# Why does Chinese translate so badly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 29, 2002, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450 "2002-07-29T23:20:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/61 "2012-04-19T03:47:53Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > Ask her why Japanese needs 100+ [counting particles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word). You should be able to understand that you’re counting cylindrical objects when you’re talking about pencils. Or why two counting systems are mixed semi-randomly depending on what you’re counting. Anything she finds frustrating about English numbers is infinitely more frustrating going the other way. Yes, why does Japanese need both “ichi, ni, san, shi …” and “hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, yottsu …” for “one, two, three, four …” when practically every other language has just one set of names for the numbers? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/62 "2012-04-19T05:20:12Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Yes, why does Japanese need both “ichi, ni, san, shi …” and “hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, yottsu …” for “one, two, three, four …” when practically every other language has just one set of names for the numbers? It doesn’t NEED that, but it’s an artifact of the language. You may as well ask why English needs so many specific damned terms for groupings of things (a “pod”, a “pride”, a “pack”, a “band”, a “flock”, you get the idea). Japanese counters are basically just the answer to English’s grouping words. Hell, if I wanted to give an even more obvious counterexample, we have “one, two thee” and “mono, duo, trio” and “uni-, bi-, tri-”. More specifically, “ichi, ni, san, shi” are Chinese-origin, “hito-, futa-, mi-, yon…” are Japanese-origin. I think which one you use depends more heavily on the origin of the counter word than anything (though I can’t prove that). In addition, with notable exceptions (i.e. yon is very common for “4”) the Chinese numbers are used much more often anyway. ETA: Though I can’t really defend the fact that counting people goes “hitori, futari” and then arbitrarily switches to “sannin[…]”. Or why 20 years old is randomly “hatachi” (okay, that one is because it’s an important age in Japan, but still). > [@jovan](#): > > I’ll quote myself: > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14639567&postcount=55](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14639567&postcount=55) > > So, “a majority” was a bit of an over-statement, it’s more like exactly half of the words used are of Chinese origin. I’m curious on how that breaks down by part of speech, my guess is that adjectives are mostly Japanese, while nouns (and maybe verbs) are mainly Chinese, but that’s a barely-educated WAG. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/63 "2012-04-19T12:01:37Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > I’m curious on how that breaks down by part of speech, my guess is that adjectives are mostly Japanese, while nouns (and maybe verbs) are mainly Chinese, but that’s a barely-educated WAG. Actually, the verbs are the bits that are almost certainly Japanese in origin. There’s an easy way to break down the origins, though I don’t know if it’s 100% accurate from an academic point of view. There are a minimum of two readings for the characters: _onyomi_ and _kunyomi_. _Onyomi_ are the loan-words from Chinese. Most of the compound words are made up of _onyomi_. _Kunyomi_ are the native Japanese words that became associated with a borrowed _kanji_ character that had the same or similar meaning. Verbs are overwhelmingly represented by _kunyomi_. The ones that aren’t are usually [**abstract concept** or **noun**]+する (_suru_, which is the rough equivalent of the English verb “do”). ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450/64 "2012-04-20T01:38:16Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > I’m curious on how that breaks down by part of speech, my guess is that adjectives are mostly Japanese, while nouns (and maybe verbs) are mainly Chinese, but that’s a barely-educated WAG. [Here be the stats](http://serifu.web.officelive.com/wagokango3.aspx) (the stats come from a list of basic vocabulary for schoolchildren, so the overall results are somewhat different from my last post, which used magazine articles as a data set.): ```auto Native Chinese Foreign Mixed Total Nouns 6,004(29%) 12,504(59%) 1,415(7%) 1,070(5%) 20,993 Verbs 3,267(94%) 0 0 224(6%) 3,491 Adjectives 424(92%) 0 0 37(8%) 461 Adjectival nouns 146(32%) 266(58%) 23(5%) 24(5%) 459 Adverbs 1,034(89%) 80(7%) 0 41(4%) 1,155 Cunjonctions 64(98%) 1(2%) 0 0 65 Attributives 30(79%) 5(13%) 1(3%) 2(5%) 38 Interjections 109(89%) 0 9(7%) 5(4%) 123 Compounds 66(79%) 0 0 18(21%) 84 ``` This actually, sort of, goes back to the original question in this thread. The reason why words of Chinese origin are so overwhelmingly nouns (or adjectival nouns like 奇麗 (_kirei_ – beautiful/clean) or 丈夫 (_joubu_ – solid) ) is that the distinction between noun, adjective and verb is not as clean cut in Chinese. The same word, like the OP’s “代表”, can function as a noun or a verb. In Japanese, these loanwords all get classified as nouns, but with they can still function as verbs, adverbs or adjectives. For instance, you can have: 日本の代表を選ぶ -\> To chose a representative of Japan. 日本を代表する -\> To represent Japan. 日本の代表的作家 -\> A representative artist of Japan. 代表的に活動する -\> To act representatively. In the list above, though, that all gets counted as a single noun. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-chinese-translate-so-badly/121450.md?page=3)