summercomfort | (no subject)

(no subject)

I'm sorry, my petty grasp of the english language cannot wrap itself completely around this one. Okay, me talk Chinese now.

今天中中（我的弟弟）又回中国去了。他要在那里读半年书。住宿学校。去年是妈妈送的，所以今年爸爸去送。和他一起回去的孩子忘了他的护照，他妈妈只好万般火急地叫同事送来。幸好有惊无险，三人都上了飞机。回来以后，我和妈妈花了点时间讨论中文学校未来学制的事，达到了一个比较满意的方案。好久没有写中文了，文字方面的缺陷很多，词汇从颇欠到渺渺无几。可叹！

Oh, chatted with Alexis today, which was happy.

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how old's your brother?

age 11, about to turn 12. Going back to attend 7th grade. He's one smart kid, yo.

Well, I recognized ｢私の弟｣ at least. That's something, right? And lessee... something about China, something about a half-year... this isn't helped by the random question marks scattered throught the text where my dad's computer doesn't understand. Nor is it helped by my tendency to rely on context to understand kanji. But still, I can read more of it than my parents could! ^_^ Oh, why is brother written 弟弟? The Japanese only write 弟 once.

Chatting with you was definitely happy, even if our 母さん達 kept needing to talk to us and stopping the conversation.

haha... okaa-san tachi indeed! Yeah, I just talked about the fact that my brother just left for a half year in China, there was some airport chaos, and then I had a nice talk with my mom. Japanese uses a lot of old Chinese that we don't use that often anymore. At least, not in the same ways. In "modern" Chinese, elder brother is 哥哥, younger brother is 弟弟, and brothers in general is 兄弟.

But... why? Isn't it a bit redundant? 兄 is still the kanji for older brother in Japanese. And while JWPCE does say that 哥 does mean older brother, the only actual word it's used in in the whole JWPCE dictionary is 鸚哥(いんこ)which apparently means "parakeet" and that word isn't even in the IME. Can you add readings to the Windows IME? I wonder... Oh, there's also 脊黄青鸚哥, or "budgeriar." Oh, and in Japanese, 兄弟 just means siblings, no matter what gender, though apparently you can also say 姉妹 for your sisters. So says the dictionary, though 内田先生 never mentioned it, and always used 兄弟 to refer to her various sisters.

Japanese input is fun!

oops, I meant "budgerigar." And speaking of which, aren't they cute? (http://www.budgerigarsociety.com)

Japanese and English speakers have no right to talk to Chinese speakers about redundancy. It's a large geographic region and a language that has been evolving for ages, and yet has the characters to prove it. I personally think　弟弟 (di!di) and 哥哥 (ge-ge) sound better. Although 哥 can be used by itself. I guess it's easier for whining purposes... (ge----- ::petulant sister::) But hey, Chinese have so many ways to call relations, it's totally whatever. For example, most places make the distinction between maternal and paternal grandmothers. But you can say 奶奶 or 祖母 or 阿婆 or in the case of my dad's family, I call her 亲娘. With the maternal grandmother, you can say 外祖母, 婆婆 or 外婆, and a bunch of others　(having never seen my maternal grandmother, I'm not as familiar with these things). It really depends on region and family tradition．

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