Two days ago, I received this message from a colleague in China: Not sure if this should be a badge of honor or a disappointment, but a few days ago Language Log got blocked in China. (Source — GreatFire.org: Language Log is 100% censored) This caps off a miserable year where we also lost Wikipedia […]
Apollo Wu, who was a long-term translator at United Nations headquarters, sent me the following note: Dear Victor, I wish to acquire a language tool for two way conversions between Pinyin and Hanzi texts. Do you know if any do exist? I sometimes write Pinyin texts and want to convert them to characters for some […]
The vast majority of people, both inside and outside of China, input characters on cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices via Hanyu Pinyin or other phonetic script. Naturally, this has had a huge impact on the relationship between users of the Chinese script and their command of the characters, since they are no longer […]
I called this old post to the attention of Yijie Zhang, a true native of Peking / Beijing / Beizhing: "How they say 'Beijing' in Beijing" (8/18/08) Yijie's reply: I totally agree with you! There is indeed an enormous amount of slurring and swallowing of consonants in Pekingese, which is sometimes referred to as "tūn […]
Peter Golden sent me the following video, "Luisa Tam says: Let's put more HK English on the map", South China Morning Post (10/23/18):
On being ugly and poor, with an added note on consumerism. Every so often, for one reason or another, somebody creates a completely new Chinese character. Here's the latest:
We have often noted how much easier it is to learn Chinese now than it was just ten or twenty years ago. That's because of all the new digital resources that have become available in recent years: "The future of Chinese language learning is now" (4/5/14) "Learning languages is so much easier now" (8/18/17) Of […]
Currently on the internet in China, there is a flurry of discussion on characters that are mirror, flipped, reversed, or inverted images of each other. Here are some of the examples that have been cited (except for the last two sets, which were added by me to illustrate other types of minimal differences): chǎng 厂 […]
Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫 (1254-1322) is one of the most famous painters in the history of Chinese art. Many of his priceless works still exist, and he was even honored by having a 167 kilometer-diameter feature on Mercury (132.4° west, 87.3° south), the "Chao Meng-Fu crater", named after him. When Zhao Mengfu's name came up in a discussion on […]
From David Moser: 8-year-old in Beijing pens heart-warming letter to dad's boss asking for time off in summer. Have you got a good work/life balance? #China pic.twitter.com/5OYJchuUuh — The Chairman's Bao (@TheChairmansBao) July 28, 2017
Madeline K. Sofia, "'Baby Dragon' Found In China Is The Newest Species Of Dinosaur" (NPR, 5/9/17) clarifies the origin of Beibeilong sinensis, the newest dinosaur species: In 1993, farmers in China found a Beibeilong embryo and eggs in Henan province. The fossils were sold to an American fossil company called The Stone Co. and brought […]
[This is a guest post by David Moser] I took a group of my students, who are studying the Chinese medical system, to a yǎngshēngguǎn 养生馆 [VHM: "health center / club" — centered on TCM = Traditional Chinese Medicine], which are very common in Beijing. I wanted them to see and experience firsthand the kinds […]
Many Language Log readers have been complaining about the absence of any recognition of April Fool's Day at this site. I can only lament your lack of perceptiveness. There have been pranks all over the place and you simply didn't see them because you are too gullible. The primary linguistic one was Victor Mair's amusing […]
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