So an innocent question under one of my videos about Chinese character etymology
(https://youtu.be/Svb7rulL5aE) led me to about an hour of research and I wrote a reply to the comment which I thought was worth publishing as an entire article on my blog. Gotta love science :)
The main reason why I thought this comment was worth publishing as an article was (apart from the fact that it was hopefully good research and took some time), that it is absolutely paramount to understand that people should be scientific and very careful not to interpret the structure of Chinese characters purely based on what they see today and resort to or believe Chinese character Zen story telling. I really can't stress this enough.
As Wikipedia teaches us about the Scientific method: "It (the Scientific method) involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation."
This could not be more true when it comes to Chinese characters.
The character I analyzed 黎 (which is today pronounced lí and today means 'many, numerous') is today structurally made up of 禾 (grain) 人 (person) 水 (water) and a mysterious 勹 + 丿
I could come up with 20 different Zen combinations as to how grain + person + water + (勹 + 丿) could mean 'many, numerous'. Try it yourself before you read the rest of the article and compare it to what I wrote. Just for the fun of it and just off the top of my head:
黎 character
Modern meaning: many, numerous
Modern pronunciation: lí
Structural composition today:
禾 (grain)
人 (person)
水 (water)
and a mysterious 勹 + 丿
Top of head, seemingly cool interpretation:
'It's a person having to endure the burden of a lot of work because he has to irrigate a lot of grain with a lot of water'. All pointing to the meaning 'many, numerous'.
Let's pretend the 勹 + 丿 is not even there.
It took me, as someone who has spent a lot of time researching Chinese characters, about 30-60 minutes of research with a lot of modern tools to really understand the structure of this character and there still are blind spots in the analysis as you will see. What I'm trying to say is that if someone gives you a cool, funny, mysterious, 'Zen' interpretation of a character (like: 'It's a person having to endure the burden of a lot of work because he has to irrigate a lot of grain with a lot of water' in the case of 黎), please be very skeptical. There usually is much much more to it. Based on the difficulty of researching only this one character hopefully you will be able to appreciate why being scientific is a good thing.
February 24, 2019
February 19, 2019
A basic roadmap to learning Mandarin Chinese
Of the popular languages, Mandarin Chinese is one of the most difficult ones for Westerners to learn and extremely difficult to reach a high level of proficiency in. Learning languages like Spanish is relatively easy for those of us who speak English because of how closely related the two languages are in terms of grammar, vocabulary and even within the cultures there are lots of similarities to be found. This means that English speakers learning Spanish for instance already have a significant head start. However, when it comes to learning Mandarin Chinese, the situation is different. The grammar, vocabulary, syntax or the logic of Mandarin is nothing like English. Many of the typical language learning strategies are often inapplicable with Mandarin, which is why even the most experienced language learners would find it a challenge.
I’m not saying I found the key to learning high-level Mandarin efficiently, but after almost 12 years of studies and having worked as a Mandarin interpreter for the past 4 years I believe that, by trial and error, I have devised general guidelines that will hopefully save you some time.
It would be difficult to explain in detail what it is that makes Mandarin so hard, but in short, the four pillars of Mandarin difficulty are:
- Pronunciation
- Vast and unfamiliar vocabulary
- Sentence structure and sentence patterns
- Different cultural norms
February 10, 2019
Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese
Here is the list of resources I use or have used when learning or maintaining Mandarin Chinese. I tried to list them all so if something is not on this list, it means I didn't use it or used it and didn't like it. When it comes to resources, I try to look for efficiency, i.e. why have 15 pretty good ones if a few very good resources will do the job? :)
Dictionaries:
- Dianhua dictionary (for iOS only)
- https://goo.gl/ZA5sp5
- An electronic dictionary for offline smartphone usage.
- Very powerful in conjunction with character handwriting input.
- Allows you to search characters by pinyin and automatically looks up all characters or words with the pronunciation you are looking for. This is very convenient since frequently you only know the pronunciation and not the characters of the word you are looking for.
- Google translate
- https://translate.google.com/
- Contrary to what many people say, it is the most powerful dictionary out there if you use it correctly.
- Good for online copy-paste translations.
