2/25/2005: Writing sea lion

This is Jonao, a sea lion, and he's writing the Chinese character for
"rooster". This entertaining display was developed for the new year
celebration at the Sea Paradise aquarium in Yokohama Tokyo.

I bet even though he's asked for fowl, they're feeding him fish again.

We have to take their word for it that that means "rooster".

Yeah. Looks just like it.

Charlie Tuna?

Somehow, animals with only one head seem kind of pedestrian after the last couple IotDs.

Ah, he must be saying, "How the hell do I get out of here?"

By the looks of his eyes & teeth he'd rather be killing than writing........

I never thought I would install Japanese characterset into my computer
(I'm swedish),but now I couldn't resist it... I just had too see them..
And yep, looks like Nishi.
You know what.. I gonna keep this set installed.

Thanks Izanagi for enlighten me.
Oh, forgot.. Welcome to the Cellar Izanagi.
(hope I don't get beatup by xoB by taking his job.)

Wormfood Thanks for the welcome!

Plus you answered my question, I guess nobody can see the Japanese characters unless they have the right software.

So for anyone who is else who is interested and doesn't want to download a program;

nishi:
http://www5.big.or.jp/~otake/hey/kan...ji/f2/nisi.gif

mon:
http://www.ofin.com/kanji/f3-014.html

Sorry there is no way to show ONDORI as it is multiple Hiragana characters, but here is a Hiragana chart:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~IF2N-SZK/hiragana.html

O: The last character in the top line
N: The last character in the 10th line
DO: The 5th character in the 13th line
RI: The 2nd character in the 9th line

As you can see ONDORI looks nothing like what the sea lion is writing.

OH WELL!!! He can join me in remedial Kanji class this semester

I'm on OSX here, they all show up perfectly, thanks for the more informed opinion.

Hmm, I guess it is nishi.

On another topic, calligraphic ink is extremely permanent if spilled on fabric... Jonao looks extremely black to me.

it's rooster

hi, it's "rooster", of course.
This character is used only for this meaning.
酉
it's similar to "west", nishi.
西
Usually, to mean rooster (animal, meat, etc) the character
鶏
is used.
The symbols for the other animals of year also differ from the normal ones.
mouse...子(for the symbol of year)...鼠(for the animal)
cow...丑...牛
tiger...寅...虎
etc.

Oh,they use a different character so you can tell the difference between a symbol of national importance and dinner. That's a good idea
Do most characters have multiple meanings depending on the context they used in? If so, since the characters for denoting the critter of the year are often standing alone, they should be unique.
Hmmm....inscrutable comes to mind.
Thanks lorcafed...and since Wormfood is goofing off somewhere, let me welcome you to the Cellar.

Yeesh, ya can't get good help these days I don't know what will become of these kids they're never around when ya need

Is there a star-constellation called "rooster"?
If there is ,then I kind of understand why the character for
"(year of) rooster" and "west" looks so similar. :p

WELCOME to Kanji 101 with professor "lorcafed"

Thank you Sensei for a most interesting class!

I had no idea that the years were written differently! However after you mentioned it I looked up 酉　(tori) in my Kanji dictionary and it said:

酉
COCK

酉年
The YEAR OF THE COCK

I think I'm going to like this year!

I wonder why we don't use a lovely word like "cock" much anymore to mean rooster?

Anyway thank you lorcafed for straightening me out!

Wow. I hope more and more western people learn Chinese as we learn English.

Which Chinese, Billy? There seems to be a bunch of different dialects.

Mandarin and Traditional Chinese is the way to go.

As far as Chinese goes, there's only one way to write it but lots of different dialects.

Hmmmm...you mean lots of dialects as in different words and/or different meanings for the same words but only one alphabet to transcribe them all?

When I was a junior high aged lad, "cock" was freely used as slang, roughly equivalent to "neat" or "cool", only with an edge. One usage is immortalized in one of my yearbooks: "To a really cock kid...see you this summer."

The same word has different pronunciations in different China zones. The pronunciation problem is caused by the poor communication. Now more and more speak, use and understand the Mandarin. Japanese and Chinese have some same words, but Japanese use old tone. Somtimes we can guess the Japnese meaning, but we cant speak.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
Hmmmm...you mean lots of dialects as in different words and/or different meanings for the same words but only one alphabet to transcribe them all?

No, the written character is not phonetic, it is a pictograph. So you would have a picture of a table (somewhat abstracted) and totally different words for table in say Mandarin or Cantonese. There are hundreds of pictographs, and the radicals that make them up. The character for Chi is a picture of steam escaping from a bowl of rice on a fire, for instance with steam and rice pot radicals. To put together a keyboard with all the radicals would be way too complex, so if you go to your local Beijing internet cafe (and these places are hopping) they use Roman letters.

I'm guessing that they type in the pin yin (roman letters for Mandarin Chinese, which is phonetical) and the characters appear on the screen. Many Chinese feel that the complexity of the written language has held them back technologically. The Japanese created a phonetical alphabet (albeit in characters) many years ago and only use the classical characters, which are similar to Chinese, occasionally.

Actually most of the guys I met at the internet cafes in China played games rather than wrote. And the keyboards were worn down so you couldn't read the letters on the keys that move your game pieces.

And since Chinese was originally not widely written- just in the scholarly class, it developed without having to refer to the common languages of the different provinces. So it isn't just a matter of different pronunciation. My Dad worked with a Chinese woman who had to communicate with her Chinese husband from a different part of China in English. But today they all learn Mandarin in school and on TV.

There is also the case where the bopomofo is a key on the keyboard, and you have to spell it out that way. It's slow to use at first, and difficult to learn how to type in that fashion quickly... and I absolutely hate pinyin, so I'm kinda stuck at the moment. ^_^

And don't forget about dialects like Taiwanese, where there are some phoenetics which have no hanji equivalent, so it needs to be written out using bopomofo.

There sure are a lot of people that know a lot about chinese on this board. This is great.
The things you learn from a seal.

Once in Beijing a child fired one netcafe and many young people were killed.

(that is very sad to hear.)

Billy, in English we would say "set fire to" instead of "fired."

"Fired" is when your boss thinks you are not doing a good job and tells you not to come to work anymore.

They'll have a head start on the rest of the children when they're all forced to learn it in the camps.

Makes you wonder if he was giving his"seal" of approval?