A simple explanation of Chinese characters

Re:A simple explanation of Chinese characters by yen223 on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @07:30AM (#10743814)

Tones are to native English speakers what L's and R's are to native Japanese speakers. Because tones don't carry semantic information in English, we tend to ignore it, which leads to English speakers sounding really weird when speaking any Chinese dialect.

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Re:A simple explanation of Chinese characters by philh on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @09:16AM (#10744345)

Unless we're talking about different things - tones carry semantic information, just not the same kind as in Chinese. They indicate things like "I'm asking a question" and "I'm being sarcastic".

This does make it hard for English speakers learning Chinese, but I don't think it's quite the same as L/R in Japanese.

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Re:A simple explanation of Chinese characters by talideon on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @08:01AM (#10743954)

It's not good to confuse your mother (mā) with your horse (mǎ).

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