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When translating from Chinese to English at http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=translate , the explanation is money.

October 14, 2011

Please note: This only affects the translation of text from Chinese to English and vice versa. The functionality to look up individual words or the dictionary definitions of any Chinese word in a text remains unchanged!

The translation page of this website uses (now and before) Google Translate to perform text translation. Google recently changed their previously freely available website integration APIs to a paid service. This has forced us to change the way translation results are presented.
from http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=20111014_newtranslatepage

I actually don't even know what iframes are, but this seems related. All I know is that the translations are full of google, and that two weeks ago they weren't. You need to paste or write some Chinese text in the box and click go to see the new output. Of course it won't mean as much if you never saw the old output without the word google plastered all over it.

When translating from Chinese to English at http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=translate , the explanation is money.

October 14, 2011

Please note: This only affects the translation of text from Chinese to English and vice versa. The functionality to look up individual words or the dictionary definitions of any Chinese word in a text remains unchanged!

The translation page of this website uses (now and before) Google Translate to perform text translation. Google recently changed their previously freely available website integration APIs to a paid service. This has forced us to change the way translation results are presented.
from http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=20111014_newtranslatepage

I actually don't even know what iframes are, but this seems related. All I know is that the translations are full of google, and that two weeks ago they weren't. You need to paste or write some Chinese text in the box and click go to see the new output. Of course it won't mean as much if you never saw the old output without the word google plastered all over it.

If you look at the wiki URL I cited, you'll immediately notice the problem. Chinese language IS a very terse and highly economical language with many symbols, sounds, and tones. In speech, people *disambiguate* words by pairing the words with "word-complements" (I don't know what they're called) to achieve the intended meaning. HOWEVER, the pairings are limited to daily use. Even then, there are still ambiguities. Take, for example, the word "shishi" in Pinyin. You get 23 matches. Even if you add tones, you STILL have ambiguities. If you look at the word list, they're not rare, right? If I say (in Pinyin) "shi4shi4 nan2 liao4", what does it mean? Is it "affairs of the world are hard to guess"? Or "everything is hard to guess"? Or "the state of the affair is hard to guess"? Or "affair of this world is hard to abandon"? In this situation, people disambiguate even further by putting in more "word-complements". Note that the phrase is a common complaint! It is so context specific.

Also, languages are NOT limited to spoken language. How about poems? Stories? Formalities? Jokes? Puns? If the words are written, especially in poems or terse narrative, they can be paired in almost every way and can create a very very powerful poem or narrative. Or puns! Oh man! There are so many puns based on this very fact.

Now, can you say that Chinese character is dispensable again?

"When you're using ideographs, such as in Chinese, you'll probably have a pretty good idea what a new character means, but not how to pronounce it"

Well, not quite, at least in Chinese. Most characters give you a small hint about the meaning plus a small hint about the pronunciation.

For example, check out this character: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c2e8.gif pronounced "ma" (in Mandarin) with a high unchanging pitch (1st tone), it means "mother". It's made of two halves. The left half hints at its meaning; http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c5ae.gif means "woman" (and is pronounced "nu"). The right half hints at its pronounciation; http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c2ed.gif is pronounced "ma" with a falling and then rising pitch (and means "horse"). So someone unfamiliar with this character could guess that it's pronounced something like "ma" and has a meaning that's somewhat related to women -- but wouldn't specifically know if it were actually pronounced "la" or "mu", and wouldn't specifically know if it meant "young girl" or "pregnancy" or whatever.

This isn't true for all characters, but IIRC it is for the majority.

"When you're using ideographs, such as in Chinese, you'll probably have a pretty good idea what a new character means, but not how to pronounce it"

Well, not quite, at least in Chinese. Most characters give you a small hint about the meaning plus a small hint about the pronunciation.

For example, check out this character: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c2e8.gif pronounced "ma" (in Mandarin) with a high unchanging pitch (1st tone), it means "mother". It's made of two halves. The left half hints at its meaning; http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c5ae.gif means "woman" (and is pronounced "nu"). The right half hints at its pronounciation; http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c2ed.gif is pronounced "ma" with a falling and then rising pitch (and means "horse"). So someone unfamiliar with this character could guess that it's pronounced something like "ma" and has a meaning that's somewhat related to women -- but wouldn't specifically know if it were actually pronounced "la" or "mu", and wouldn't specifically know if it meant "young girl" or "pregnancy" or whatever.

This isn't true for all characters, but IIRC it is for the majority.

"When you're using ideographs, such as in Chinese, you'll probably have a pretty good idea what a new character means, but not how to pronounce it"

Well, not quite, at least in Chinese. Most characters give you a small hint about the meaning plus a small hint about the pronunciation.

For example, check out this character: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c2e8.gif pronounced "ma" (in Mandarin) with a high unchanging pitch (1st tone), it means "mother". It's made of two halves. The left half hints at its meaning; http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c5ae.gif means "woman" (and is pronounced "nu"). The right half hints at its pronounciation; http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/rsc/img/chargif/GB256s/stat/c2ed.gif is pronounced "ma" with a falling and then rising pitch (and means "horse"). So someone unfamiliar with this character could guess that it's pronounced something like "ma" and has a meaning that's somewhat related to women -- but wouldn't specifically know if it were actually pronounced "la" or "mu", and wouldn't specifically know if it meant "young girl" or "pregnancy" or whatever.

