行(xing2) vs 行(hang2)? 了(le) vs 了(liao3)? How do we distinguish them?
When your watering the flowers and it asks you to write the pinyin or meaning of '了', I can't tell which meaning of the character (liao3 or le) they are referring to. I always have to guess which one it means.
Could you please give an indication? Maybe show the grammatical function of the word next to it (such as 'verb' or 'particle').
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I don't think the "part of sentence" solution works, even though that's what we're using. First of all, there are times when there are two separate verbs that are the same character (得). Second, showing the part of the sentence interferes with recalling other words. Sometimes you might not be sure what a word is, but then you see it's a verb, and that really narrows it down for you, but in real studying/reading situations you won't have the part of speech listed above it...
Posted by ThatHorse 6/5/12 (1 year ago)Isn't 觉 another one....?
Posted by carl_a 6/5/12 (1 year ago)I believe that you will need to use context and experience to differentiate homonyms in spoken language and in written language. Also, you will need to work on measure words / classifiers to help with context. I am begining to conclude that homonyms ( words that sound the same, but have different meanings. Also for mandarin characters that look the same, but have a different meaning. ) That homoyms are one of the difficult aspects of the spoken language and the written language. I did hear confirmation from either Mike Cambell ( Glossika ) or Steve Kaufmann of Lingq. Initially, I thought that the characters would be the most difficult aspect of Mandarin.
Posted by stoney 6/6/12 (1 year ago)Okay thank you guys XD. Stoney, I do know all about the homonyms. They are okay as long as you can recognise the context XD.
Posted by ouhannahbanana 6/8/12 (1 year ago)Another related puzzler: some Mandarin words have multiple meanings, even though they have the same character and sound. I think we pretty much have to keep it all one word though. Hopefully the most common meaning is the main one that we memorize.
Posted by carl_a 6/8/12 (1 year ago)OK, I missed your entire point which is that there is no context except for learning the test. The context is missing. This would be a great time to add a sentence underneath. This would give context and would also help with the next step in learning. A former aquaintence returned from teaching english in Korea to work on his TESOL masters degree. I was aksing him about some of the concepts that he had learned during his TESOL studies. He told me about Paul Nations theories on initially learning tangible vocabulary in a eustress environment and then transitioning to more abstract vocabulary. The next step is pedagological ( simple, easy ) readers. I have not been studying mandarin very long. This site has helped me learn characters very effectively. Though when, I start to study other material I will become aware that, often I do not intially recognize characters that I have learned when they are in a sentence. Example sentences would be an excellent way to provide context. It should be in a smaller font below the parts of speech. These examples should be taken from contemporary examples.
Posted by stoney 6/8/12 (1 year ago)