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A New Era for the Chinese Semiconductor Industry: Beijing Responds to Export Controls
(americanaffairsjournal.org)
this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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I work with a few people from China. What do you think they will say if I ask them if they have a way to say yes to other people in the language they speak when they call their parents?
I would wager that if you asked that question to Chinese people, they'll answer something like "we use 对, which means correct", as I explained earlier.
Ask them if they like ice cream, but to answer in Chinese.
They are not going to say “对", they'll say ”喜欢“（I like it), "不喜欢",(I don't like it) or some variation.
They won't say 对 because "correct" doesn't answer the question "do you like ice cream?"
You can get an approximate or what you can assimilate as a functional answer to your questions, but you'll never get a "yes".
That's just how "yes" works in all Chinese languages and dialects.
And this is the tip of the iceberg.
Lacking a word for"yes" is one difference among thousands this culture has that determines their reactions to what you think are subtle influences, while you are assuming that culture will react in a way that you understand, even though you can't understand it by virtue of your simple, practical differences and context.
I have one counterpoint: 嗯
I don't see the relevance.
How about "shi"…?
Bearing in mind that this is a fraction of a percent of the cultural differences, "是“ means "it is" and "不是“ means "it isn't". Neither of them mean yes or no, and would be an incorrect answer to "do you like ice cream?"
" Do you like ice cream?"
" It is."
You can understand what they're going for, but you are not prompting the response you would expect to because that answer doesn't exist in those languages or in those cultures.
The framing and context of a single word seems small, but when you're asking a child "do you like ice cream" but you're not allowed to ask it in anway that they can say yes or no to you and employ the complexities and implications of those words, the situation is different.
" You like ice cream, correct or incorrect?"
They'll answer you, but you've taken away their independent facility to formulate an answer.
" Ice cream is good, is it or is it not?"
Again, they'll answer you, within the strict confines of your question. There's no gray area in your question, which is how you have to ask it in order to elicit any sort of response.
You give them two possible answers, they choose one.
That in turn shapes how you and they see questions in general. How questions and behavioral prompts like the types you're suggesting are perceived, are asked and responded to.
You can imagine how linguistic formation can determine thought processes pretty quickly, layer upon each other and result in a consciousness you don't quite recognize.
And that's from one word among a couple dozen thousand, and those are all only words and ignoring all other parts of the culture.
What the fuck are you talking about. 是 Is a direct translation for yes. And we absolutely would answer
你喜欢冰淇淋吗 With 是的。
Similarly we would absolutely answer in the negative to that question with 不。 Because 不 is absolutely a direct translation of no.
To repeat 是 and 不 are direct translations of yes and no where you can drop them in replacement in English.
是 and 不 can be functionally understood to mean yes and no, but they're certainly not direct translations and not correct answers to asking someone if they like something.
If you ask in Chinese if somebody likes something, You're going to get the answers"喜欢“ or "不喜欢“, not "是/不是“.
You can get "是“ by asking about the concrete nature of whether something is or is not.
"这是公园吗“?
"是“ or "不是“
A Chinese language speaker can use these two words to convey what an English speaker understands as "yes" or "no" that what you're referring to is or is not a park. But they are not saying"yes" or "no".
They're saying "it is" or "it isn't“, which are different words with different semantics.
What nonsense.
Everything you said is true in English.
If I ask do you like ice cream, a common answer is I like it. You can also say yes. Exactly the same as 喜欢, or 是的. Both are perfectly normal to say.
You are trying to imply the second one is not normal. You are wrong.
Nope, those are discrete words and concepts, and It looks like you're missing the point.
The point here is that you're not going to get the response you want by asking a question you're used to because the affirmative word in English that is the answer to that question does not exist in Chinese languages.
Yes means yes, 喜欢 means ”I like it",and 是的 means "it is".
Neither of those Chinese words are the direct equivalent of the English "yes".
Approximations? Functional phrases? Sure.
Different words and concepts and language building blocks? Of course.
And to keep you accountable, "I like it" is a very strange, inaccurate and extremely uncommon way to answer "do you like ice cream?" In English.
I am fluent in both languages. It is in no way strange to say I like it. I have no idea where you are getting that concept. Hell McDonald's had a whole campaign stating I'm loving it as an extreme version of I like it. Hell, a common response in English is I don't like it, I love it. Which again is an extension of I like it.
Your basic understanding of both languages is so ridiculously wrong I'm at a loss for words.
*Edit. Which by the way became 我就喜欢, in the Chinese McDonald's. So are you going to say Chinese doesn't have the word for love?
Well, if you have an unrelated McDonald's anecdote...
Your grasp on either these languages or the main premise of the argument is sorely lacking.
To humor you, if you truly believe that you can ask in English "do you like ice cream?" and expect to receive the answer " I like it", then we've determined which language you understand less.
Then again, The Chinese noun and verb for love is "爱“, not the McDonald's phrase you quoted, so maybe you don't understand either language as well as you would like.
But hey, you know McDonald's lore, so there's that.
How do you know so little about language. It's baffling. The whole point is in Chinese it would be odd to say I love it because love is reserved for living things. But that doesn't mean the word love doesn't exist in Chinese. That's why the McDonald's slogan was the way it was. And trust me, McDonald's team knows much more about translation than you do.
You might want to go climb up to the top of this thread, that's not what this thread is about at all.
My simple example one can easily extrapolate from is a response to a commenter claiming that sanctions won't work against China because they are strict, but if the US treated China like a parent treats their child, manipulating and urging them onward with soft encouragement, the US could get that they wanted from China without the need for sanctions.
My point is that if even the word "yes" is not directly translatable in Chinese languages, and they have a couple tens of thousands of words, and China has an entire historical set of behaviors and culture separate from the US with unique calls and responses, it's insulting and unreasonable to expect a desired response using manipulations that work differently in different cultures.
Separately, you haven't demonstrated much capability in either language you're theorizing about and as a result haven't earned that trust.
Look up "I like it" in Google. There are literal songs written for that response in English. Your understanding of cultural responses is so ignorant you have to question how little you know. Entire songs have been written that proves you don't know what your talking about.
Still no evidence?
Keep up those fabrications, thank you for admitting I'm right again.
Haha,,yea. You should definitely wear a badge.
Thanks again
I appreciate your admission of guilt.
And accept your continued congratulations!
Very nice of you to add that in to your admission that you're incorrect, thanks.
Deeply unserious
All this to defend your position that billions of people don't have a way to say "yes".
As I've mentioned multiple times from the beginning, it's a salient example of how your paternal metaphor about the US prompting China to behave a certain way is entirely wrongheaded.
And it isn't a "position", it's a linguistic fact.
English not having gendered nouns is a fact, not a "position".
Have a great day. You are an intellectual giant who has bested me.
I appreciate it, although our disagreements were largely practical definitive matters, not very intellectual.