wang4 or wang4ji4 for "forget"?

[Ferno]

I didn't know that a 2 syllable form was in use - obviously it must be to resolve ambiguity, but does anyone know which situations require the 2 syllable form and in which the 1 syllabl form will suffice?

thanks

[Kong Junrui]

Well, my dictionary lists both 忘 and 忘记 under "forget," and WaKan defines 忘 as "to forget, to overlook, to neglect," and 忘记 as just "to forget."

I suppose they're the same, but maybe there's some cases that you'd use one or the other to make speaking it less akward or something.

[Ferno]

hmm

of course there's other words too i

e "song" either ge1 or ge1qu3

in that last case I hear a lot of alternation in speech ie:

zhe4 shou3 ge1...blah blah blah...zhe4 shou3 ge1.... blah blah blah... zhe4 shou3 ge1qu3.

[HashiriKata]

Two things I can think of off hand:

- The double-syllable words tend to occur in a more formal / written style or context.

- The choice of a double or single sometimes depends on the rhythm and on other words surrounding it: the double tends to require a double companion, for example.

[Quest]

obviously it must be to resolve ambiguity

No, that's not true. I think you are influenced by what you've read elsewhere about the historical development of Chinese and the transition from monosyllabic to polysyllabic, but that's only true to a portion of the words, and whether that change was to "resolve ambiguity" is still debatable. Many of these "double syllable forms" actually existed thousands of years ago. Single syllable forms are often abbreviations of the longer forms to speed up speech. Not the other way around! Multi-syllable forms are more often than not the proper forms (except some of the ones with ~ 子). They are not invented to resolve ambiguity as much as the single-syllables are invented to resolve redundancy.

[Ferno]

hmm Quest I was going to type up a large post but I stopped because I'm not sure about your meaning. 1 syllable words changing into 2 syllable words to resolve ambiguity vs 2 syllable words being shortened to 1 syllable words to quicken speech doesn't really change the fact that 2 syllable words are still needed to avoid ambiguity, right?

an Olympic example: if the Chinese olympic slogan (One World, One Dream) was written in classical monosyllabalic Chinese it would be:

yī shì yī mèng

which no one would understand... so a more vernacular slogan was chosen:

tóng yī ge shìjiè, tóng yī ge mèngxiǎng

with shifts from single to double syllables as indicated

[Quest]

an Olympic example: if the Chinese olympic slogan (One World, One Dream) was written in classical monosyllabalic Chinese it would be:

yī shì yī mèng

That's English.

One World, One Dream

yī shì, yī mèng

yī shì: means one life.

(also note that classical Chinese was a different language, pronunciations, grammar, vocabulary were all different. Speaking Chinese in English grammar wouldn't make much sense either.)

1 syllable words changing into 2 syllable words to resolve ambiguity vs 2 syllable words being shortened to 1 syllable words to quicken speech doesn't really change the fact that 2 syllable words are still needed to avoid ambiguity, right?

As I said that might be true for a portion of the words in the historical sense, I am not arguing the fact that the historical transition to 2 syllable for some of the words had happened. But, most people don't think of it that way. Which ever form people use, they never think about using "a 2 syllable form" to resolve "ambiguity". If two words mean the same, people would use whichever one they thhink of at the moment they speak.

[amego]

Double syllable forms are more natural and register quickly to the listener. Let's take a look at the body parts. (Sorry pronunciations are in Singapore Mandarin)

Eyes: 眼睛 yan3 jing1, 睛 here is redundant, the more basic term should be 目 mu4 (looks like an eye rotated 180 degrees)

Eyebrows: 眉毛 me2 mao2

Nose: 鼻子 bi2 zi3 子 here has no meaning

Mouth: 嘴巴 zui3 ba1 巴 here is meaningless, more basic word should be 口 kou3 (looks like mouth right)

Ears: 耳朵 er3 duo1 朵 is a counter word for flowers and clouds, it's got to do with the odd shape of ears.

Words like 之，巴，然，子 are all used for this purpose and have no real meaning.

之: 总之，。。。

巴:嘴巴，盐巴，尾巴，。。。

然: 不然，虽然，突然，忽然，既然,。。。(too many)

子: 胡子，兔子，狮子，。。。

Also, some words exist in a pair and often just in that pair, often looking alike.

继续, 尴尬，峥嵘，really too many

All in all, give any word and the chance of it existing in a pair is extremely high, be it verbs, adjectives,animals, anything at all, because that's the way in Chinese

[Altair]

Ferno, I would like to reinforce some of things that Quest and Hashirikata have said. The "ambuity" of single character words and the role they play in the language can be misunderstood. There are many situations where the single character word of a pair is required and many were the two-syllable word is required. Sometimes both can be used. Sometimes the meanings are all slightly different.

English really tends to work differently, but the term "sitcom" might suggest a rough analogy. "Sitcom" comes form "situation comedy." Although "sit" and "com" have identifiable meanings, they cannot be used independently in these particular meanings. Nor can one mix the two pairs and say either "sit comedy" or "situation com." In other contexts, both "sit" and "com" have very definite meanings that are different from those in this particular expression. (E.g., "Sit down" and "Take the com.")

