D'oh.. that last message didn't get encoded properly.. grrr..
let me try again...

> From: head [mailto:head@sainet.or.jp]
>
> Kevin Aw wrote:
> > "Nei hao ma?"  (Mandarin)
>
> I have heard there is the word "ma?" in Mandarin and that is
> like "ka?" in Japanese.
> word-for-word translation of that Mandarin sentence  is "You
> fine **?", right?

  The first word is "you" most definately.  The second word isn't 
"fine"
though.. its "good."  It can be used in the same place as "fine," 
though...
For example, if someone suggests you do something and you want to say 
"sure,
"  you can say "Hao ah."  (ah is another particle.  8)  ).  But if 
someone
says "how's the food?" you can also say "Hao ah."  8)

This is the 2nd character in S-JIS:

?D

> (probably, it spells "ni hao ma?" in PinYin)

(Yup.. that's it... I'm not very good at the standardized mandarin 
PinYin.)

Here.. I can write that entire sentence, except for the last word:  (I
wonder if I can type it in Japanese S-JIS?  8)  .. lemme fire up my
writer... hehe.. kinda dangerous.. it crashes MSDEV.)

OMG!  You can't write the first character in S-JIS!  Man.. that's odd..
there's 'ware' in Japanese, but not this character!  Here it is in in 
Big5
then...

=81=98A |n ?U !H

Well, for english speakers learning Cantonese/Mandarin, "ma?" is called 
a
particle.  But for Chinese people it's really a word.  "Ma?" is 
represented
by the same character as "horse" but you add a small character for 
"mouth"
on the left side. 

=81hn
?u

Well, I can't find it.  8)  Here it is in Big5 for anyone who can read 
it
and is interested:

?U

Its hard to find because its kind of a 'made-up' word (so there's 
probably
no equivalent of this in S-JIS)... the character itself has no meaning; 
its
just used to represent a sound.  (Also, there aren't consistent rules 
to
making up the characters for these particles or other slang, you'll 
have to
remember every one individually... although most conform to this kind 
of a
"find the closest sounding character and add a 'mouth' to it.  8)  )



> >   So this "ma?" is just a sound that you have to speak in
> > order to be understood... is this the nearly the same thing
> > in Japanese?
>
> hmmmm. almost yes, but the mean not change as much as "ma?"
> if you leave out "me".

  This stuff is all interesting to me because I'm convinced that 
Japanese
courses taught to Chinese speaking/writing people should be taught from 
a
Chinese standpoint (ie. Kanji first, not "memorize sounds" first...)  
...
over here, most courses are only directed towards English 
speakers/writers.

  So if its easier to learn Japanese this way for Chinese people... it 
may
be easy for Japanese people to learn Chinese this way as well!  (Well.. 
at
least in writing.. pronounciation is much tougher...)


****

  shoot.. I don't know if even this message is encoded properly or 
not..
sorry about this...


--
Kevin Aw
Seagate Software