# Some of your Chinese words are backwards. (In the dictionary)



## Manok

At least they are backwards to how I learned how they should be written. For instance, in several cases I have found that the measure word comes second when it should come first...


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## mkellogg

Hi Manok,  can you give me a specific example?


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## Manok

Someone elsewhere explained it, but look up the word for book, or clothes I believe are the backwards ones I found, instead of ben shu, it's shu ben, or yi fen whatever it's whatever fen yi. If it's optional to have both, I'd like the normal version in the dictionary as well.


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## JamesM

I don't speak or write Chinese so I asked a Chinese co-worker.  She says that things used to be written right-to-left but with globalization it's now more common to see them written left to right, even in news headlines or direction signs.  The characters in "shu ben" (book) are written correctly and have the appropriate anglicized words below them.


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## Manok

Ok, I also talked with someone else after making this post, and they said sometimes it's done this way to make certain there is no error of mistaking book for say something else that may use the measure word ben.  So it's all good, though I would like to have both versions of the word if it all possible when it's set up like that.


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## Ghabi

There's no "measure word" involved. shūběn "books" is a single word. It's just that the morpheme běn also happens to be the measure word of "book", thus giving you the false impression that something has gone wrong. The difference between shū and shūběn is a matter of context (shūběn is more like a collective noun).


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## twinklestar

Manok said:


> At least they are backwards to how I learned how they should be written. For instance, in several cases I have found that the measure word comes second when it should come first...



Traditional Chinese characters' writing is mostly vertical (right to left), and occasionally horizontal (left to right) i.e. for some tablets. It was/is  written from top to the bottom for each line. It hardly exists in mordern daily writing and printing except for calligraphy and slogans in the mainland of China, but exists in Taiwan and Hong Kong, etc.

In the mainland of China mordern Chinese writing is mostly horizontal, from left to right.

For the examples you illustrated, it might be written/printed randomly for the artistic effect. It doesn't make much sense. I would suggest don't waste time on it.


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## Manok

Again thanks, I am only learning, and what little I've seen has been mostly of the left to right variety My brain screams at me that it's wrong because we can't do that in English, so it must be.


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