Good Chinese character to know is "electricity" which is 电 (diàn) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Altair8800
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2025, 10:19:18 pm
content: If you are an EE or Electronics Hobbyist there is one Chinese Character probably good to remember and that is电(diàn). It is pronounced like "dee+anne"电电(diàn) is the character for lightning or electricity or electronics in Chinese. It is usedA LOT. Mainly because it is a Root word and in Chinese, they often have a root word then add other descriptive words to create a new compound word (similar to French and even English).Here are a few examples how it is combined电话 (diànhuà, 电(diàn) electric+话(huà) speech), so together means "electric speech" or "telephone"电脑 (diannǎo, 电(diàn) electric+脑(nǎo) brain), so together means "electric brain" or "computer"电力 (diànlì, 电(diàn) electric+力(lì) power/strength/force), so together means "electric power."电池 (diànchí, 电(diàn) electric+池(chí) pool/pond), so together means "electric pool" or "battery"Key takeaway is if you see the character电(diàn) you know it refers to electricity or electronics.So if you look at something like the Chinese written part of an electronic devices User Manual (or Chinese only DataSheet) you will likely see this character pop up a lot...

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2025, 11:01:54 pm
content: I find it weird that in Russian and Ukrainian non-technical usage  -- even in official communications -- refer to electricity as "light" .e.g. I'm looking at an official web page with schedules for rolling blackouts "Повідомити про відсутність світла" ... "Inform about the availability of light" I can't say about engineers

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2025, 11:16:42 pm
content: Maybe they mean "light" in the sense of "lighting", as in a lighting switch? Electricity mainly used for that in the early days?Otherwise, weird.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2025, 11:28:33 pm
content: For sure it will have started in the 1930s or whatever when electric lighting was the first widespread domestic use. Fridges followed pretty rapidly in the west -- 1920s and universal by the 1950s, but in the USSR fridges only really started post-war in the 50s and became universal in the 1980s!But even today apartment dwellers (which is VERY common in Russia and Ukraine) get their hot water and space heating provided by the building (by heat exchanger from a city-provided gas powered hot water loop) and gas for cooking. So electricity is often only used for lighting and small appliances / electronics

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 16, 2025, 11:34:33 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on February 16, 2025, 11:16:42 pmIt's like electricity = light bulbs are working. Thus if mains electricity disappears, people often say that light has disappeared (пропал свет), once it appears again, they will say that light was turned on (включили свет).

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 12:18:36 am
content: Quote from: Altair8800 on February 16, 2025, 10:19:18 pmWhat is the + character supposed to convey?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 01:00:02 am
content: Quote from: Bud on February 17, 2025, 12:18:36 amUsing that plus is very confusing, it makes it look like two syllables. Each Chinese character is a single syllable. Not a whole word, like a lot of westerners think, but a single syllable. 電 (traditional) 电 (simplified) is pronounced dian. To say it properly you need to get the right tone, but if you speak really flat you can get away with a lot. The closest translation for the character on its own is probably "spark".

author: abeyer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 04:10:47 am
content: Quote from: Simmed on February 17, 2025, 03:29:20 amI think I learned about that from bigclive.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 08:16:41 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 16, 2025, 11:01:54 pmThat used to be common in English, too. People would talk about the “light bill”, for example. You still hear that once in a while today!And it lives on in phrases like “keeping the lights on” (keeping a business afloat).

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 09:17:45 am
content: Quote from: tooki on February 17, 2025, 08:16:41 amVery much so in the UK, albeit a generational thing, now in steep decline. My grandparents always referred to their "electric light bill".

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 09:20:54 am
content: Quote from: NE666 on February 17, 2025, 09:17:45 amBet they had a 'lux too.

author: 5U4GB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 11:25:04 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 16, 2025, 11:01:54 pmCould be a historical thing, it used to be that the only electricity outlets in houses were light fittings, and you had hair-raising (possibly literally) plugs that you could screw into light fittings to power other electrical devices. Can't find any images at the moment but imagine Edwardian-era photos of this.

author: 5U4GB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 11:30:37 am
content: Quote from: NE666 on February 17, 2025, 09:17:45 amMy grandmother would say she was going to "open the radio" to indicate she was turning it on. Not sure where that came from but it seems to have been the way of expressing it for her generation. At one point it was playing up and I asked if I could open it up (meaning have a look inside), and she replied that no, it wasn't working.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 12:25:44 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 16, 2025, 11:01:54 pmIt probably makes sense because the original use for electricity in homes would have been only for lighting. It wasn't until the late 30's when it started having more of a general purpose use in a house in most of the Western world. I am not sure of the history of electricity in the USSR but I know it didn't reach the outer exurbs of the Soviet Union until well into the 60's. Most older people's experience would have first been with street lighting then maybe in home lighting before things like fridges and televisions became widely available.See also, a lot of Canadians still call electricity "hydro", because the majority of the power was from hydropower.

