write all of the numbers on top of each other then scribble on them. does that look anything like zero? i don’t know kanji, i’m just understanding my own bad handwriting and trying to understand how they’d get there
Lmao, I just picked up learning Kanji again after like 3 years (never had time in grad school)
It is rough. But fierce repetition helps a lot. I can see the characters for “read a book” whenever I close my eyelids now hahaha
Once something turns into muscle memory you don’t forget.
“Three, Two, One… NOTHING”
scratches head in Mandarin
No one has mentioned special 2, 两! It’s only for counting certain things.
I mean… in English we also use different words, such as “pair” and “dozen”, for some specific numbers.
that’s because the english language numbers are based off of base 12, not base 10
Two guys carrying a table?
What about accounting numbers? They’ll make anyone cry
only if you have to do them by hand or hunt pennies. other than that they’re simple/
You don’t divide by 0 in Chinese because he’ll jump off the page and kick your ass.
Japanese enters the chat:
Left: numeral; middle: regular writing; final: certain formal and non-forgery usecases.
または in point 7 means either variant is OK
The last line says one can use the modern yen sign as well (though some would argue that it’s bad manners in at least some situations, but I have no dog in that fight).
万 = 10k. Several countries use both 1k and 10k units (Japan traditionally was on the 10k side but had a lot of influence so now we see both a lot. A used car price might be 130万円 or something ( = 1,300,000 yen)
数字 通常の漢字 金額で使う旧字体（大字） 0 零 零 1 一 壱 2 二 弐 3 三 参 4 四 肆 5 五 伍 6 六 陸 7 七 柒（または 漆） 8 八 捌 9 九 玖 10 十 拾 100 百 佰 1k 千 仟 万 万 萬 円 円 圓（もしくは「円」のまま）Chart from here that looks better: https://saiseich.com/business/kanji_kingaku/
We have a way of writing numbers in certain situations. Think of it like checks in the US where we write things in a certain way so that the numbers can’t be easily changed to increase the value or something.
I see, the right column is used because they share their Chinese reading 音読み with the numbers, that makes sense. I don’t know all of the Kanji, but the ones I know fit.
The concept of zero is scary, so it’s a wizard shooting lightning from all orifices. Makes sense.
I thought it was a ghost
Under the arms and from the butt are the orifices?
armpitussy
This got weird SO fast.
I was thinking it was so scary, it’s someone pissing themself
The Greeks felt the same - thankfully Eastern philosophy had a different take on it.
What about this one?
Listen here you little shit
I’m at a loss for words
I’m at a loss
e:f;b
How many gears is that?
Just enough to make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.
All of them.
11? Including reverse
<s>:.|:;</s>
-1
Is this Garfield Breast Reduction?
That’s the map of the forth level of the dungeon in “Vampires for Hire”.
1 = 壹 2 = 貳 3 = 參 4 = 肆 5 = 伍
These exist as well.
They’re used in places where numbers should NOT be forged(i.e. bank documents…)
This is how they got their numeric meanings btw.
So 伍 is not 5, but five.
correct
Their math homework must take forever
I don’t get 4. At least the kanji 4 looks very different
I guess the image is a lie and the Kanji are chosen by the reading and not because they contain the number kanji. It’s just that due to phonetic radicals, containing the number may give it the same reading.
Yeaaaah, I don’t know Chinese, but I’ve never seen a kanji of four horizontal lines, just 四 for 4
I never learned it as four lines. 四 was the way to do it. Maybe locally or something the hip kids are doing? Source: Mandarin professor ETA: I was a person of simplified Chinese though
A very Christmassy number, that 4. A Chrismas tree and the scaffolding to decorate it.
Does 0 have a shorthand character as well?
Can be written as 〇
I’m not sure about China but in Japan there’s 〇 which can be used like so: ハ〇〇円 to mean 800 yen, in a restaurant menu for example
It’s pretty complicated as-is so no.
Edit: clearly misunderstood the question. see below.
This reply makes no sense lol
Sorry, I misunderstood what shorthand meant. I thought the question was whether there’s a complex variant, like 一 → 臺 for 零.
I’m an ESL speaker, so please forgive me.
零 is the only character, as far as I know. 一, 二, … are not shorthands; they’re the original characters, while 臺 and other more complex forms are used only in certain situations where necessary.
Hope this is what the questions was about.
Oh, cool af! I got adviced to always write years with all 4 numbers not to allow forgeries
Three pigs
Two pigs
One pig
Zero pig ? Or zero pigs?
Honest question. Do we pluralize nouns of zero count? Or should they be singular?
It’s plural, but not because there are many pigs.
