Today, I want to talk about a certain type of idiomatic expression so ubiquitous in both vernacular Chinese speech and writing, yet, only using a limited number of characters to do so. Almost all of them use just 4 characters, leading to one term called four-character idioms. The Chinese term is called 成語 or chengyu, … Continue reading Talking about four-character idioms
Vietnamese
The breve — Beyond its use in Romanian
Saying that Romanian is a bit like French may be a bit of an understatement. They both share a common ancestor for their languages, being Vulgar Latin, and thus have rather similar words, and for some parts, grammar. But these similarities go a bit further than that. In orthography, both French and Romanian have their … Continue reading The breve — Beyond its use in Romanian
Where can we find the letter Đ?
This letter has long been associated with the Vietnamese language, ever since it switched over to the chữ Quốc ngữ from the traditional Chữ Nôm. In addition to the amount of diacritics and tone marks, the letter Đ is perhaps one of the most iconic in the Vietnamese alphabet. Yet, it is not the only … Continue reading Where can we find the letter Đ?
Why does “ph” make an “f” sound?
Phone. Phase. Phoenix. These words start with a "ph", yet this digraph is pronounced with an "f". In some other languages, we see such a pattern as well. Take French, for example. The word for "the seal", le phoque, also has its "ph" pronounced as an "f". We also see such a pattern in Vietnamese, … Continue reading Why does “ph” make an “f” sound?
A Non-Anglocentric Language Tier System?
1. How many languages do you know ? Okay, lemme define this question. To “know” a language, usually means to have the knowledge to speak, read, write, understand and communicate in a language. So yeah, as of now, I do know quite a bunch of languages to varying standards, like English, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, French, Japanese, […]
The Language Closet 