# Can anyone read these Mandarin or Cantonese characters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 27, 2019, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149 "2019-04-27T23:51:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/21 "2019-04-29T17:09:34Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Jeeze, I couldn’t listen to that whole thing. Ben obviously understands a bit of canto, Carmen sounds more like an overseas Chinese canto speaker to my ears. (I did live in honky town for 5 years but am by no means a Cantonese speaker). > > I’m just chiming in to show off. At the beginning, Ben uses the character “to have” (有）, which is actually a pictogram of a hand holding an piece of meat. The top two lines being a “hand” and the chunk of stuff below representing meat. NOtice the two horizontal lines in the meat. The Cantonese word for “not have” (I think this is brilliant), is the same pictogram but minus the two horizontal lines 冇 . Mandarin does NOT have an equivalent and instead di-syllabisizes with “not have” or 没有。 Ben grew up in Hong Kong, so understands Cantonese but ironically doesn’t speak it. He’s a Chinese language (Mandarin) and history scholar and that’s why he’s speaks in formal Beijing Mandarin. You’re right about Carmen. She moved to Australia at a young age and that’s probably where she picked up her ‘accent’. The most telling is that she says _gwei_ lo instead of _gwai_ lo. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/22 "2019-04-29T23:50:56Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > **Leaffan** , can you ask your friend for more information? Where were these purchased? … He’s not sure. He’s divorced and came across them while unpacking a box. ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/23 "2019-04-30T03:59:08Z")
This reminds me of people getting hanzi or kanji tattoos without regard to what they mean, because they look good togeher, especially when combined (see my above post about ‘baka’ / ‘red deer’ above. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/24 "2019-04-30T04:01:58Z")
It looks like the writing is below the glaze, is that correct? If possible, post some pics of the front of the plates, which may help determine it’s origin, Chinese or Japanese. It seems it may be an attempt to give it a Japanese origin, when it really isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/25 "2019-04-30T05:08:33Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > The characters for Yokohama are written in Japanese kanji, but the character for “made in” is not used in Japanese. for clarification, that kanji is used in Japanese but just not alone like that. ---
**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/26 "2019-05-01T04:00:56Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > for clarification, that kanji is used in Japanese but just not alone like that. Is it akin to a grammatical error, e.g. there instead of their? Or more like a non-native speaker may use there instead they’re? As suggested, would it be something that would make sense to a someone trying to spoof “Made in Japan”, not knowing the correct (Japanese) kanji and instead using hanzi that expresses the same idea? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/27 "2019-05-01T12:57:17Z")
> [@lingyi](#): > > Is it akin to a grammatical error, e.g. there instead of their? Or more like a non-native speaker may use there instead they’re? As suggested, would it be something that would make sense to a someone trying to spoof “Made in Japan”, not knowing the correct (Japanese) kanji and instead using hanzi that expresses the same idea? Writing” “there” for “their” is a spelling mistake and not a grammatical error. There isn’t an exact equivalence in English for the error they made, but possibly a “spelling” mistake. Using the wrong character as both 製 and 造 mean “make.” ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2019, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/29 "2019-11-02T07:03:12Z")
Hell hath no fury like an angry 12-year-old. ---
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149/31 "2019-11-05T18:06:41Z")
Reported. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-read-these-mandarin-or-cantonese-characters/833149.md?page=1)