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Traditional and Simplified Chinese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5615 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes  Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 25 of 80 12 September 2009 at 5:42am | IP Logged | ||
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1. 赢＝亡＋口＋月＋貝＋凡.
亡: sense of crisis 口: good oratory 月: time and experience 貝: make money in right way 凡: mild psyche 2. Basically，「零壹贰參肆伍陸柒捌玖拾佰仟」are not the Traditional styles of「〇一二三四五六七八九十百千」, the former capital series is only used for financial affairs (write a cheque or account), while the latter series of characters (they're both Traditional and Simplified) is widely used on most occasions, of course, you can freely write 1234567890 that are only used in maths as an option. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| drfeelgood17 Bilingual Hexaglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6456 days ago 98 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog*, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Japanese, Latin, Arabic (Written) | Message 26 of 80 12 September 2009 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Apparently, even the Japanese Kanji underwent some simplification, but far fewer characters were affected than in
Mainland China and the simplifications were very minor in comparison. In your opinion, Z.J.J, do you think they handled this process better in Japan? Would you have been in favour of this type of "mild simplification" in China? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tofutofu Tetraglot Newbie United States Joined 5615 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Mandarin, English, German Studies: French, Russian | Message 27 of 80 12 September 2009 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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To come back to the original question, "Simplified or traditional characters -- what should I learn?", I think it
really depends on your goals. If you just want to survive in mainland China, you only need to learn simplified characters. If you want to read books published in Taiwan or Hongkong, or if you want to study classical Chinese, you'll also have to learn the traditional script. If Chinese is more than a purely practical or fleeting interest, it may be best to start with learning traditional script, because it's easier to go from traditional to simplified than the other way around. Did you know that in the '20s there was a Chinese linguist, Qian Xuantong, who proposed, quite seriously, to abolish, not only the Chinese traditional script, but even the Chinese language, and replace it with -- guess, what -- Esperanto? Can you imagine the cultural calamity that would have been? You can find some nice historical notes about Chinese efforts to reform their writing system at http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/DeFr 1950.html Edited by tofutofu on 12 September 2009 at 5:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Linguistics Diglot Groupie Finland Joined 5635 days ago 59 posts - 62 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: German, Finnish | Message 28 of 80 12 September 2009 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
"Death" is just the basic meaning of 亡, but if we see it from philosophical point of view, "death" is also the beginning of "life", then it can mean "new opportunities" for winning. There you go. 亡 is usually placed as the top part in a character, so you seldom see it at any other positions. I'm not sure whether there is an explanation from linguistic perspective though. Edited by Linguistics on 12 September 2009 at 6:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5615 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 29 of 80 13 September 2009 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||
From the viewpoint of leading authorities (not myself) on Chinese languages,「钱玄同」is usually evaluated as a radical and irrational scholar who always considers Chinese characters and languages as the root cause of China's weakness, humiliation, misfortune during the past 200 years. He's proficient at western languages and culture, but perhaps not a real master at Chinese 小学 (Xiǎo Xué), it (小学) doesn't mean primary school here, actually it refers specifically to a solid foundation in phonology「音韵 (yīn yùn)」; philology「文字 (wén zì)」; critical interpretation of ancient texts「训诂 (xùngǔ)」. So, maybe learners would have a long way to go before they could comprehend the difficult points of Chinese languages. 音韵＝释音 (shì yīn)＝explain why it's pronounced that way. 文字＝释形 (shì xíng)＝explain why it's written that way. 训诂＝释义 (shì yì)＝explain why it's interpreted that way (chiefly original meaning). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6857 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 30 of 80 13 September 2009 at 6:13am | IP Logged | ||
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It's worth mentioning that many university programs in the US, whether your major is Chinese or not, expect you to become proficient in both Traditional and Simplified characters. It's good to know both, and not really too difficult once you learn how the simplifications work. This is especially true if you only need to be able to write one of the two sets, and just read the other.
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| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5615 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 31 of 80 13 September 2009 at 6:58am | IP Logged | ||
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IMHO, the simplification of characters seems like an unfinished building (烂尾楼), in other words, a defective construction which was shut down halfway and called for a halt. It brought much chaos on the true characters' system which has minor defects (a few have complex strokes) that can be improved reasonably, in fact, traditional characters are even easier to tell apart and read through than simplified ones, though a little harder to write neatly.
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| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5615 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 32 of 80 13 September 2009 at 8:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Let me give you an example of how (one of the simplifying methods) simplified mode merges with two traditional characters, 听 (yǐn) was formerly a traditional style, it originally means "somebody opens his mouth and start to smile", so the left part refers to "mouth" (口). Somehow, it has replaced the character 聽/聴 (tīng, the left part refers to "ear" 耳) to represent the meaning of "listen (to)", and, of course, the pronunciation of 听 was changed from yǐn into tīng, too. Moreover, if the learners know the characters 曲 and 辰, then 農 (nóng, 曲＋辰) is rather easier to memorised than a brand-new unrelated character 农. BTW, the above-mentioned may be less seriously than "one simplified corresponds to several traditional".
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