As for the "ambiguity" of Chinese, consider the English words "spot" and "check." There are at least 10 different Chinese words that correspond to the possible meanings of "spot" and another 10 that correspond to those of "check." This yields at least 100 possible meanings in combination. Do English speakers find these words confusing and consciously search for ways to replace them with clearer terms?

If a non-English speaker asked out of any context what "spot" or "check" meant, it would be hard to answer. Despite this fact, we have little sense of "spot" or "check" being vague words. We could put the words together as "spot check" and immediately suggest a specific meaning that could be used as the title of a movie. Even so, I could easily construct ten sentences with different meanings for this very same combination.

You could argue that the examples of "spot" and "check" are not applicable to Chinese because the meanings of "spot" and "check" tend to be etymologically related, while many Chinese homonyms are not related. I would argue that much of the etymology of these words is not readily transparent to learners of English. I would also argue that a decent percentage of Chinese homonyms are in fact etymologically related despite the fact that different characters may be used. In any case, the issue is not etymology, but oral ambiguity and what languages "require."

[Altair]

It occurs to me that some of the flavor of potential English "ambiguity" might not be apparent from my earlier dry post. Here is a quick example of the "ambiguity" I mean:

"The Czech must check his check shirt into a locker and find the check at the restaurant before he can check on the check-marked check that bounced and check any attempt to keep his influence in check." This is probably awkward, but unambiguous to a native speaker.

How about if I shorten it? "The Czech must check his checked one and find the check before checking the checked check and check any attempts to keep him in check." Is this still understandable, even after having read the longer version?

Can you figure this one out?:

"Spot can spot the spotted spot before spotting the spot, I'll spot you."

[charlescpp]

I think "天下同梦" for "One world, one dream" is better.

Some classic words or the way to build new words, are still used in Written Chinese (or Written Madarin?) today.

But, for example, if I say "聚心聚焦聚力共建和谐社会" to my friend, he may not understand "聚心", "聚焦", "聚力", "共建" etc. So I have to tell him what the characters for those words are (i will say something like "聚集的聚，人心的心"...).

What I want to say is that, poly-syllable words are easier to understand than mono-syllable ones in spoken languages.

[HashiriKata]

I think "天下同梦" for "One world, one dream" is better.

Ok, I'm just testing myself for my understanding of Chinese:

I think "天下同梦" would not be better than "同一个世界，同一个梦想" in the context it's intended for: The World Olympic. Because:

If it were about something just for China (= just for all Chinese people there), "天下同梦" would be fine, but here, the Olympic is taking place among peoples in the diverse, competing, divided, unequal world, "同一个世界，同一个梦想" is more appropriate to bring out and emphasize the idea that we're one and the same.

(I should add also that "一世，一梦" as suggested by Ferno doesn't seem to make sense in this context.)

Is there any slim chance that some Chinese native speakers would agree with my interpretation above??

[Ferno]

HashiriKata, about the slogan:

(from the hated pinyin.info )

The Mandarin version of the slogan is unnecessarily wordy. The repeated tóng yī ge, with its insistent emphasis on sameness or even identicalness, is clumsy and pedantic, and the tóng part of it even sounds a bit wényánish (like Literary Sinitic). The Mandarin version would sound much better and more natural if the repeated tóng yī ge were reduced to just yī ge (or yīge, according to the official orthographical rules for Pinyin [all other numerals except for yī are to be separated from the measure word that follows them]). This would save two syllables and 12 pen(cil) strokes, and it would also bring the Mandarin slogan more into alignment with the English.

[Ferno]

But' date=' for example, if I say "聚心聚焦聚力共建和谐社会" to my friend, he may not understand "聚心", "聚焦", "聚力", "共建" etc. So I have to tell him what the characters for those words are (i will say something like "聚集的聚，人心的心"...).

[/quote']

i dont like the constant occurance of these "XY de X" etc.. constructions... it gives an idea of an un-natural reliance of the spoken language on the characters.

so uh what about the origional topic... when can one say "wang4" and when must they say the 2 syllable "wang4ji4" in order to be understood? ge1 and ge1qu3? xin4 and xin4jian4? etc..

i dont know if European speaking standards apply here... is there a concept such as "wordiness" ie using airplane instead of plane... generally using the longer form of words?

[adrianlondon]

Airplane?

Aeroplane. :-)

[charlescpp]

well, there are sill some differences between written Mandarin and spoken Mandarin. e.g.

搜 and 搜索, 选 and 选择.

When talking with someone, you can ask for clarify if you dont understand him. But you cant do this while reading. So people write 选择, though both 选 and 择 mean to choose.

However, for slogans, shorter is better, since it's easy for people to remember.

BTW, how about 世界同梦?

When I read 一世, the first meaning comes to my mind is "the whole life". You can find phrases like "一世英名" and "聪明一世，糊涂一时".

[HashiriKata]

"聪明一世，糊涂一时"

我真的喜欢这句话！

[charlescpp]

Here is another word about 糊涂:

难得糊涂 invented by 郑板桥, a painter of 清 dynasty, who is famous for drawing bamboos.

[amego]

我真的喜欢这句话！

这句话让我想起"聪明反被聪明误"。

[HashiriKata]

这句话让我想起"聪明反被聪明误"。

我有时自问："聪明一世，糊涂一时" 和 "糊涂一世，聪明一时"， 哪的会更好一些