第四十一天

[nnozomi]

还是, "or" in questions"
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Offering_choices_with_%22haishi%22

还是 also has a bunch of different usages, doesn't everything, but this one is just "X or Y" as used in questions. (I think.)

Guardian:
普通的什么呀？普通的绝世高手，还是普通的地星领袖啊？(Zhao Yunlan getting on Shen Wei's case for his reflexive "I'm just an ordinary..." "An ordinary what? An ordinary superstar, or an ordinary leader of Dixing?")
说吧，你是为了钱还是为了名？(Let's hear it, are you out for money or for fame?)
那请问你是中医还是西医吗？ (May I ask, do you practice Chinese or Western medicine?)

My practice:
你更喜欢红色的还是白色的？
你要喝热茶还是冷茶？现在是冬天吧，我当然喝热茶。
真的吴邪到底是谁啊？你还是他？

Comments

[elenothar]

Are there any languages where the rate of vocabulary/phrase to meaning is exactly one to one?

Hmm. I'm trying to think whether this is just native speaker bias, but I think German comes closer than any other language I've attempted so far. The vocabulary is quite straightforward, I feel (the grammar a little less so). I wonder if, say, an agglutinating language would be less variable, given that the word itself gets modified so much...

Fun with a generous side helping of hair pulling XD

[nnozomi]

I think German comes closer than any other language I've attempted so far. The vocabulary is quite straightforward, I feel (the grammar a little less so). I wonder if, say, an agglutinating language would be less variable, given that the word itself gets modified so much...
That's a good point. (I daydream about an extended stay in Berlin one of these years, so if that ever happens I'll get seriously into German and find out!)
Even in agglutinative Japanese, though, there are weird things like 食べられる, which could mean "be able to eat" or "be eaten" equally. Naturally it is usually quite clear from context, but still!

[elenothar]

It'd be interesting to get your take on it (*crosses fingers for Berlin stay*). Certainly, if you've got any questions about German I'm happy to answer.

..... maybe the conclusion is just always going to be 'languages are fundamentally weird, i.e. the many influences and forces of development (and individual usages) just make it impossible for a language to be entirely rational'. Then again, what does rational even mean in this context....

[nnozomi]

Certainly, if you've got any questions about German I'm happy to answer.
Will keep this in mind, thanks! I love the language resources we have (are) around here. (Any long-term stay in Berlin would be far in the future for many obvious reasons, but it's one of the few cities I've visited and just thought, wow, I want to live here.

'languages are fundamentally weird, i.e. the many influences and forces of development (and individual usages) just make it impossible for a language to be entirely rational'. Then again, what does rational even mean in this context....
Entirely unrelated to the main point, but I went to look up some Esperanto stuff based on this (only "rational" within Zamenhof's European, male perspective of course) and found some delightful examples of the words coined by children who are native Esperanto speakers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers#Word_derivation . Every language should have a word for "no longer shaped like a sandwich." (不三明治了？）

[elenothar]

Oh, neat! As a German, I very much believe in the power of compounding and miss the ability to properly do that in English fairly frequently.

[nnozomi]

I very much believe in the power of compounding and miss the ability to properly do that in English fairly frequently.
De-sandwich-ification! ;)

[elenothar]

Point taken :D

[trobadora]

Entirely unrelated to the main point, but I went to look up some Esperanto stuff based on this (only "rational" within Zamenhof's European, male perspective of course) and found some delightful examples of the words coined by children who are native Esperanto speakers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers#Word_derivation

Oh, that is amazing! I love word formation. Thank you for linking that!

[nnozomi]

Isn't it neat? Almost enough to make one want to learn Esperanto.

(As you say elsewhere, computer languages might be the only rational one-to-one examples around, but equally they're that much less fun to learn...)

[trobadora]

but I think German comes closer than any other language I've attempted so far

Huh, really? I'm German too, but German doesn't feel different from English to me on that front ...

[elenothar]

Hmm, interesting. It's probably subjective to some degree, but I definitely find that English tends towards having more meanings for one word than German (sometimes even ones that don't go with each other, like 'chuffed') - more synonyms too. Plus the whole thing where a word can be both verb and noun (i.e. 'leap') without the distinction in format German tends to have.

[trobadora]

Good point about the verb/noun/other types of speech switching - English can do that easily because no verb endings, whereas German can't. Beyond that, I don't know- It's just subjective feeling on my part. I wonder if there's any statistical analysis across different languages - that would be fascinating to read ...