“How many pigs are there?” And answering with “There are no pigs” use the noun “pigs” in the same way. They are referring to the “pig” category or kind. When answering knowing the actual count, it’s a specific number or token.
“How many pigs are there?” And answering with “There are no pigs” use the noun “pigs” in the same way. They are referring to the “pig” category or kind. When answering knowing the actual count, it’s a specific number or token.
There are one pigs
there is one pig.
to be singular is the only non-plural state
“are” makes it plural
if the sentence had “is” instead, it would be singular: there is no pig
But they are asking with the number zero specifically. “There is zero pig” is not how we speak.
good point. “there is zero [noun]” doesn’t work whether the noun is plural or not. only when you use “no” instead of “zero”
i’ve only ever spoken english and it still confounds me. why do we say “hands” but we don’t say “foots”?
why don’t “good” and “food” rhyme?
why does “feed” become “fed,” but “weed” becomes “weeded”? meanwhile “wed” and “wedded” mean the same thing
lol
If you insist on “is” then “zero” doesn’t work. But if you use “are” the sentence, “There are zero pigs” is totally cromulant. That’s because “pigs” in that sentence is addressing the category.
In English you use plural for zero count. I have zero pigs. There are 0 cows.
And also it’s not just zero, plural is for literally anything other than (positive) one: 2.3 pigs, -1 pigs, 0.2 pigs, etc.
Sure, when you mean “zero” it may look a bit excessive. But it’s quite adequate if you want to express “Void, the Dark Realm of Nothingness and End of All Things”.
ps: Glory to ZA̡͊͠͝LGΌ.
Yeah líng 零 is pretty annoying as a learner of the language.
The top character is yŭ 雨 which means rain. Confusingly, this is the semantic component - the part that contains the meaning of the character. Explained below.
The bottom character líng 令 means order/command as a noun and verb. This doesn’t add meaning, it is the phonetic component: basically a pronunciation cue.
It originally meant “light rain”/“falling in drops, like rain”, actually. It began being used to mean “fragments” or “leftover part”, then as “remainder” in the mathematical sense. Then, eventually, to mean 0. Another form of líng is 霝 which means raindrops. It has 3 kŏu 口 (“mouth”) characters on the bottom to visually represent drops.
So, like a lot of Chinese characters, it really only makes sense when you understand the etymology - and even then it’s kind of a stretch
The fact that such intricate characters can even be displayed in such tiny fonts is nothing short of obscene lol, I wonder if chinese phones all have that Assistive / Readability Mode where the text is enlarged and high contrast by default, because I can’t imagine reading texts like that haha
As someone who’s learned Japanese a bunch: once you’re very familiar with the symbols, you don’t look at every little line to determine what character it is, just the general shape. The characters are built by combining a discrete and smaller set of “drawings” (called radicals). So the space of possible characters is limited to those combinations. On top of that, not every legal combination actually exists. You won’t suddenly run into 鬱, but with a different radical in the bottom left, unless you’re playing a trivia game of “spot the mistake” (which can even be difficult for native speakers, just in the same way it can be difficult for native English speakers to spell some words they’d have no trouble reading.)
I would wager some misplaced lines wouldn’t hurt readabiliity much in the same way we, in English aren’t usually struggling to read a sentence even if some of the letters are swapped/missing or a “the” is duplicated, etc. I’m sure you’ve seen examples of that before in English (or your own native language if it isn’t English).
Of course in some instances, even a tiny difference can change the meaning of a sentence entirely. This is also true both in English and logographic languages. Luckily our brains do a lot of subconscious work here too and figure out where special attention is and isn’t needed by using context and knowledge about the writing system.
(Small caveat: of course, especially in languages, there are always exceptions to every rule. And also the brain can be tricked, intentionally or not, in a variety of ways.)
In OPs post, I see a stick figure guy pooping. Jack shit. Zero
Yeah it’s a visual metaphor - the emptiness of his bowels = the concept of zero shit in bowels
It actually originates from zero shits given.
Lil fella with smelly armpits and the buttsquirts?
well atleast this post + Comments taught me some Chinese.
And now an English lesson:
The past tense of teach is taught. Teached is not a word.
It’s not an officially recognized word, but you understood what they were saying, so it still functions the same as the “correct” word.
Thus nit haw english werks
Sure it is. I understood what you just said, therefore you successfully used the language. That is how English (and languages in general) works.
Now look ahead two steps and see how absurd that works out in practice. It’s not even a hypothetical, we’ve seen this time and time again throughout history. The internet doesn’t need dialect chains.
Yes, Language is a form of Communication and you and I have a Difference of opinion.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I understand my 3yo as well but that doesn’t mean they should continue to speak that way just because they can technically be understood.
