now. [1] 71.66.97.228 07:44, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
- I'd love to, but frankly, I'm quite confused by the format of character entries. The current format, with definition-containing "Translingual", and Japanese, Korean first, and then Mandarin, seemed to suggest that a Chinese character inherently has meanings, and that it's because of the inherent meanings which enabled them to be used in multiple languages, which is of course false. A Chinese character has no inherent meaning if it weren't associated with any language. It's only the representation of speech which provided them with meanings. Almost all Chinese characters were used originally to write some stage of Chinese, and so its coinage and usage fundamentally reflect how Chinese at that time was spoken. I used to edit character entries, but subsequent changes at 目 and 帅 had me puzzled. As a result, I'm confused as to whether the etymology I added to 字 really belonged to that page, because there's no "Chinese" section there, and the so-called "translingual etymology" appeared to suggest the character coinage was independent of language (as if all languages below pronounce the words "word" (字) and "child" (子) alike!). 60.240.101.246 10:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
We can only do our best in the "Translingual" section. Yes, the characters were also used by Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese, but they were mostly invented in China, by Chinese people, and usually had original meanings that are common across all four languages. Those are probably the definitions that should be placed under "Translingual," just to give the basics about the character and its basic meaning(s). But most of the focus should be on the definitions in the specific languages. So, any difficulty in dealing with the "Translingual" section would have no bearing at all, nor hinder any editor from adding accurate information to the definition in the Mandarin section at "men" stating that it is a classifier for languages (and similar things). 71.66.97.228 20:44, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
- Well, not if they are subject to unexplained removal like this. 60.240.101.246 06:19, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand that removal, especially since it was not explained. I would check on that with the person who removed all that information. 71.66.97.228 06:21, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I assume you've found Category:Requests for etymology (Mandarin); that's great! 71.66.97.228 07:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
You created an entry for 忐忑. You are awesome. ---> Tooironic 11:56, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
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