Yes, the less peurile version of me would have gone for doing that title the other way round, but it may attract a bit more attention, so live with it.
I’ve mentioned my struggles with learning Chinese, and this ‘ere instalment comes from a genuine series of events which prompted me to take this particular road this afternoon.
Before you check-out, let me explain. It has nothing to do with baseball, but I reckon more people out here will show interest if I include a few shots of one of this island’s most famous sportsmen. Okay. Wang is the pinyin of the Chinese character 王. It translates as king. Hence: King – Wang. This way, it’s not quite as amusing for teenagers (or peurile old gits), but there you go. I don’t make up this stuff, you know?
Right, now I have established, or at least explained, that you can trust me on this, I’m going to briefly explain the issue, but before I do, I should warn anyone wishing to take umbrage (and it happened last time I dared venture into the murky world of how the language is rather illogical, as far as I am concerned [think TaiPei vs TaiBei]), I’m simply highlighting how I’m struggling to make sense of one of the major languages on this planet.
Anyway, I raced my bike the other day. It was an event held over two days, in fact, out of a town not far from here, and I’ve ridden several other races from the same town over recent years, so I should have made this connection before. In fact, I have thought about it on many an occasion, but it has always slipped my mind. The town in question is notable for the production of mangoes; it goes by the name of YuJing, or 玉井, which appears to translate as Jade Well.
The more quick-witted and/or eagle-eyed among you may have already guessed at the point I am about to, erm…, labour.
玉 looks pretty similar to 王 – right? Save for the little mark in the bottom right corner, they would appear to be close relatives in the canon of Chinese characters. Not a chance. See above. Wang = King. Yu = Jade. They sound nothing like each other and have nothing similar in their meaning. Now, I should qualify this by acknowledging that English is full of words which look similar but mean something different. Just a simple example, because it includes an apostrophe, (not entirely unlike that little mark in little Wang’s bottom corner), would be its and it’s. Entirely different meanings on account of a little ‘, but here’s the major difference: English has an alphabet, and sounds can be deduced from the letters. Of course there are plenty of exceptions and daft rules or non-rules, (and for balance, I’d happily argue that English is a much more difficult language to learn), but at least there’s a clue if you happen to be familiar with the 26 letters of the alphabet. Chinese has no such alphabet, and there’s nothing in a word to give any indication of its pronunciation, nor indeed the tone (extremely important in Chinese). Everything has to be memorised. Everything. So, why not make two words which look almost identical have something in common to help morons like me who cannot remember what he had for breakfast this morning? A little something. The sound? The meaning? Go on, gimme a chance. Please!
I don’t know, but it strikes me that a few thousand years ago, that Professor Mandarin was a bit of a tease; a bit of a bastard; a bit of a cunning 王ker! Anything to stop the outsider making sense of his wonderful language. Come to think of it, I suppose he was pretty astute.
太好了! (Great! Literally, too good!)
[Ha! There’s another. 太 – Tai (too). 大 – Da (good) Bastards. 😉 ]
2020 - A Year of Perfect Vision 