Holy shit I laughed really freaking loud at this.
[Funny] Funny Pictures! (Keep em clean, folks!)
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I assume since it has the hanzi 非洲狮 at the top and the pinyin "Fei Zhou Shi" below it, the pinyin is there for the older generation that may not be able to read hanzi. This isn't exactly a rich, well-educated area of Henan we're talking about here. Having three English words below the Hanzi would probably be incredibly less helpful to the people that probably actually go to this zoo.
We're talkin about the same thing, right?
We're talkin about the same thing, right?
I think we are. Probably.
What are the odds of an older person being unable to read Chinese characters but being able to read the English phonetics though?
But...pinyin isn't English phonetics, is it? We're not using English sounds. We're still using Chinese sounds, but using roman letters to represent the sounds. Is not pinyin simply considered a romanization of Chinese in the same say Romonji is to Japanese characters or Romanja is for Korean? A Chinese person who can't read Hanzi could probably read the pinyin and know what the hanzi means because 非=fei 州=zhou 狮=shi. Certainly there are much, much fewer words/sounds to memorize Even without the tonal markings on the pinyin, consider they would be standing in front of a lion cage, and they certain know what 非洲狮 sounds like in spoken Chinese, so simply reading it would tell them what the characters mean, while "African Lion" would give them no help at all.
What I mean is, someone in China who hasn't been educated enough to read Chinese probably wouldn't be educated enough to read English, wouldn't you say?
North_Ranger
Staff member
Guys, you're overloading this thread with linguistics! Quickly, someone post a funny picture before Noam Chomsky show up!
I think the thing that's rubbing me the wrong way about your posts is your terming "pinyin" to be English words or phonetics. This is inaccurate, because even using the same latin character you would in English, the sound would be different in Chinese
See: "C" Cao, Ci, Cu
"X" Xiao, Xiu, Xiang
"Zh" Zhong, Zheng, Zhe
Even "Sh" which is palatal in Mandarin, as opposed to being more of a alveolar fricative in English.
That being said, after doing a little research, the use of pinyin, at least in regards to adults, is used as a tool to improve fluency among those who might have been previously illiterate. Perhaps the combination of Hanzi/Pinyin on signage (and I know for a fact that's its used all through the interstate((province?)) system) is simply that--to encourage literacy. Having an adult learn pinyin is fairly easy and through pinyin, they can increase character knowledge. You'll find Hanzi/pinyin combos @ schools often as well, because pinyin is used to introduce character pronunciation to children. It's also possible it rubs you the wrong way because while hanyu pinyin has been used in the mainland for over half a century, it's only fairly recently spread out from China to places like Malaysia/Singapore/US/Canada and only was officially adopted in Taiwan as recently as 2009 (but then again, you're a pro, so maybe not). I'm personally a huge fan of the system, but I usually caution foreign learners of Mandarin to learn how to read hanzi as soon as possible and get rid of their reliance on pinyin asap.
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
You think that goose picture is funny, but it's probably more terrifying (and true).
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I scrolled down so quick to make that first comment I didn't notice the picture after it. Holy shit.
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I scrolled down so quick to make that first comment I didn't notice the picture after it. Holy shit.
Hefty bag full of vegetable soup seems like a valid analogy.
I also think the train one is probably the student subverting the uselessness of many math word problems, not using a bad analogy. I applaud it, too.
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”
-Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The larger list is hilarious:
http://bethanyamandamiller.wordpres...st-analogies-written-by-high-school-students/
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist.
Also from that site, "most, if not all, of them are actually submissions to a Washington Post contest." And something about the difference between similes and analogies.
http://bethanyamandamiller.wordpres...st-analogies-written-by-high-school-students/
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist.
Also from that site, "most, if not all, of them are actually submissions to a Washington Post contest." And something about the difference between similes and analogies.
He began to 'worry' about his weight.
BananaHands
Staff member
I wasn't an asshole when I played, I just wasn't very good!
Mooseknuckle.
GasBandit
Staff member
I read THONX BEB in Kat Dennings's voice.
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