Yes, but your 3yo isn’t a stranger on the internet that you’re condescending to, so the situation is a bit different, no?
I wasn’t condescending to anyone. I presume, based on the incorrect tense form of a very common English word, and the fact that they appreciated learning a bit of Chinese, they might appreciate some polite correction. Not everything has to carry a negative tone
Not entirely, because if I never corrected them they would be a stranger on the internet to SOMEONE talking that way eventually.
Ultimately the ability to understand something doesn’t make it correct and I get tired of the “language evolves” and “you understood it, right?” arguments because even if true we can also understand “me want job” and “John hungry” but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t both attempt to speak correctly and continue to learn.
I’m learning a second language and I would prefer to be corrected and speak naturally in it as much as possible rather than the bar simply being understood.
Japanese isn’t much better:
一、二、三… 四｡
It’s the same as in Chinese, so I wouldn’t expect it to be 😅
WHY JAPANESE PEOPLE?!
I want the whole version of that
Most comedians in Japan tend to be famous for 15 minutes and blow up for one schtick. If you want to see more variations on his theme just search his stage name (atsukiri jason) and stuff should come up.
Not why, memorize.
Memorize Japanese people?
Congrats on being the smart one in this thread. 😞
In Korean it’s not so bad: 한, 둘, 셋, 넷. Or 일, 이, 삼, 사. Yes there are two different types of numbers…
In Spanish it’s 1,2,3 and 0.
The fourth character he wrote means 4, not 0, though.
Why would he do that?
And then the other person doesn’t even tell us what 0 would be. So much disappointment in this thread.
Technically, I think that’s Arabic
No, I’ve studied Arabic and it’s actually ١,٢,٣ and ٠.
الله أبهى
Gracias.
De rien
Wait. I’ve played a lot of Fatal Frame, and they only signify the Zero Lens by its kanji, and it’s not that square shape. So now I’m confused…
Maybe its ghost folklore origins put it more on the Chinese side?
That’s because 四 is 4
In Japanese they also use 零 (rei) for zero. Or 〇 (maru) or ゼロ (zero)
Chinese characters are seen in Japanese media as stylistic choice, yes.
The ones I typed are proper Japanese Kanji, which are derived and very simplified forms of Chinese characters. Even more so than Simplified Chinese.
kanji are not a stylistic choice, but an integral part of the writing system
also I think you mean the syllabaries (hiragana, katakana) are ultimately derived from chinese characters, japanese kanji are largely the same as chinese hanzi
You misunderstood me because that’s not what I was saying.
If there are Chinese characters in a Japanese game, they’re there for the visual appeal of them… unless they’re trying to actually teach Chinese, which I doubt the Fatal Frame series (horror) is doing.
when you say “Chinese characters” do you mean kyuujitai? all kanji are chinese characters, that’s what 漢字 literally means
I think they mean Ateji/当て字, when they’re used phonetically just to represent something as foreign or for style. Like how sushi is 寿司, but the characters have nothing to do with sushi other than the pronunciation.
Of course, these are the exception. Kanji is integral to japanese writing and it’s a pain in the ass without them.
I wonder when kanji stop being Chinese characters in the same way that souvenir used by someone speaking English isn’t using a French word. Like characters with different variations in Japanese technically aren’t used (and weren’t ever used) in China, like 誤 vs 誤 (prob won’t show up right with the font on here but the Japanese component on the bottom right uses 六 without the top dot and Chinese uses 大). The kana were all derived from kanji as well, so could those be “chinese” characters? The etymology is obviously Chinese in the same way souvenir is French, but what does that really mean?
Dunno, maybe it’s mostly semantics, especially when trying to talk about it in English
to me, “Chinese characters” means a certain writing system that is used by several languages (and not just Japanese and Mandarin, but also Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese etc.), but doesn’t inherently belong to any one of them. So, in my opinion, Japanese variants or 国字 are totally valid Chinese characters.
whether kana are also Chinese characters is a very interesting question. I think the main thing that makes them distinct is the purpose they serve, as they no longer convey any meaning by themselves but are instead used to write language phonetically. but I wouldn’t be so sure when it comes to 万葉がな. although manyogana was used the same way as modern kana it retained the shape of chinese characters. so maybe it’s the combination of both the evolved shape + different purpose that makes kana distinct from kanji?
A) Kanji are Chinese characters.
B) Both languages simplified their characters, but Chinese was actually more aggressive in simplifying than Japanese, not the other way around.
For example, look at the character for turtle:
Traditional Chinese: 龜
Simplified Chinese: 龟
Japanese: 亀
