Chinese Engineers writting instructions

[JohnR7]

My son is an engineer. They mostly gave him math classes. When he was in high school, I told him to take something in the way of a literature class. I think he signed up for a college class because the book had been through 22 revisions. That is pretty crazy, how do you revise literature. My high school Ancient History book was written back in 1916. It was last revised in 1944. 

It is pretty well established that instructions written by Chinese or Engineers are pretty much a joke and very difficult to understand because that is not what they were trained to do. Although they can get fired if they cannot communicate in a way people can understand. Still new technology has a lot more than an on and off switch, and it can be difficult to learn how to use. 

A prime example is the "video" camera on my phone. The proper term is movies or motion. I still have a video camera that is about 20 years old. I got it when my son was born, but we did not use it that much. It was replaced by compact disk and then digital so they use memory cards now. So in a 20 years time they have gone from video, to digital but they still use the word video. 

[Starise]

I consider myself to be pretty techy, but unless you keep up with it you could easily get lost. I admit I am probably dropping behind, although I subscribe to a few tech sites that send out info on all the new stuff.

Smart phones, smart TVs and computers are always changing. Now is when everyone here is looking at black Friday sales which often offer a lot of the new tech for less. 

 

[Sower]

1 hour ago, JohnR7 said:

A prime example is the "video" camera on my phone. The proper term is movies or motion. I still have a video camera that is about 20 years old. I got it when my son was born, but we did not use it that much. It was replaced by compact disk and then digital so they use memory cards now. So in a 20 years time they have gone from video, to digital but they still use the word vid

Always thought they were called "flicks,' the more scientific term to use than "talkies" (talking pictures)....

 

[teddyv]

Doesn't "video" just refers to visual recording and reproduction, rather than the actual medium? Like it's counterpart "audio". 

[teddyv]

Further to engineers incapable of writing - well that's probably a broad generalization. But I can understand why it's become one of those stereotypes. My BIL is a structural engineer, but also an excellent writer. I'm not an engineer but part of the same professional association which we share with engineers and there is an English competency test when applying for your licence.

Those instructions we get with various things are generally not written by the engineers themselves but by a separate technical writer. And those coming from China or Japan or Taiwan simply suffer from the language barrier.

[Marathoner]

40 minutes ago, teddyv said:

Further to engineers incapable of writing - well that's probably a broad generalization. But I can understand why it's become one of those stereotypes. My BIL is a structural engineer, but also an excellent writer. I'm not an engineer but part of the same professional association which we share with engineers and there is an English competency test when applying for your licence.

Those instructions we get with various things are generally not written by the engineers themselves but by a separate technical writer. And those coming from China or Japan or Taiwan simply suffer from the language barrier.

Indeed. The Chinese language does not feature an alphabet. The Chinese language is recorded using pictograms, most of which are exquisitely detailed. I studied the Japanese language in college, so I was exposed to Chinese pictograms by way of the Japanese Kanji; the Kanji were "borrowed" from China during an ancient period of Chinese/Japanese cultural contact. 

There are approximately 50,000 Kanji in existence, so I hope this conveys the gravity of the situation to the reader. Knowledge of the Kanji is a symbol of educational status in Japan; the more Kanji one knows, the more educated an individual is perceived to be. 

Unlike Chinese, the Japanese language features two distinct alphabets: hiragana and katakana. Katakana is a syllabary, the alphabet which native Japanese speakers use to express terms and phrases exotic to their language. The Japanese language hasn't changed in over a thousand years, and this stasis is maintained by assigning "loan words" to katakana. 

That's just one example of how Asian languages differ from European languages. I would say it's much easier to translate Japanese to English than it is to translate Chinese to English. In fact, the latter operation approaches the impossible at times. 
 

Edited November 7, 2022 by Marathoner
typo

[Marathoner]

My study of the Japanese language supplemented my coursework in Linguistic Anthropology, which had the effect of adding further insight into structures of syntax and grammar. Each language features a distinct system of grammar and syntax. Those who are familiar with Koine Greek and biblical Hebrew will be familiar with such things. 

What can I say? Modern American English is a Rube Goldberg contraption of loan words and phrases. These loan words bring the syntax and grammar of their source language along for the ride (so to speak); for example, "roux." Roux is a contraction of "beurre roux", a French phrase which means 'brown butter'. French syntax is accordingly preserved so the "x" is silent.

Modern English is difficult for native speakers of Asian languages to learn on account of the (relatively) chaotic rules of syntax and grammar. Those rules are subject to change at a moment's notice! 

By comparison, the syntax and grammar of most Asian languages are consistent and very predictable. The Japanese people overcame this obstacle by developing katakana to cope with European linguistic weirdness.   

 

[Space_Karen]

Does anyone remember the movie Rush Hour with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.

Jackie Chan's english was much better than Chris Tucker's attempts to speak chinese.

From what I remember.

In all fairness!

Edited November 7, 2022 by Space_Karen

[Marathoner]

1 minute ago, Space_Karen said:

Does anyone remember the movie Rush Hour with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.

Jackie Chan's english was much better than Chris Tucker's attempts to speak chinese.

From what I remember.

In all fairness!

Hehe! We should also be fair in pointing out that Jackie Chan was born and raised in Hong Kong, which for a very long time was a possession of the UK. Folks from Hong Kong are more familiar with English than other regions in China. 

As for Mandarin Chinese, it's one of the most difficult languages a non-native speaker can learn. So is Japanese, which is why I chose that particular language to study. My fellow students enrolled in Spanish and French... I was one of the few who enrolled in Japanese 101. I lived in Japan as a kid, so I was already exposed to Japanese culture and language. I was taught how to write my name using Kanji when I was a wee lad.  

[JohnR7]

2 hours ago, Sower said:

Always thought they were called "flicks,' the more scientific term to use than "talkies" (talking pictures)....

 

My dad was an announcer in a movie theater because they used to give out prizes to get people to attend the movies. They paid him 35 cents an hour, and that was a LOT of money when everyone else was making 25 cents an hour. Of course, at one time you could buy land for 25 cents an acre, but you had to pay $2 taxes on it. The really big deal was when "The Wizard of Oz" movie came out in 1939. The movie started out in black and white, like all the others. But when Dorthy landed in the land of OZ the movie converts to color and there was a huge gasp in the audience when that happened. People had never seen color like that on the screen before. Even my baby photos from 1952 are in black and white. Back when television was getting it's start in Black and White.