- Offers the feature to scan characters with your phone’s camera.
- Very advanced speech recognition.
- Very good for contextual search (expressions and sentences), less preferable for non-contextual search (individual words).
- Zhongwen pop-up dictionary plugin for your browser
- https://goo.gl/e5eRGV
- Move the cursor over a character on your screen and a translation will pop up.
- Very useful when reading texts online
December 14, 2018
The most complex Chinese character
What is the most complex Chinese character?
When it comes to the character with the greatest number of strokes and the greatest number of elements I was able to find, it is this character, which is pronounced dhō, with 341 strokes:
It supposedly means “Impossibly complex pictogram-based writing system that takes a person a thousand thousand years to learn.” This character however should not count in my opinion for a number of reasons. The only reference to it I was able to find was on the Uncyclopedia website, which is a website where you can: “Discover, share and add your best comedic writing!” So dhō is thus very probably just a recently invented character invented for fun, where the author took several very complicated existing and non-existing characters, added them together, added a few non-standard strokes, called the character dhō and gave it the meaning I mentioned earlier.
When it comes to the character with the greatest number of strokes and the greatest number of elements I was able to find, it is this character, which is pronounced dhō, with 341 strokes:
| http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Chinese_character_extreme.svg |
It supposedly means “Impossibly complex pictogram-based writing system that takes a person a thousand thousand years to learn.” This character however should not count in my opinion for a number of reasons. The only reference to it I was able to find was on the Uncyclopedia website, which is a website where you can: “Discover, share and add your best comedic writing!” So dhō is thus very probably just a recently invented character invented for fun, where the author took several very complicated existing and non-existing characters, added them together, added a few non-standard strokes, called the character dhō and gave it the meaning I mentioned earlier.
November 24, 2018
Frequently asked questions
Hello everyone,
by surpassing 35 000 subscribers on Youtube, I thought it would be finally time to make a few long overdue videos which I really hope to do soon, but in the meantime, I decided to give my podcast a little restart as well. I made a podcast recording answering some of the questions asked in the comments recently:
How to maintain several languages.
How to regain motivation after losing fluency in languages once spoken at a B2/C1 level.
Resources you recommend for learning Mandarin from scratch.
What happened to your podcast with 天一?
How old were you when you started learning Chinese?
Is it important to study grammar?
Learning two languages at the same time?
Many thanks to my friend (can't say his name:)) for making the sound in the recording sound professional.
by surpassing 35 000 subscribers on Youtube, I thought it would be finally time to make a few long overdue videos which I really hope to do soon, but in the meantime, I decided to give my podcast a little restart as well. I made a podcast recording answering some of the questions asked in the comments recently:
How to maintain several languages.
How to regain motivation after losing fluency in languages once spoken at a B2/C1 level.
Resources you recommend for learning Mandarin from scratch.
What happened to your podcast with 天一?
How old were you when you started learning Chinese?
Is it important to study grammar?
Learning two languages at the same time?
Many thanks to my friend (can't say his name:)) for making the sound in the recording sound professional.
October 06, 2018
Some thoughts on the reliability of 說文解字
Disclaimer: This article will be very technical and very probably very uninteresting if you are not
I got into a debate with someone online under one of my videos recently. The video was about the 辡 character phonetic series. In the beginning of the video I argued that 辡 was a character formed by two 辛 characters. According to my sources, 辡 means 'litigation' and one of the older meanings of 辛 was 'criminal' and that 辡 'litigation' is a semantic compound character with one 辛 'criminal' and another 辛 'criminal' pointing to its meaning (two criminals litigating in front of a court).
Since 辛 doesn't mean 'criminal' today, someone correctly asked in the comments, what my sources were.
I wrote:
(I am) Inferring (that 辛 had the meaning of criminal) from the following:
《說文》《辡部》辡:辠人相與訟也。从二辛。凡辡之屬皆从辡。
And the existence and ancient interpretation of characters like 宰 辠 and 辜
《說文》《宀部》宰:辠人在屋下執事者。从宀从辛。辛,辠也。
《說文》《辛部》辠:犯法也。从辛从自,言辠人蹙鼻苦辛之憂。秦以辠似皇字,改為罪。
《說文》《辛部》辜:辠也。从辛古聲。
To which the person argued, that the 說文解字 dictionary is not a reliable source and that it regularly misinterprets characters, among other things also because it uses an extremely limited data set and that not a single entry in the entire work makes use of 甲骨文 data (due to it being unavailable).
