Re: Chinese dictation

From: Lee Sau Dan (danlee_at_informatik.uni-freiburg.de)
Date: 11/22/04 

Date: 22 Nov 2004 23:54:18 +0800

>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Herring <junk@[127.0.0.1]> writes:

>> What are the difference that you think would necessitate a
>> radically different way of jotting down things?

    Richard> The differences between an alphabetic writing system and
    Richard> a character-based one, of course. If I'm hurriedly
    Richard> jotting down an English sentence, I cn omit sm vwls nd
    Richard> fill them in later. Can you do that sort of ad-hoc
    Richard> shorthand in Chinese?

Why not? We can jot down the key words and then fill in the
prepositions and various particles later. I don't think that's a
difficult skill, is it?

    Richard> What I'm asking, if it still isn't clear to you, is how
    Richard> you do it with a character-based system. Is this really
    Richard> so hard?

No. We can simply "borrow" homonymous characters, correcting them
later on.

    Richard> For alphabetic writing systems, there's spelling.
>> But the spelling often doesn't transcribe the sounds, as in
>> the case of English.

    Richard> Yes, so what?

That's the point. Both Chinese and English writings systems are
mnemonic. What you do with the English script, we often do with the
Chinese script in a similar way. There is nothing magical.

>> How do you write [huz sOrd] in English?

    Richard> I don't know. Please spell it for me.

So, you can't do a dictation? You should then first ask the English
speakers who can dictate, how they do it.

>> How can you use a 5-vowel alphabet (or 6 if you include "y") to
>> write English, which has more than a dozen of distinctive
>> vowels?

    Richard> What has that to do with anything?

That means, the spelling is pretty mnemonic in nature.

    Richard> I'm trying to _write_ these words, not pronounce them.

We also write our Chinese words in our Chinese script. So, what's the
difference?

    Richard> For Chinese, what's the equivalent?
>> Chinese is a very mnemonical script, just like English.
>> English spellings show _hints_ about the pronunciations; so
>> does Chinese characters.

    Richard> Yes, so? I'm not asking about pronunciation but about
    Richard> writing.

So, we write our words in our script, which is mnemonic. You write
English words in the English script, which is also mnemonic. What's
the real difference?

>> We don't count the strokes when we write or dictate.

    Richard> So how do you resolve ambiguities?

>> Do you count the length of words when you write English?

    Richard> Only when doing crosswords. When dictating, I don't need
    Richard> to, because I can refer to the individual letters of the
    Richard> word when necessary.

We do the same for Chinese. We can refer to the components and basic
stroke shapes of Chinese characters, when the need arises. That's how
we teach people on the other side of the telephone to write characters
they don't know how to write (which happens most frequently with
"difficult" personal names). Treat it as the Chinese analogy of
"spelling".

If I didn't know the Latin script, you'd have a hard time explaining
me what "spelling" is and how it works in your script. Similarly,
since you don't know Chinese characters, it's difficult to explain to
you how this "spelling a Chinese character" works. It has things to
do with the structure (the characters, despite common belief in the
West, aren't arbitrary shapes, but are a well structured set of
symbols). If you don't know the structure, it's hard to explain it to
you.

    Richard> Come on, this isn't a difficult question. When people
    Richard> dictate Chinese,

We write the words we hear. Just like you do with English. This
isn't an answer so difficult to understand.

    Richard> how do they resolve homophones when the context isn't
    Richard> enough?

We know the meaning of the words, and we know which characters mean
the same thing and have the same pronunciations as these words. So,
we know which characters to use to write what we hear. The very same
thing that you do with "sea" vs. "see", "fair" vs. "fare", "soul"
vs. "sole", etc. I can't see any _radical_ difference, except the
mystery about the Chinese script that you have in mind. Once you
learn how it works, it's no longer mysterious. 

-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     §õ¦u´°                          ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

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