Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 July 25

Sweet Chinese nothings
How would you write "I love you" in Chinese? I know the symbols for the three words "I", "love" and "you" (我, 愛, and 你), but do they just go together one after (or below) the other as in English, or are there syntactic tricks that I don't know about? Also, if I were (totally hypothetically, of course ;) to write them on my sweetie's birthday card, would I use the form of you with the heart radical underneath? Oh, and in case it makes some difference, this would be preferably in the "traditional" pictograms rather than the modern ones (I don't think there's any difference with these characters, anyway). Grutness...wha?  10:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hypothetically, yes, that's the way you'd do it. The version with the heart radical is traditional.  I hope it has the desired effect, you smooth devil.  HenryFlower 11:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Heh :) My s/o's learning the language and I thought it would be nice to add it to her card. Since I'm helping her learn it I've picked up a couple of hundred pictograms, but I haven't yet learnt how to string them together. Thanks. Grutness...wha?  12:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Strictly speaking, "pictograms" are pictures (which modern Chinese written language are not). "logograms" is what you mean. And the language itself has a grammar, so there's sentence structure.  Take a look at the grammar article.  --ColourBurst 18:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't write the "you" with the heart logogram underneath; it's the formal form of the pronoun. It'd be pretty much the same as saying Je vous aime in French or Ich leibe Sie in German.


 * Ah, yes, good point. Love with the heart radical (愛) is the traditional form of that character; you with the heart radical (您)is a different word from 你. HenryFlower 20:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You should write it "我愛你". "您" is a polite form of 你, and is often used when talking to elderly people or people of higher status. Bibliomaniac15 00:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * OK thanks for all that. I wondered whether one might be the wrong form of pronoun ("you" is a pretty generic, multi-use word in English). Grutness...wha?  03:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

the initals of the title of a book appearing on the bottom of the page
i was wondering if anyone can help me with this. occasionally i notice at the bottom of a page of a book i am reading, that their may be the intials of the title of the book and sometimes a number printed there. for example 'against a dark background' - iain m banks (good read) will appear as a. a. d. b - (random number)i notice it more in older books pre computerastion of the printing process, and wonder if it had something to do with the 'laying out' of the print. if anyone could answer this question i would be very thankful as it has niggled away for many a year
 * I hope the number after the abbreviation isn't really random; the numbers should be in order. What you're seeing is a signature mark. Books used to be printed in signatures which were sewn together, and the printer needed to know which signature of which book he was looking at to do so correctly. You wouldn't want to sew signature 8 in before signature 7, nor would you want to sew in a signature from a different book altogether. User:Angr 12:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Books still are printed in signatures! (Mostly, except for el cheapo print on demand items.)  &middot; rodii &middot;  13:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

thanks will look up the link highlighted, you have answered a very niggling question

Some simple French...
I've just written this phrase in French, though it is wrong (but I don't know where!) Please correct it.

L'absencer de poisson suggére q'il y a l'eau est polluée.

Thanks Computerjoe 's talk 15:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * L'absence de poisson suggère que l'eau soit polluée. (Using the word you used, anyway; there may be better vocabulary.) Adam Bishop 15:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps 'de poissons'? Not 'des poissons', though, as that would indicate you were referring to all the fish in the world. --Richardrj 15:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Unlike Adam, I'm inclined toward "est polluée". I don't think it's usual to use the subjunctive there. Atleastin such scientific style. Circeus 17:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think L'absence de poissons suggère que l'eau soit polluée is alright. - THE GREAT GAVINI  {T-C} 17:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As a nature speaker, I think it makes a much weaker assertion (it is not the same as English "Suggest that the water might be polluted.", which is proper style in scientific writing) than what appears to be intended. Circeus 18:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "fait supposer" (i.e., "implies") would be a better verb? Grutness...wha?  03:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * No, no native speaker would use fait supposer in this case; L'absence de poissons suggère que l'eau est polluée is the one. It would have been nice to know what you were trying to say in the first place, Computerjoe. Lectonar 06:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, good point...I remember learning all these verbs that can take the subjunctive, so I immediately think "subjunctive!" when I see them :) Adam Bishop 15:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I was saying 'The absence of fish suggest that the water is polluted. Computerjoe 's talk 16:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * So it's like Circeus said: '...est polluée...' gets the gist best. Lectonar 07:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

German preterite
I'm preparing for a trip to Germany. I've been informed that in certain parts of the country, particularly in the south, use of the preterite in speech is considered snooty, although it is commonly used in writing and northern speech. I would have presumed the opposite, since the preterite seems quicker and somewhat more direct and blunt. Can an advanced speaker please confirm or refute this? Thanks. Bhumiya (said/done) 21:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Never mind. I just discovered our article on preterite covers this! Bhumiya (said/done) 21:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Huh. Here in Berlin (which was not in Southern Germany the last time I checked), the preterite is almost never used, either. I'd say that in Standard German, using the perfect tense instead of the preterite is pretty much universal. In the dialects/non-standard German varieties it might be different (Swiss German, for example, does not even have a preterite, if I'm not mistaken), but I don't think that carries over to the standard language. --Rueckk 12:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, with auxiliary verbs, Berliners and other Northerners use the preterite quite commonly. Berliners, like other Northerners, will ask "Warum warst du gestern nicht in der Schule?" and will answer "Weil ich krank war". Southerners will ask "Warum bist du gestern nicht in der Schule gewesen?" and will answer "Weil ich krank gewesen bin". Full content verbs are more likely to use the perfect though, especially irregular ones; even Northerners are more likely to say "Ich habe ein Buch gelesen" than "Ich las ein Buch". User:Angr 13:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You're right. I never noticed that. But then again, I try to stay out of Southern Germany. --Rueckk 13:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, how might I learn the preterite forms of (virtually) every verb? Would I have to go out and buy a German dictionary? I haven't been able to find this kind of information online. Bhumiya (said/done) 22:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Something like this?  HenryFlower 21:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. That's exactly what I was after. Bhumiya (said/done) 18:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)