This isn't true for all characters, but IIRC it is for the majority.

Paper dictionaries usually have something called a radical index, where you find the character by its main feature and the number of additional strokes. But the best solution is to use more modern technology - various online and mobile dictionaries have a feature that lets you draw characters with your mouse, touchscreen etc and looks them up for you. The best one for Chinese is nciku.com; another dictionary with that feature is mdbg.net, but that one needs you to get the correct stroke order, which you might not be able to figure out for an unknown character. Here's one I found for Japanese: http://kanji.sljfaq.org/kanji13/draw.html - this one also seems to need correct stroke order, so there's probably something better available if you google hard enough.

Most likely the work "influence" was translated from the Chinese word yinxiang, which generally connotes a negative influence. A better translation in this context might be "disturb."

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

To extend your argument, "Chinese" is not really a language. The people of China speak several different non-mutually intelligible variants. Linguistically these are more separate languages than dialects, although they are often lumped under "Chinese" for cultural and political reasons.

No, they are often lumped together because they are only slightly more separate than dialects. Sure, they're not mutually intelligible, but neither are English and Pig Latin. In particular, they're written effectively exactly the same way (barring differences in dialects), so they're even closer to each other than Pig Latin is to English (again, barring dialectical differences).

For example:

(/. doesn't allow Unicode, nor does it allow HTML entities for Chinese characters, so I can't insert Chinese characters. Mouse over these links and some browsers [Firefox] will show you the character, though)

[long] can be pronounced either 'chang2' (meaning "long") or 'zhang3' (meaning "grow") in Mandarin.
[long] can be pronounced either 'coeng4' (meaning "long") or 'zoeng2' (meaning "grow") in Cantonese.

[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Mandarin
[without] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "without") in Cantonese

[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Mandarin
[fly] is pronounced 'fei1' (meaning "fly") in Cantonese

[quick] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "quick") in Mandarin
[quick] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "quick") in Cantonese

[piece] is pronounced 'kuai4' (meaning "piece") in Mandarin
[piece] is pronounced 'faai3' (meaning "piece") in Cantonese

(In other words, homophones in Mandarin are homophones in Cantonese; homographs in Mandarin are homographs in Cantonese.)

You can't look at these and tell me these "variants" aren't as close to each other as most dialects are.

For the fellow who dissed Chinese for having no cognates with English: were you surprised? English is part of the Indo-European language family. Chinese is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family. While Chinese is distantly related to Navajo and Apache, it has no connection whatever with English. The only words in common English usage derived from Chinese are "ketchup/catsup" and "yen" (to desire strongly, as in "I have a yen for strawberry ice cream.")

Do you really think it's as bad as all that? If you go the other way, looking for Chinese words that have roots in English or some other European language, there are lots. For example, this page has a few.

Especially if you want to learn vocab related to technology, there are lots of words that aren't simple phonetic translations, but are pretty much word-for-word translations of the equivalent in English. For instance, the word for internet in Mandarin is hu lian wang, which literally translated means something like "mutually connected network."

I'm not saying that it's easy. Pronunciation (especially "tones") presents a big hurdle for many, and the writing system... don't get me started. You definitely start with a leg up going from English to say, French or Spanish. But the similarities, even if not as obvious, help a great deal when trying to learn new vocabulary.

A Chinese colleague of mine explained a simpler way that some Chinese have used to get past the censors. For instance, the character fa of "Falun Gong" gets split into two characters. The left part (the three dots) represents water, so shui is used instead. Without the three dots, fa becomes qu. So rather than write Falun Gong, a message board poster might write Shui-qu-lun Gong. This could be figured out by a person reading it, but wouldn't be found by computer search.

This was a while ago, and I assume that such a simple substitution would get figured out pretty quickly, but I thought it was neat.

A Chinese colleague of mine explained a simpler way that some Chinese have used to get past the censors. For instance, the character fa of "Falun Gong" gets split into two characters. The left part (the three dots) represents water, so shui is used instead. Without the three dots, fa becomes qu. So rather than write Falun Gong, a message board poster might write Shui-qu-lun Gong. This could be figured out by a person reading it, but wouldn't be found by computer search.

This was a while ago, and I assume that such a simple substitution would get figured out pretty quickly, but I thought it was neat.

A Chinese colleague of mine explained a simpler way that some Chinese have used to get past the censors. For instance, the character fa of "Falun Gong" gets split into two characters. The left part (the three dots) represents water, so shui is used instead. Without the three dots, fa becomes qu. So rather than write Falun Gong, a message board poster might write Shui-qu-lun Gong. This could be figured out by a person reading it, but wouldn't be found by computer search.

This was a while ago, and I assume that such a simple substitution would get figured out pretty quickly, but I thought it was neat.

Most all IDNs in most TLDs are stored/accessible in standard ASCII ... you mentioned "hemp" ... well, I happen to own the .com IDN (see http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?wdrst=0&popup=1&wdqchid=%E9%BA%BB to view character) in Chinese / Japanese ... its punycode (ascii representation) is xn--mc7a.com

2nd+ level IDNs have existed for over 7 years - they are not new.

What is new is the TLD part, such as .COM, of domains will also be representable natively in other character sets / formats. There won't be any landrush because each IDN TLD representation will be aliased to the corresponding standard ascii form of the TLD.

Ron