A debate ensued which went on ad infinitum and produced enough material to be published as a small article:
familiar with Chinese character etymology. My apologies in advance.
I got into a debate with someone online under one of my videos recently. The video was about the 辡 character phonetic series. In the beginning of the video I argued that 辡 was a character formed by two 辛 characters. According to my sources, 辡 means 'litigation' and one of the older meanings of 辛 was 'criminal' and that 辡 'litigation' is a semantic compound character with one 辛 'criminal' and another 辛 'criminal' pointing to its meaning (two criminals litigating in front of a court).
Since 辛 doesn't mean 'criminal' today, someone correctly asked in the comments, what my sources were.
I wrote:
(I am) Inferring (that 辛 had the meaning of criminal) from the following:
《說文》《辡部》辡:辠人相與訟也。从二辛。凡辡之屬皆从辡。
And the existence and ancient interpretation of characters like 宰 辠 and 辜
《說文》《宀部》宰:辠人在屋下執事者。从宀从辛。辛,辠也。
《說文》《辛部》辠:犯法也。从辛从自,言辠人蹙鼻苦辛之憂。秦以辠似皇字,改為罪。
《說文》《辛部》辜:辠也。从辛古聲。
To which the person argued, that the 說文解字 dictionary is not a reliable source and that it regularly misinterprets characters, among other things also because it uses an extremely limited data set and that not a single entry in the entire work makes use of 甲骨文 data (due to it being unavailable).
A debate ensued which went on ad infinitum and produced enough material to be published as a small article:
August 27, 2018
Sun c' Umenie Vojny | Sun Zi Art of War (slovenský preklad)
Sun c’ - Umenie vojny
Preklad: Mgr. Bc. Vladimír Škultéty
Komentár k prekladu
Pred niekoľkými týždňami som čítal knihu Vladár od Niccola Machiavelliho a spomenul som si, že existuje kniha - Umenie vojny, v čínskej literatúre, ktorá má podobný charakter (hoci napísaná skoro 2000 rokov pred Machiavelliho Vladárom). Našiel som jej text v klasickej čínštine, vytlačil ho a keď som si uvedomil, že má po vytlačení iba jedenásť strán, rozhodol som sa, že ho skúsim zanalyzovať trošku podrobnejšie. Vymklo sa to spod kontroly a skončilo to takto:
Následne mi napadlo, že by som túto knihu, ktorá patrí medzi veľmi dôležité kníhy v histórii čínskej literatúry, preložil do slovenčiny.
V súčasnosti pracujem iba ako tlmočník čínskeho a anglického jazyka, v minulosti som ale pracoval niekoľko rokov aj ako prekladateľ a mám bakalársky titul zo sinológie. Bral som tento preklad aj ako osvieženie starých vedomostí klasickej čínštiny, tréning prekladu samotného a ako poznávací zájazd do Starovekej Číny zároveň.
Pri preklade som si pomáhal dvoma anglickými verziami tejto knihy a po jednom preklade do mandarínskej čínštiny, ruštiny a francúzštiny. Tým, že poznám tieto jazyky relatívne dobre, vrátane klasickej čínštiny, v ktorom bol originál napísaný, sa mi, zdá sa, celkom prekvapivo podarilo skombinovaním všetkých správne preložených problematických častí z rôznych prekladov a mojich vlastných (snáď) správnych vylepšení dospieť k textu, ktorý je miestami možno najpresnejším z tých, ktoré som čítal. Keďže som si pri práci s touto knihou pomáhal s vyššie spomenutými prekladmi do cudzích jazykov, často sa stalo, že čo Američan preložil presne, Francúz poplietol alebo naopak a ja som bol ten, kto to porovnal s originálom a všetko zlepil dokopy.
To samozrejme neznamená, že je moja verzia bezchybná, znamená to len, že ašpiruje na to, aby bola najpresnejšia zo všetkých, s ktorými som pracoval.
