Talk:Chinese number gestures

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject China, a project to improve all China-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other China-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. (add comments)
More information about this article...

I guess these gestures aren't the same all around China. :-) — Instantnood July 8, 2005 17:39 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Move to Wikitravel

I believe that this is more relevant to travel than an encyclopedia due to (1) the purpose for the target viewer and (2) the inability to reference accurate material. Davilla 22:02, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Because of licensing it is not possible to move the entire page. I will be moving my contributions about Taiwan as soon as I can figure out the proper place for them, and will then mark this page for deletion. Davilla 01:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Silly people. EVERYTHING is relevent for an encyclopedia of ALL human knowledge. Just say not everyone agrees. Nesnad 17:20, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

KeepPizzaMargherita 02:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The gesture for three

A common gesture for "three" is the last three fingers (middle, ring, and pinky) extended, thumb and index finger folded. I don't know if this is more common than the other. It is at least prevalent in Shanghai. I've added it to the article. --Sumple 03:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

that's what my mainland chinese friends say as well. there needs to be an added/corrected picture for number "3"
The book for my chinese class agrees with you,published by the Peoples Education Press so (hopefully) they know what they are talking about.

[edit] Pinky/RingFinger 'Independance'

Several times this mentions gestures being 'difficult' because the last two digits are 'not independant'

Is there anything more definite about this? I think that this phenomenon differs from person to person, and even from hand to hand; I can bend my left-hand pinky independantly of the left-hand ring finger, but find it impossible to bend my right-hand pinky without also bending the right-hand ring finger. Interestingly, I can bend either ring-finger on its own.

Anyway, the relevence is that I didn't think that those comments should be as definitive as they are - I might come back and put in a few 'sometimes' and 'maybe's in there... -yamahito

I should have been aware of that. My bad. Done. Davilla 13:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos

Some photos would really help this article. LDHan 12:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other countries?

I have no references to offer, but my understanding is as follows.

  • The Japanese count the fingers that are closed, as opposed to extended, starting with the thumb (which is similar to what is described here as "four") and ending with a closed fist, meaning "five".
  • Brits start by extending the little finger (normally on the palm of the other hand).
  • Europeans start by extending the thumb, then index, and so on.
  • Americans start with the index, middle, ring, little finger and then add the thumb for "five".

It would be nice to have an international "Number gestures" article.

PizzaMargherita 20:17, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm European and I don't do that... Rbarreira 11:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Good, even more material. What's your background and what do you do? PizzaMargherita 15:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguous

The article saith "While the five digits on one hand can easily express the numbers one through five". Obviously. In many different ways. But what happens in China? Perhaps the way described at the end of the article? Who knows?

The article also saith "and potentially even letters of the alphabet since the names for all are enumerated in the Chinese language". Which alphabet?

Removed. I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to mean. WP 09:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the 1st 10 gesture (closed fist gesture)

The closed fist gesture is actually zero, it's just used as 10 in some cases. Just ask anyone to show you the two-hand combined gesture for 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. --Voidvector (talk) 23:13, 10 June 2008 (UTC)