Ah! The same w/ ASL: Though there are sets of iconic signs (ie MORNING, TREE, etc), most are arbitrary
Discussion
Here are some interesting ones that you'll like:
Person = 人 (ren) (two legs)
Woman = 女 (nǚ) (a sitting women with one leg crossed)
Mouth = 口 (kŏu)
Tree = 木 (mù)
Forst = 林 (lín)
Forest/jungle = 森 (sēn)
(accents on top of the Roman characters signify which tone to use when pronouncing the word)
🔥This is awesome!! These have very similar grouping + "look" of the ASL signs for these particular examples
Tonality- the bane of my linguistic capabilities! Being fluent in Chinese- Do you also have perfect pitch?
It's not perfect but pretty good, and this took about 3 years to accomplish.
What was the impetus to train (near) perfect pitch?
The Chinese people will not understand what you're saying if you use the wrong tone! 😁
Every word can have 4 different tones that in turn will give it many different meanings.
After a while, saying words in the wrong tone will sound wrong.
LOL! I see... I thought maybe you're a musician + wanted perfect pitch for that.
I watch a number of polyglots who are fluent in Mandarin - such a complex language
I can hardly speak let alone sing 😂
Mandarin is complex and a nightmare to learn. But it's kid's play when compared to Arabic.
What's your native language? And how many languages have your tried picking up?
I speak four languages fluently and a beginner in another two.
My native language is Arabic.
Beautiful! Besides your mother tongue, what is your favorite language to converse in?
I can't really choose as I enjoy them all immensely.
💯 understandable!
How long did it take you to be able to at least hold a basic conversation in ASL?
For me, I could hold basic conversations within the first month... and obtained "near native fluency" by year 4. Prior to that, I was technically "fluent", working as an interpreter,, but wasn't able to fully express my personality in totality with the same ease as I do w/English. By year 4, it all came together!
How difficult do you consider this language to be?
🤔Well, ASL lacks tone + written expression... so, that may make it easier for some people.
But, as ASL is as rich as other spoken languages, the ease/difficulty in learning it is a bit subjective. (ie I take to signed languages easier than oral/rural languages [I think my 👂are broken!])
(Do you want to give it a go? [I have free lessons that you might have fun with; quizzes at the end so you can test youself]: https://aslterpandteach.com/p/untitled-2