author: Xena E
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 12:43:30 pm
content: Quote from: 5U4GB on February 17, 2025, 11:25:04 amYou dont need to find historical photos, theyre still being made and sold.Edison screw versions also available so every one can start a fire, (look at the current rating of that thing...)X

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 01:02:14 pm
content: Quote from: Simmed on February 17, 2025, 03:29:20 amIn Chinese tone changes the word, and punctuation is spoken, so you really meant:电嗎电嗎电嗎电你的屁

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 04:42:31 pm
content: It's worth noting that many East Asian languages use this morpheme and/or characterJapanese - den (電 - same as traditional Chinese character)Vietnamese - điện (VNese no longer uses characters)Korean - jeon (also "電" when written in Chinese characters, i.e. hanja, but this is rare in modern Korean)So for telephone ("electric talk / conversation)Chinese : diàn huà (电话 / 電話)Japanese : den wa (電話)Vietnamese : điện thoạiKorean: 전화 (jeon hwa) (電話 in hanja, again, rare these days)Knowing Chinese morphemes is incredibly helpful when acquiring vocabulary in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 04:54:07 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on February 16, 2025, 11:01:54 pmIn Polish people also use światło ("light") as a synonym for electricity in phases like "włącznik światła" (light switch instead of an "electricity switch"), "rachunek za światło" (light bill) and "awaria światła" (power outage) -- basically very similar to English usage.

author: ksjh
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 05:11:12 pm
content: In Germany, single-phase AC is also often called "Lichtstrom" ("light current", in the lighting sense, not light weight), whereas three-phase AC is called "Drehstrom" ("rotating current"). But the bill for it is usually called "Stromrechnung" ("current bill", as in AC current, not freshest) in both cases (but most houses and flats are three-phase here anyway).

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 05:48:52 pm
content: Good point - it's "Stromausfall", not "Lichtausfall" (which sounds stupid, at least to me)

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 06:06:40 pm
content: Those lamp adapters do have a use,all be it fairly niche,they let you use a pendant drop on a batten holder without changing the fitting

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 06:52:09 pm
content: Quote from: ksjh on February 17, 2025, 05:11:12 pmExactly same in Finnish ("valovirta", light current), as opposed to three-phase supply, "voimavirta" orstrong current, but these are disappearing from the language of younger generations.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 06:58:14 pm
content: Yeah. The youngsters complain internet is gone / not working.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 07:08:33 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on February 17, 2025, 04:42:31 pm娘 means "mother" in Chinese, means "daughter" in Japanese.手纸 means "toilet paper" in Chinese, means "letter" in Japanese.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 07:08:50 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 17, 2025, 06:58:14 pm... using more accurate terms like "electricity" instead of some super weird "light current". Sometimes language evolves in a good direction and old colloquialisms die out.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 07:57:40 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on February 17, 2025, 07:08:33 pmGoogle translate agrees with you, but I've never heard that term used for toilet paper. The usual terms is 衛生紙 - something like hygiene paper.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 08:03:33 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on February 17, 2025, 04:42:31 pmHangul dates from the 1400s, yet it was only around 2000 that they decided to stop mixing Hangul and Hanzi (Chinese characters). If you find a 1995 Korean newspaper every page is littered with Chinese characters, mixed in with the Hangul. If you find one from 2005 there are only a few used to specifically refer to Chinese names. Most young Koreans can't read Chinese any more. However, if you go to any company in Korean its name will be in large Chinese characters on signs at the entrance.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 08:21:53 pm
content: Quote from: Simmed on February 17, 2025, 07:46:31 pmBut this is a great example of the usefulness of hanja / kanji - they can be used differentiate between homophones.전화 (jeonhwa) could be 電話 (telephone), 電化, (electrification), 轉化 (transformation), or even 戰禍 (catastrophe (of war)).This is, I believe, the main reason why Japanese still uses kanji (compared to hanja, which are slowly disappearing in modern Korean). Trying to read a (non-children's) book written entirely in hiragana would be very, very tiresome.Also, the words above - 電話, 電化, , 轉化 and even 戰禍 - are immediately understandable to a Chinese speaker since the same character combinations are used in "native" Chinese words. 轉化 and 戰禍 are not "normal" Japanese words, but I think most Japanese speakers could make a good guess as to their meaning.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 08:24:09 pm
content: Quote from: 5U4GB on February 17, 2025, 11:25:04 amOh don't worry, I well remember doing that in the 1960s in houses that didn't have 3 pin sockets. You powered your radio or heater or hair dryer or whatever from a cord that went into the bayonet fitting where a light bulb would normally go ... often with a double adaptor that gave a straight-through socket for the bulb and another off to the side for your appliance.I believe that's completely illegal to do now as not only do you have no earth, you also can't control which wire is phase and which is neutral as bayonet connectors are reversible (it would be different with Edison screws used in the USA for light bulbs ... but making multiple rotations of your extension lead would be a PITA!)

