• Berengaria_of_Navarre@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          I assumed that because the characters were tied to meaning rather than sound it would be the same. But I suppose if the grammar is different it would make sense for it to be written differently. Admittedly I know very little about east Asian languages other than what I picked up watching food ranger videos. But, saying things are amazing is not that useful. 太好了!

          • renzhexiangjiao@piefed.blahaj.zone
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            5 days ago

            characters were tied to meaning

            that’s right, but this relation can be many to one. many characters can be synonyms. and eventually, as these languages diverted, Cantonese would make one of the synonyms the standard word for something, while Mandarin would choose another synonym

            • Berengaria_of_Navarre@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              Oh ok, that makes sense. I guess like regional differences in vocabulary in English. Like for example in English you would say children but in Southern Scotland you would say weans and further north you’d say bairns. Even though bairns would be written the same way in all parts of the country, you just wouldn’t use it unless you were in Scotland.