Joel of Danwei has translated the gist of a list of the top errors in Mandarin use for 2006, as submitted by the readers of Y?owénjiáozì (????), a magazine in China. (Y?owénjiáozì is tricky to translate. Maybe “Pedantry,” though that sounds a bit harsh.)
I’ve reproduced the errors relating specifically to character use (7 out of 10), making the characters larger in order to help make the distinctions clearer. See Joel’s post for details.
- ? (xiàng) instead of ? (xiàng)
- ??? (b?ng shù nián) instead of ??? (b?ngx? nián)
- ??[??] (Shénzh?u [liù hào]) instead of ??[??] (Shén Zh?u [liù hào]) (Those responsible for naming the spacecraft, however, certainly intended the name to remind people of “the Divine Land” (Shénzh?u, ??, i.e. China).)
- ? (jì) instead of ? (jí)
- ?? (m?i f?) instead of ?? (m?ifà) (The characters ? (f?) and ? (fà) were both given the simplified form of ?, so people in China often end up with the wrong character when trying to use the traditional form of ?.)
- ?? (q?shì) instead of ?? (q?shì)
- ??? (h? mì gu?) instead of ??? (H?mìgu?)
sources:
- Y?owénjiáozì: 2006 10 dà y?wén ch?cuò — y?wén ch?cuò Zh?ngguó Zh?ngy?ng Diànshìtái quánguó dì-y? (??????06?????? ??????????), via B?ij?ng yúlè xìn bào, January 21, 2007
- Top language errors for 2006, Danwei, January 24, 2007