Difference between written and spoken Mandarin.

[skylee]

In the film "My Fair Lady", Miss Doolittle greets everyone at that last party with "How do you do?"

[Shi Tong]

Trien, this is really interesting and helpful, thanks!!

Kenny, I agree that 之所以。。。是因为 are pretty commonly used IMO.. I think that it can seem quite "well spoken", but I think that's a good thing, personally.

= "Chu Nom"

actually should be 字喃 according to how it's pronounced.

Upon asking my wife, she said "oh, I thought you'd picked up that way of saying nan2ti3zi4 from class or something, so I thought it might be correct", so I had ruined my wife's mother tongue.

How embarrasing!!

delicious food

What's wrong with that? Some food I eat is delicious, and I would call it delicious food!!

"how do you do" to greet people, but it was introduced as a greeting in my junior school textbook.

Yeah, it's a pretty old school way for British people to greet each other.. I would say you'd require a rain coat, a pipe, a bowler hat and an umbrella to still be saying that.

Interestingly though, people in the UK dont say "you're welcome" when they're thanked, they generally say "that's alright", so that's another example of stuff which is said and not taught.

In the film "My Fair Lady", Miss Doolittle greets everyone at that last party with "How do you do?"

hahahaha.. sounds about right!!

[crazillo]

Sometimes their difference can be explained through traditional Chinese. Words like 非,没,不,勿 all have a negotional meaning, but today 不 and 没 are common. 非 is still important though, and in constructions like 非。。不可 you can still get its original grasp. Furthermore, 勿 is some kind of the written 不, like 勿抽烟!

Edited March 29, 2010 at 08:51 AM by crazillo

[Hofmann]

Failed to kill 文言 completely, they have. When it seeps into 白話文 they call it 書面語. ya srsly

[imron]

Who are they?

[Shi Tong]

勿

I think is used in some older dialects still, like fujianhua (勿 instead of 没).

Now where does 無/无 come into it, since it's definition is "-less / not to have / no / none / not / to lack / un-"

I also thought that 勿 and 無 were the same character as a poyinzi....

ccoommpplliiccaatteeddd....

[creamyhorror]

Now where does 無/无 come into it, since it's definition is "-less / not to have / no / none / not / to lack / un-"

I also thought that 勿 and 無 were the same character as a poyinzi....

無 is "not existent" (akin to 沒有), 勿 is "do not [do something]" (akin to 不要). For example, 無作用 vs 请勿采花. I don't know if they have a direct etymological relation, but they're certainly not used the same way as far as I'm aware.

[Shi Tong]

Thanks.. interesting. I'll have to investigate further

[Hofmann]

勿 is a contraction of 毋之. It means the imperative "do not ... it." 無 is "have not." It is interesting that many negatives in Chinese had bilabial initials. According to my immediate resources, 無 and 勿 do not seem to be 同源字.

Who are they?

Whoever makes sense. What were you thinking?

[imron]

Whoever makes sense. What were you thinking?

The problem is that no-one really makes sense. You seemed to imply that there are people out kill off 文言文, but to me it seems the answer to the question of "who is killing off 文言文" is going to be something like "the majority of Chinese people since the early 1920s" (but in a passive, not necessarily an active way). 文言文 is dying not so much because someone or some group is trying to kill it, but rather because it is increasingly irrelevant to people's lives (same as how Latin died off over the years).

[Shi Tong]

Thanks Hoffman.. again, very interesting!!

I'm up to about 600 words now, so I'll definately have to revise these intricasies as I go!!