Comments on: A new symbol for epilepsy in Chinese http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/24/a-new-symbol-for-epilepsy-in-chinese/ Neuroscience and psychology news and views. Fri, 24 May 2013 17:03:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Hugh Grigg http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/24/a-new-symbol-for-epilepsy-in-chinese/#comment-26797 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:06:36 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=22257#comment-26797 Of course I don’t think I know better than native speaking doctors. I wasn’t criticising the choice or suggesting they change it based on my knowledge of Chinese, which as you say isn’t native level at all.

I was just making an observation about the content of the words, which I find is a useful thing to do as a language learner. After this I’m sure I won’t forget the two terms :)

]]> By: John http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/24/a-new-symbol-for-epilepsy-in-chinese/#comment-26789 Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:52:33 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=22257#comment-26789 Hugh, do you really think that you know better than doctors who are native speakers of Chinese? (And FYI, only the very top students in Hong Kong can enter medical school, unlike in western countries.)

The new name helps because it eliminates use of the character 癲. In Hong Kong slang this character roughly translates to “mental”, as in “Are you f***ing mental?” 癇 is a medical word and is only used in medical settings. As for your second sentence, please learn Chinese to native speaker level before you comment.

]]> By: Hugh Grigg http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/24/a-new-symbol-for-epilepsy-in-chinese/#comment-26733 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:35:24 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=22257#comment-26733 Ah my bad, sorry!

]]> By: michael http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/24/a-new-symbol-for-epilepsy-in-chinese/#comment-26730 Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:33:05 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=22257#comment-26730 i think kevin meant that hokusai was a japanese artist.

]]> By: Hugh Grigg http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/24/a-new-symbol-for-epilepsy-in-chinese/#comment-26725 Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:49:11 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=22257#comment-26725 Japanese and Chinese both make use of the same characters. Chinese is written entirely with these characters, whilst they form one part of the Japanese writing system. They’re pronounced differently in the two languages, but have the same meaning (usually).

]]> By: Hugh Grigg http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/24/a-new-symbol-for-epilepsy-in-chinese/#comment-26724 Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:17:38 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=22257#comment-26724 I’m not sure how much the new name helps, as it still contains 癇, which has the meanings of both “epilepsy” and “insanity”.

The characters for the new term are literally “brain epilepsy disease” – the first and last seem fairly redundant.

Also, I wish they’d use the UTF-8 text characters (癲癇 and 脑癇症) in articles, rather than inserting images. There are so many advantages to plain text.

]]> By: kevin denny http://mindhacks.com/2012/04/24/a-new-symbol-for-epilepsy-in-chinese/#comment-26719 Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:29:33 +0000 http://mindhacks.com/?p=22257#comment-26719 Isnt the graphic Japanese?

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