Bill (比尔) - Latest Comments in Chinese Caligraphy

Re: Chinese Caligraphy

Alex Miller (@fotoflo) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:13:44 -0000

@Bill I don't think its that you have to write fewer words (you may, but that's probably negligible), or meaning gets lost in translation (which it undoubtedly does, but that's not the point). It's more that Chinese characters compress the whole meaning of a word into a smaller physical space: Example "Character" and 字 pretty much mean the same thing on the surface (though both have many other meanings, homonyms and generally "live" in a different linguistic ecosystem), typographically, character just takes up more space....

Also on a similar tangent, check out how much more meaning Chinese can fit into a tweet: 140 characters is around 90-100 (rough guestamate, and varies widely depending on style) words. In English your lucky if you can get 25.

我的两分钱－ my two cents.

Re: Chinese Caligraphy

Bill — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:20:01 -0000

@ShriNagesh: Thanks. For me it takes forever to write a single character. However, watching someone who has grown up writing the language is a completely different story.

But, interestingly, when you see English and Chinese versions of the same text side by side, the english appears much longer. Maybe you have to write less to convey the same meaning in Chinese. Either that, or some of the meaning is lost in translation.

Re: Chinese Caligraphy

Bill — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:20:01 -0000

@ShriNagesh: Thanks. For me it takes forever to write a single character. However, watching someone who has grown up writing the language is a completely different story.

Re: Chinese Caligraphy

ShriNagesh — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:08:10 -0000

Hi Bill,

Chinese script looks very artistic. I wonder how much more time it takes to write the same word in English & Chinese. Each alphabet seems to have many strokes.

Have fun :)

Re: Chinese Caligraphy

ShriNagesh — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:08:10 -0000

Hi Bill,

Chinese script looks very artistic. I wonder how much more time it takes to write the same word in English & Chinese. Each alphabet seems to have many strokes.

Have fun :)