I'm learning Chinese (Mandarin). Is anyone else here interested in Chinese language, culture, etc?
I'm doing it because it's the most popular language on earth (and therefor marketable), and because I like the culture and traditions.
If anybody's interested, we can talk about it.
One thing I think is great about Chinese is that it's a pictorial language; 马 will always mean "Horse," even if the person reading it pronounces it differently. And that's how it works - there many different dialects, but the writing (汉字 Hanzi) is always the same.
This character, originally meaning a patterned window,
is now used almost exclusively as an emoticon.
It's also a pretty simple and fun language, once you get the hang of it. Unlike English, Chinese doesn't have a shitload of different tenses and what-all.
If you want to say Me, Myself, or I, it's 我 "Wo3."
Oh, there's more than one of you? Then you'd say 我们 "Wo3 men" (us).
The number you likely noticed after the word "Wo" is the tone. When you speak Chinese, it's tonal, meaning that different tones can completely change a word. This makes things fun, example below.
As I said, 马 means Horse. It's pronounced "Ma3" in Mandarin. Now this is where the fun with tones is; In Chinese, Mom is 妈妈, pronounced "Ma1 ma." That's right, if you say "Mom" wrong, you could be referring to her as a Horse.
Saying "I love you guys" (我爱你们) in the wrong tone can actually
change the last word, making it "I love you door" (我爱你门)
And yes, that character, 妈, is literally a combination of the characters of female (女 nu3) and horse (马 ma3).
In Mandarin, "Mom" is literally "LadyHorse LadyHorse."
我爱你女马
If this doesn't make you giggle, nothing will.