shi

[xuechengfeng]

this word makes me the most mad out of any i've learned so far.

is it really necessary to have so many variations of it?!?! in my first year of chinese , i've probably learned 10-20 character versions already, and i'm sure there are many, many more.

any idea of # of shi's?

any other words like this i should know that will make me cry in the future?

[galitonwu]

which word, 是 ？

[Meng Lelan]

Heh heh - just open your dictionary to "shi" and count them all!

[xuechengfeng]

not just 是

all versions of shi1, shi2, shi3, shi4, etc.

[Quest]

xuechengfeng, that is Chinese. numerous homonyms. that's why (again) chinese would be confusing without characters.

[ala]

haha Mandarin shi is nothing. you still have 4 tonal differentiations.

What is in Mandarin's four possible tone combinations of ci, chi, chu, shi, shu, zi, ru might all simply be zi (with English z) in Shanghainese, and they are all in the same tone, since z is voiced and there's only one tone for all voiced initials. Think about the number of characters with the pronunciation zi in Shanghainese. The good thing is that zi by itself can only mean "tree", "to be" (copula), "word", the chess piece (士); every other usage of zi in vernacular Shanghainese occurs in a polysyllabic word (besides surnames). This tendency of Shanghainese to be polysyllabic makes getting rid of Chinese characters also possible for SH.

For example--

Mandarin: 我有事。

Shanghainese: 我 有得 事体。(Wo youtach Zithi.)

[skylee]

My very common dictionary lists 18 shi1, 19 shi2, 8 shi3 and 45 shi4, making a total of 90.

Don't cry so soon. For ji, it lists 43 ji1, 35 ji2, 14 ji3 and 49 ji4 (total 141). Don't you think it is good fun?