Preklad: Mgr. Bc. Vladimír Škultéty
Komentár k prekladu
Pred niekoľkými týždňami som čítal knihu Vladár od Niccola Machiavelliho a spomenul som si, že existuje kniha - Umenie vojny, v čínskej literatúre, ktorá má podobný charakter (hoci napísaná skoro 2000 rokov pred Machiavelliho Vladárom). Našiel som jej text v klasickej čínštine, vytlačil ho a keď som si uvedomil, že má po vytlačení iba jedenásť strán, rozhodol som sa, že ho skúsim zanalyzovať trošku podrobnejšie. Vymklo sa to spod kontroly a skončilo to takto:
Následne mi napadlo, že by som túto knihu, ktorá patrí medzi veľmi dôležité kníhy v histórii čínskej literatúry, preložil do slovenčiny.
V súčasnosti pracujem iba ako tlmočník čínskeho a anglického jazyka, v minulosti som ale pracoval niekoľko rokov aj ako prekladateľ a mám bakalársky titul zo sinológie. Bral som tento preklad aj ako osvieženie starých vedomostí klasickej čínštiny, tréning prekladu samotného a ako poznávací zájazd do Starovekej Číny zároveň.
Pri preklade som si pomáhal dvoma anglickými verziami tejto knihy a po jednom preklade do mandarínskej čínštiny, ruštiny a francúzštiny. Tým, že poznám tieto jazyky relatívne dobre, vrátane klasickej čínštiny, v ktorom bol originál napísaný, sa mi, zdá sa, celkom prekvapivo podarilo skombinovaním všetkých správne preložených problematických častí z rôznych prekladov a mojich vlastných (snáď) správnych vylepšení dospieť k textu, ktorý je miestami možno najpresnejším z tých, ktoré som čítal. Keďže som si pri práci s touto knihou pomáhal s vyššie spomenutými prekladmi do cudzích jazykov, často sa stalo, že čo Američan preložil presne, Francúz poplietol alebo naopak a ja som bol ten, kto to porovnal s originálom a všetko zlepil dokopy.
To samozrejme neznamená, že je moja verzia bezchybná, znamená to len, že ašpiruje na to, aby bola najpresnejšia zo všetkých, s ktorými som pracoval.
Ospravedlňujem sa tiež za chyby a preklepy v slovenčine. Pravopisné chyby, i keď nie vážne, robím pomerne často, kvôli tomu, že po slovensky píšem a hovorím málo a tiež nemám na počítači nainštalovanú kontrolu slovenského pravopisu.
Práca s textom a preklad samotný mi trval asi desať dní, robil som ho vo voľnom čase, a preto hlavne jeho formálna stráknka medzery určite má. Ak by čitatelia našli v texte akékoľvek nepresnosti alebo návrhy ako niečo zlepšiť, budem len rád, ak ich spomenú v komentároch pod týmto článkom. Preklad je len mojim malým dobrovoľným príspevkom k akademickej sinologii a moja vďaka ostatným sinológom, ktorí často zadarmo pracujú na veľkých projektoch ako ctext.org alebo http://tls.uni-hd.de/ ktoré veľmi často využívam. Umenie vojny bolo do slovenčiny preložené aspoň dvakrát, ale jeho text nie je voľne dostupný na internete a vďaka vyššie spomenutému postupu a nepresnostiam ostatných prekladov (na ktorých sú jestvujúce slovenské preklady založené), i keď po formálnej stránke s medzerami, po obsahovej je môj preklad možno snáď o čosi lepší.
