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Re:Are Any Words the Same in All Languages? by harimau777 on Thursday September 07, 2023 @10:55PM (#37428666)
Computer in Chinese is 电脑 (dian nao) literally "electric brain".
Re:Are Any Words the Same in All Languages? by nonsense_stream on Friday September 08, 2023 @12:15AM (#37429236)
This is inaccurate. Computer is “计算机” (computing machine),while “电脑” mostly refers to PC, even though they are sometimes used interchangeably the latter is distinctively narrower than "computer" while the former is equivalent.
Re:Are Any Words the Same in All Languages? by eloisius on Friday September 08, 2023 @01:39AM (#37429805)
And robot is 機器人, literally machine man. Mandarin is weird about loan words. Where the Japanese will gobble up any word and incorporate it into “Japanese,” Chinese goes through some complicated hoops to come up with a word etymologically rooted in Chinese. However, in practice everyone I know says “email” instead of 電子郵件.
Re:Are Any Words the Same in All Languages? by arthur2e5 on Friday September 08, 2023 @02:32AM (#37430182)
Japanese used to do this thing too -- back then Kanji was still the proper scholarly thing to use and scholars were the main contact to Western knowledge. In fact, a good number of Chinese words for Western concepts came from Japanese translations. 社会 society, 经济学 economy, 自由 liberty all came from Japanese translations.

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/漢語中的日語借詞

Re:Are Any Words the Same in All Languages? by skhr0680 on Friday September 08, 2023 @05:00AM (#37431245)
I think it's because Japan was the first to adopt western education. It's why people you wouldn't expect to be were educated in Japan, like the founder of the CPC or Chiang Kai Shek
Re:Are Any Words the Same in All Languages? by est on Friday September 08, 2023 @03:19AM (#37430542)
> come up with a word etymologically rooted in Chinese

So here's an interesting point: etymologically, Chinese is the only evolving language other than English.