zarth.dev

i want to perfect this flashcard's look and animation before working on other things. After that is done, I want to add an input field for the user to write the meaning of the mandarin. Still looking for more feedback on the UI. (Because I don't have a designer's brain)

Dropping today.

Day 3 of learning Chinese. Today I started reading the history of China. And I have not taken the traditional route of starting from prehistory. I am really interested in learning about the period from Shang dynasty to Ming Dynasty. Note how I tired writing the Mandarin characters of the names of these dynasties. These buds are complicated on next level. I mean just look at it: Xia: 夏 (朝) Shang:商 (朝) Zhou: 周 (朝) Qin: 秦 (朝) Han: 汉 (朝) Sui: 隋 (朝) Tang: 唐 (朝) Song: 宋 (朝) Yuan: 元 (朝) Ming: 明 (朝) Qing: 清 (朝) Special note: The character (朝) is read as Chào and it means DYNASTY. I can't even think of how do the Chinese manage of type Mandarin on their smartphones and computers. Like for a foreigner it is really easy. We write the word in plain English (called the pinyin), like Chào and the software automatically selects 朝 character. But for the natives, who don't know pinyin, it must be really hard. I have seen a video where a radicle based keyboard was designed in 19th century but that shit was so hard to massage manufacture that it never became very popular. And this is why Calligraphers were and are so important in all East Asian cultures. Their pictographic languages are very hard to type without using a helping language like English. Coming back to the history part, I am really interested in reading a lot of Chinese history. Coming from India which is the only other culture that continues to thrive even today, I find a lot of similarities between both of them. We both originated from remote river valleys and spread over vast geographical areas. Both of us survived thousands of years, pioneered different technologies and created complex society structure, influenced our neighbours. We both created our own distinct languages : Sanskrit and Mandarin which are really sophisticated despite being really ancient. We both developed our own architecture, religion, and even pioneered two of the most widely known fabrics of ancient world - Indian cotton and Chinese Silk. I mean, everyone who tried to conquer India or China, became Indian and Chinese. We conquered the conquerors. Be it Bactrians, Sakas, Kushans, the muslim rulers and even Europeans, everyone assimilated in Indian culture. Same happened with Mongols in China. I am particularly interested in Han, Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties. The amount of innovation done by these dynasties were really ahead of its time. Like they were the ones who started Government exams, paper currency, standardized weights and measures, manufacturing of sugar, and so on. Man I can talk about it for hours.