Čína je druhou najsilnejšou ekonomikou sveta a či už chceme alebo nie, bolo by dobré ju poznať viac. Ak chceme vedieť, akí Číňania naozaj sú a poznať ich kultúru, musíme v Číne nejakú dobu pobudnúť. Strávil som na Taiwane päť rokov. Po týchto piatich rokoch môžem povedať, že čínsku kultúru chápem, ale len veľmi hmlisto, pričom možno nie so najhorší pozorovateľ. Čínsky svet je podľa mňa jednoducho príliš odlišný od toho nášho, aby sa dal pochopiť čo i piatimi rokmi života v Taipei. Niekoľko osobitostí čínskej kultúry, ktorým som nerozumel, mi ale táto kniha pomohla ozrejmiť a dúfam, že pre ostatných čitateľov bude aspoň zaujímavým rozprávaním. Za všetky citáty v knihe, ktoré sú hodné spomenutia, aspoň jeden:
"Vladár nemôže len na základe svojho hnevu poslať svojich vojakov na nepriateľa a generál nemôže len preto, že sa ho niečo dotklo, ísť do boja. Hýbeme sa, keď je to pre nás výhodné, keď to pre nás výhodné nie je, čakáme. Hnev sa môže zmeniť na radosť a to, že sa nás niečo dotklo sa môže zmeniť na dobrý pocit, ale zničená krajina nemôže opäť povstať a mŕtvi nemôžu opäť ožiť."
Košice, 27.8.2018
Sun c’ - Umenie vojny
Práca s textom a preklad samotný mi trval asi desať dní, robil som ho vo voľnom čase, a preto hlavne jeho formálna stráknka medzery určite má. Ak by čitatelia našli v texte akékoľvek nepresnosti alebo návrhy ako niečo zlepšiť, budem len rád, ak ich spomenú v komentároch pod týmto článkom. Preklad je len mojim malým dobrovoľným príspevkom k akademickej sinologii a moja vďaka ostatným sinológom, ktorí často zadarmo pracujú na veľkých projektoch ako ctext.org alebo http://tls.uni-hd.de/ ktoré veľmi často využívam. Umenie vojny bolo do slovenčiny preložené aspoň dvakrát, ale jeho text nie je voľne dostupný na internete a vďaka vyššie spomenutému postupu a nepresnostiam ostatných prekladov (na ktorých sú jestvujúce slovenské preklady založené), i keď po formálnej stránke s medzerami, po obsahovej je môj preklad možno snáď o čosi lepší.
Čína je druhou najsilnejšou ekonomikou sveta a či už chceme alebo nie, bolo by dobré ju poznať viac. Ak chceme vedieť, akí Číňania naozaj sú a poznať ich kultúru, musíme v Číne nejakú dobu pobudnúť. Strávil som na Taiwane päť rokov. Po týchto piatich rokoch môžem povedať, že čínsku kultúru chápem, ale len veľmi hmlisto, pričom možno nie so najhorší pozorovateľ. Čínsky svet je podľa mňa jednoducho príliš odlišný od toho nášho, aby sa dal pochopiť čo i piatimi rokmi života v Taipei. Niekoľko osobitostí čínskej kultúry, ktorým som nerozumel, mi ale táto kniha pomohla ozrejmiť a dúfam, že pre ostatných čitateľov bude aspoň zaujímavým rozprávaním. Za všetky citáty v knihe, ktoré sú hodné spomenutia, aspoň jeden:
"Vladár nemôže len na základe svojho hnevu poslať svojich vojakov na nepriateľa a generál nemôže len preto, že sa ho niečo dotklo, ísť do boja. Hýbeme sa, keď je to pre nás výhodné, keď to pre nás výhodné nie je, čakáme. Hnev sa môže zmeniť na radosť a to, že sa nás niečo dotklo sa môže zmeniť na dobrý pocit, ale zničená krajina nemôže opäť povstať a mŕtvi nemôžu opäť ožiť."
Košice, 27.8.2018
Sun c’ - Umenie vojny
Osnovanie plánov
Sun c’ povedal: Vojna, je výsostne dôležitou záležitosťou pre štát, cestou prežitia a záhuby a jej zákonitosti musia byť podrobne preskúmané. Pri robení plánov a chápaní jej podstaty, je v najzákladnejšej rovine dôležité brať ohľad na nasledovné: 1. Morálny princíp Tao 2. Nebesá 3. Zem 4. Generálov 5. Systém zákonov Fa.