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 08:27:56 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 17, 2025, 06:58:14 pmitym "WIFI"

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 08:50:39 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on February 17, 2025, 08:21:53 pmThey seem to have very little trouble with homophones. It seems, like in English, the homophones are usually easy to resolve by context. If you travel around Seoul the traffic signs for a couple of places are still in Hangul and Hanzi, because there is more than one place Seoul with a name that is phonetically the same. Its rare, though. I remember the signs for GimPo airport show the name in Chinese (金浦), to differentiate from another GimPo.Quote from: pdenisowski on February 17, 2025, 08:21:53 pmIts not slowly disappearing. It disappeared almost overnight.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 09:41:40 pm
content: As I understand it, katakana is also used in Japan because it can be used on basic displays, IIRC you only need a 9x9 pixel display to show all katakana and almost every Japanese word can be written with katakana (though it can seem informal for names and the like). Similar idea with Korean (Hangul) though the composition of the characters does get a little more complicated whereas katakana is about 100 characters total which can be stored as independent bitmaps.Supporting CJK languages on small embedded devices is something I've had to do in the past, and it gets painful, especially if you live in a Latinised mindset of ~100 characters in each language, including diacritics and case, ought to be enough!

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 09:55:38 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on February 17, 2025, 07:08:50 pmBut does it really?Everyone still uses the phrase "turn on" to mean to energize something. But that phrase comes from when light switches were rotary, not toggles, and had to be turned to switch them on. So it has no real literal meaning anymore.How about "dialing" phone #s?I'm sure we can all think of many more examples, none of which are likely to fall out usage anytime soon.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 10:17:09 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 17, 2025, 09:41:40 pmIts rare to see a katakana only display in Japan. You can display full Kanji/Hanzi in 16x16, so limiting things to 9x9 is not a huge reduction. I didn't travel to Japen at a time when every pixel added substantial cost. Maybe katakana only was more of thing back then.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 10:39:39 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 17, 2025, 10:17:09 pmSure, but with kanji/hanzi you need a character ROM for, what, 3000 possible characters (for basic Japanese, it's around 10,000 for technical level IIRC). That's a lot of memory, even for a modern embedded system with a PIC micro in it for instance. Meanwhile with Latin characters or, indeed, katakana you can fit that pretty comfortably inside the MCU's flash.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 01:13:10 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 17, 2025, 08:50:39 pmThanks! - my Japanese is much better than my (laughably bad) Korean. In the last ~30 years I haven't seen any movement away from kanji in Japanese.Quote from: coppice on February 17, 2025, 08:50:39 pmI guess "slowly" depends on your time frameI remember the first Korean textbooks I used had hanja in almost every chapter, but I don't see that as much (or at all) in more modern textbooks.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 01:17:11 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 17, 2025, 10:17:09 pmDefinitely was more of a thing in the early days of CJKV computing, but half-width katakana looks very, very retro to me now. I think the last time I saw it was in the Matrix movies

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 01:21:39 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 17, 2025, 10:17:09 pmExcept for ラーメンHonestly, the first time I saw the kanji for ラーメン (拉麺), I had no idea what they meant (and had to look them up in my trusty Canon Wordtank)

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 05:22:26 am
content: These are also worth knowing when looking through Chinese datasheets:电压 - "electric pressure" - voltage电流 - "electric flow" - current电阻 - "electric obstruction" - resistance

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 06:27:16 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 17, 2025, 07:57:40 pm"衛生紙" is more formal, but we also say "手纸" in daily spoken Mandarin.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 03:42:29 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on February 18, 2025, 01:21:39 amラーメン is very hard to understand, but I know what 拉麺 meansIn Japan they like to use the Chinese characters for that, as they think of it as Chinese food. Its pretty obvious, though. Pulled noodles is exactly what they are when produced properly, which few places do these days. Freshly pulled ramen is far better than the factory produced stuff, though, whether you get the cheap dried ones, or the more expensive soft ones packed like most udon.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 03:44:44 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on February 18, 2025, 06:27:16 amSo, that's how you recycle letters from people you don't like?

