Quote: (12-15-2008 03:43 AM)speakeasy Wrote:
Quote: (09-03-2008 02:59 PM)TheMoonMonst3r Wrote:
Ive been to almost every country in Europe, all over Asia, a bit of Africa, and Ive found no better place than 台灣, Taiwan.
Here's a question I've always wondered. How the hell do you type Chinese characters on a keyboard like you did above? Since there are tens of thousands of them, it's not like you can have a keyboard that holds all their characters. How do Chinese keyboards work? And then even before they had computers and there was nothing but typewriters, it's hard to imagine that Chinese editors were typing up newspaper stories with a typewriter full of 30,000 Chinese characters.
Sorry I didn't get to this earlier, I just saw it.
I have pinyin on my computer. Pinyin is the roman alphabet representation of chinese sounds. A basic intro: chinese words and written characters are all only 1 syllable each. They also have tones which completely change the meaning of the word. For example, ni3 is different than ni2.
To type the character, just type 'ni' and then a list of characters shows up. You find which one you want and then select it. ni = 你 = you. hao = 好 = good. Also, it kinda helps you. The way to say 'hello' in chinese is literally 'you good', which in chinese pinyin is 'ni hao'. Just type 'nihao' and both characters automatically show up, so it kinda guesses what you wanted to say and makes it easy。。。 你好! 大家好! 你們很好! Really easy.
But, granted, you have to already know the character you are trying to look up. If you don't know what the character looks like, only the pinyin, you have to use a dictionary to help you. The most commonly used one (it's freeware) is a cool little program called dimsum. Word!
Edit: btw, chinese characters are completely fucking fascinating and there's so much logic behind it. For example, the word I just typed, 好 = good, is made up of two characters. If u look closely u can see them. The first one is 女 = girl. The second is 子 which means boy. Boy + girl = good.
Also, take a look at this word: 安 It kinda looks like 女 but on top is a representation of a roof. 安 means peaceful. So a woman under a roof means peace.
Another.... 日 means sun (kinda looks like a sun if you stretch your imagination). 木 means tree (kinda looks like a tree). When you combine the sun in the tree you get 東 which means east, for a graphical representation of the sun rising in the trees.
Another......... 木 as I said before means tree. What would forest be then? Many trees together.... this is forest: 森 & 林
Cool huh