The Chinese Dictionary - Fry's Planet Word - Series 1 - Episode 4 - BBC Two

[magicmike323]

When he was explaining the dictionary, my brain turned off.

[ufoczka]

@ploavit it's exactly the same as japanese kanji dictionaries..

[helloalohaaa]

it wasnt that hard if you started learning it since you were young :)

[maxiewawa]

The Chinese guy's accent is the same as Stephen Fry's

[Seddius]

wood

wood wood + woodwood = forest :p

[MrAmalsam]

I am so glad that I am english.

[Lenigmaa]

Mad it all looks so confusing to me...

[Sharingan266]

I love how in the beginning you hear the woman in the background yelling "Shrimp Dumplings!"

but thats just cantonese...

[goddess026]

woooooow o.O

[helix254]

and i thought french was hard :/

[wizztay]

logic.

[Nightberrii]

so some kanji do means the same in japanese and chinese, cuz tree is drawn the same way ... and i guess fire, sun as well!

[TakahisaShinoku]

@Nightberrii The Japanese writing system comes from the Chinese; they use a lot of the same words (mostly old Chinese, not simplified), and some they have made up over the centuries. They have Chinese ways of being read and their Japanese ways of being read.

[Nightberrii]

@TakahisaShinoku i know that lol, but the meaning of some of those words is also the same (of-course the propitiation is different), like i said before kanji sun, tree or fire means the same thing in chinese and in japanese!

[XempireX18]

this is such a powerful tool, i bet a lot of thoughts have been put in it.

[Austin101123]

Facinating how many symbols there are and they have still managed to categorize it into a dictionary. Yes, it takes 5x as long as English, but still pretty good.

[jaydenkayden]

thats not the moon poem is it?

[vidjren]

@jaydenkayden Yes it is, by the great poet of Tang Dynasty - Li Bai, titled 'Jing Ye Si' in pinyin. It's a poem talking about homesick.

[jaydenkayden]

@vidjren yep figured as much....just feels like its overused.....if there ever was an recomendation for any asian poem it would always be that one

[ploavit]

This is indeed quite interesting. Makes the Kanji and Harigama I learn for Japanese look easy...

[TakahisaShinoku]

@ploavit The kanji is still an arsehole to learn though haha Kana/Hiragana is just a window in!

[Nightberrii]

@TakahisaShinoku yea, but unless, but kanji still are necessary if you don't want to be taken as a someone in child's mind or somewhat more educated than a middle school student!

[TakahisaShinoku]

@Nightberrii Mm. You need Kanji to get by, you can't survive on kana alone.

[Nightberrii]

@TakahisaShinoku you can survive, but you still need kanji if u want be taken srsly!

[jaylias]

@ploavit yeah, I can't imagine having to learn all those characters :| the Korean alphabet (Hangul) is very easy to learn, even most Koreans don't bother learning the Hanja!

[joe513]

Fascinating