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 05:44:13 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 18, 2025, 03:42:29 pmFrankly, I always saw it written in katakana when I was studying in Japan (and I ate alotof ramen back then).Incidentally, I broke out my (1990s-era) Canon Wordtank, and strangely enough, it gives "老麺" (老 - old vs. 拉 - pulled) for "ramen", which isdefinitelysomething I have never seen. ちょっとへんな読み方ねえ....

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 06:23:28 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on February 18, 2025, 05:44:13 pm老麺 seems like a weird name for something traditionally made fresh. In Chinese 老麵 is a particular noodle dish.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 06:30:59 pm
content: Some languages / menus definitely require better eyesight than others!

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 09:27:12 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 18, 2025, 06:30:59 pmThat is my impression as wellLooking at these japanese/chinese/korean characters here alongside the english characters with the same height, i can barely make them out.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2025, 10:19:00 pm
content: Quote from: Ranayna on February 18, 2025, 09:27:12 pmThat's mostly familiarity.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 07:19:21 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on February 17, 2025, 09:55:38 pmYeah. Maybe my point was that with the specific term "current", there is real risk of confusion. You don't need to be an electrical engineer for it to be useful to understand difference between current, voltage, power and energy. Like, fuses sense current, not power, not voltage; unit of current is A; when choosing power supply, voltage must match but current capability can be more - this kind of everyday stuff. I don't expect everyone to understand Ohm's law and whatnot, but we should also not arbitrarily add sources of confusion for them.Specifically, the "light current" vs. "strong current" refers to VOLTAGE (and number of phases) and has absolutely nothing to do with current, which is why I enjoy the fact that the terms are just going away here. People have started talking about "three phase supply". Which is great!

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 10:17:41 am
content: Quote from: Ranayna on February 18, 2025, 09:27:12 pmTry reading handwritten JapaneseIf you look closely at some of my books behind my "lab bench," you'll see that Kodansha once published an entire book on how to decipher handwritten Japanese.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2025, 12:27:55 pm
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on February 19, 2025, 10:17:41 amOne of the interesting things I've noticed is a doctor's handwriting seems to be notoriously hard to read in every language, yet a pharmacist can read it fairly easily. A waiter's handwriting can be quite interesting, too. When you learn to read and write Chinese, as a native user of Romance script, you have to retrain your muscles to make stroke moves rather than curly moves. Its actually one of the major impediments when you start. Many long time Chinese waiters develop a writing style that turns Chinese characters into mostly circular motions, like writing Romance script. I find that really hard to read.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 08:02:00 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 18, 2025, 03:44:44 pmYou really have a great imagination! The reason for many inconsistencies in vocabulary is that modern Chinese has made many changes while Japanese has retained the meaning of ancient Chinese.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 08:09:23 am
content: Quote from: pdenisowski on February 18, 2025, 05:44:13 pm"老麺" refers to a dough that is used as a "seed" for the next fermentation, it has nothing to do with noodles.

author: pdenisowski
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 11:27:00 am
content: Quote from: gamalot on February 20, 2025, 08:09:23 amAhhh ... that explains my confusionThanks!!!

author: shapirus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 11:49:17 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 17, 2025, 12:25:44 pmOnce I lived in Toronto for a few months and was puzzled as to what "hydro" meant with regards to utility bills (often mentioned in rental ads etc.). Initially I, naturally, assumed that it was about water supply. Then I learned about the "Toronto Hydro" company and all that.Its kinda fascinating how such things are very natural to local people whereas they can be utterly confusing for those who didn't follow their evolution.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 12:21:35 pm
content: Quote from: gamalot on February 20, 2025, 08:02:00 amIts not just the meaning they retain. Cantonese is close to an ancient form of Chinese, and quite a lot of Japanese words are pronounced quite like they would be in Cantonese.Its interesting to look at terms which are pre-1949 and post-1949 in Chinese. Before the communist takeover of China terms flowed quite freely, so most Chinese speakers adopted the same new term. After 1949 Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the other Chinese communities outside China tended to adopt one term, while China adopted another.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 12:26:56 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2025, 12:21:35 pmMany southern Chinese, not just Cantonese people, think that their pronunciation is closer to that of ancient Chinese and are proud of it (however, linguists disagree).