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Expert: - 1/1/2007


Question
How many words are in the Chinese language?

Answer
How many drops of water in the ocean? It depends on how you count -- and actually no one could ever accurately count all of either one.
Chinese also counts words in two ways: "ci2", which means combinations of characters that might be more like the concept of a word in English, and "zi4", which are Chinese characters. Some Chinese characters are both zi4 and ci2 -- meaning they can stand alone to represent a word -- but others can only occur in combination with other characters to form ci2. So you can see that the question of "how many words" is a very complicated one, and even deciding whether a dictionary should be organized around ci2 or zi4 can bring people to blows!

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Volunteer

Terry Thatcher Waltz

Expertise

I specialize in Chinese technical translation and conference interpretation, and terminology. I can answer questions about these topics, Chinese language pedagogy and learning issues, Chinese grammar for learners, and general issue related to Taiwan.

Experience

Full-time translator and conference interpreter since 1987; long-time resident of Taiwan. Qualified State Dept. language contractor (interpreter and translator) with extensive government and private sector experience.

Organizations
American Translators Association; The Translators' and Interpreters' Guild; ATA Interpreters' Division; ATA Chinese Division.

Publications
AIIC (International Association of Conference Interpreters) website

Education/Credentials
Ph.D., Chinese; MA, Conference Interpreting

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