Pokiaľ ide o morálny princíp Tao, vďaka nemu budú mať vojaci rovnaké ciele ako ich vyšší dôstojníci, budú ochotní za nich zomierať, ochotní pre nich žiť a nebudú sa báť žiadneho nebezpečenstva. Pokiaľ ide o nebesá, tie ovládajú Jin a Jang, chlad a teplo a štyri ročné obdobia. Pokiaľ ide o zem, pri nej rolišujeme to, čo je ďaleké a blízke, nebezpečné a bezpečné, široké a úzke, v čom je život a v čom nie. Pokiaľ ide o generálov, tí môžu byť múdri, dôveryhodní, ľudskí, smelí a prísni. Pokiaľ ide o systém zákonov Fa, ten sa týka organizácie armády, správneho nastavenia systému hodností a kontroly výdavkov.
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| Bambusová verzia knihy Umenie vojny zo zbierky cisára Čchien Lunga |
Pokiaľ ide o morálny princíp Tao, vďaka nemu budú mať vojaci rovnaké ciele ako ich vyšší dôstojníci, budú ochotní za nich zomierať, ochotní pre nich žiť a nebudú sa báť žiadneho nebezpečenstva. Pokiaľ ide o nebesá, tie ovládajú Jin a Jang, chlad a teplo a štyri ročné obdobia. Pokiaľ ide o zem, pri nej rolišujeme to, čo je ďaleké a blízke, nebezpečné a bezpečné, široké a úzke, v čom je život a v čom nie. Pokiaľ ide o generálov, tí môžu byť múdri, dôveryhodní, ľudskí, smelí a prísni. Pokiaľ ide o systém zákonov Fa, ten sa týka organizácie armády, správneho nastavenia systému hodností a kontroly výdavkov.
July 05, 2018
Sorma by Sezen Aksu | Cover by Peter Jendrichovsky and Vladimir Skultety
Hello everyone,
I just wanted to share a little piece me and my friend recorded in his house in the north of Slovakia. It is our cover of the beautiful Sorma song by Sezen Aksu. It was impossible to play it as nicely as the original, but we tried :)
My friend used to be one of the best classical guitarists in Slovakia and it was an honor to have him as my teacher when I was young as well as playing this song with him now. I've been playing the guitar since I was 14, almost completely stopped at one point but I am slowly starting to practice again and hope to completely get back into it again someday.
I just wanted to share a little piece me and my friend recorded in his house in the north of Slovakia. It is our cover of the beautiful Sorma song by Sezen Aksu. It was impossible to play it as nicely as the original, but we tried :)
My friend used to be one of the best classical guitarists in Slovakia and it was an honor to have him as my teacher when I was young as well as playing this song with him now. I've been playing the guitar since I was 14, almost completely stopped at one point but I am slowly starting to practice again and hope to completely get back into it again someday.
Have a nice day,
Vladimir
May 01, 2018
My student's key takeaways
Hello everyone,
even though I try hard in my videos and in the articles I write to explain how I am learning languages, I don’t always succeed:) The reason is I’m too deep in the whole process and have been learning languages for so long that everything seems natural and when someone asks me to tell that person what I do, I start explaining stuff from the middle, talk about things I find important and do not necessarily transfer the key premises or elements my learning is based on.
That is why I love when there is someone else who can summarize what I do :) There is a nice Chinese idiom for this
旁觀者清
“Those, observing from the side see things more clearly (than those involved in whatever they are doing).”
March 29, 2018
Interview for gaudeo.sk
We all know what the word polyglot means. Do you consider yourself to be a polyglot? When did you find out that you have a talent for languages? What is your motivation when it comes to language learning? Is language learning something that fulfills you?
A polyglot is a person who speaks several languages, so technically a polyglot is already someone who speaks two. In reality, since there are a lot of opinions on how many languages and at what level a person has to speak in order to be considered a polyglot, it’s more complicated. I think that the lower limit is six languages at a C1 level.
For me personally, the word polyglot was always also associated with praise and to this day I have a problem to talk about myself like that.
When it comes to when I realized I had a talent for languages, again, it’s a complicated question, because to talk like this about yourself is not easy, but I think I discovered it very early. Probably when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My motivation is most probably interest in foreign languages and foreign cultures in general.
How long does it take you to learn a new language? Lets say an easier one. How do you choose which language you are going to learn next?





