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Chinese characters - inefficient? | ||
Tags: Chinese Characters | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5525 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes  Speaks: Swedish* | Message 25 of 132 15 October 2009 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Of course, the problem is not to determine how the characters you see are pronounced, but what they mean. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6298 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 26 of 132 15 October 2009 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
Kind of like dropping Latin (for the most part) from North American education. The Chinese librarian at my university gave me grief for being able to read stuff in Chinese from a couple of millennia ago but not being able to read anything from the same period from the Western literary tradition. It was years ago but she had a good point. I have a bit of time now so I'm working my way through "Getting Started with Latin". Slowly but surely... Regarding efficiency, I'm still at the stage where I find it easier to deal with some more characters than with declensions and conjugations in Latin. Hopefully it will click for me sometime if I keep working at it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6298 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 27 of 132 15 October 2009 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, sort of, but it is awkward. They had to invent a bunch of their own characters to make it work. Reading classical text with Vietnamese pronunciation, however, is no problem. I found a bunch of books of Tang poetry with Chinese characters, Vietnamese pronunciation, and translation into modern Vietnamese. A project for another day... Still, if I were a publisher of Vietnamese dictionaries, I would put the Chinese characters in brackets after the entry of each word of Chinese origin like they do for Japanese and Korean. Lots of historical documents and literature from Vietnam written in Chinese or mixed Chinese and Vietnamese-invented characters (Chữ Nôm) that are sitting in archives collecting dust. Might as well make them a bit more accessible. (I found a Vietnamese/Korean/Mandarin mini dictionary that does this. I hope it catches on by the time I get around to studying Vietnamese.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jee Senior Member Australia Joined 6313 days ago 105 posts - 105 votes Studies: English | Message 28 of 132 16 October 2009 at 5:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Is PinYin system much easier for foreigners to learn than characters? A: Yes
Is PinYin system more efficient than characters for native speakers? A: No at all Actually ,in terms of reading, character system is much much more efficient than the spelling system for Chinese. Nowadays, the computer input technology helps to improve the Chinese input speed a lot. Will or Would Chinese people change the writing system into spelling? A: No,and will never ever. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5525 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 29 of 132 16 October 2009 at 10:21am | IP Logged | ||
It's easy to learn, but irrelevant. You might as well say that a system whereby all English consonant sounds are represented by the letter K, and all vowel sounds by A, is easy to learn. The writing system should also be able to express the language in a reasonable way, which pinyin can't. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5578 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 30 of 132 16 October 2009 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Pinyin does represent the spoken language exactly. That's the point. Far better than English orthography does for its purpose. There are genuine reasons for preferring the Chinese characters over romanization, but none of these reasons have to do with pinyin specifically or being able to represent the spoken language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| free4eternity Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 5522 days ago 8 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English, Cantonese* Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 31 of 132 16 October 2009 at 6:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all, I am new here.
Yes, perhaps the pinyin system would be easier for foreigners to learn Chinese, but if it is actually used in place, the whole system would collapse. End of question. Chinese has a LOT more homophones, compared to English and other European languages. I am talking about perhaps 5 to 10, and sometimes even more, characters of the same sound to basically EVERY sound. Also, the rhythm of chinese is largely based on the semantics of the text. If everything is converted into pinyin, the rhythm would be lost, and understanding a text would be a LOT harder. Besides, Chinese characters (I am talking about traditional characters) do have a rule to them. The characters is composed of two parts, a classifying component and the other part, and I know I am a bit vague, but the classifying component sort of give it a context, such as words that have something to do with water, fire, speech, plants etc. There are many cases where homophonic characters differ by only the classifying components. (I made up the name. I really have no idea what else to call it.) The meaning of a text would be lost if it is written in pinyin. Chinese characters evolved from pictogram-like characters, and it is possible to trace most of the characters to see its 'story'. It would be a true lost if everyone simply stop writing chinese characters. Well, at least I would not allow it. I am a native speaker, and I HAVE TROUBLE WITH IT. To me, it is a chinese version of the IPA (which I have some trouble with...so maybe its just a thing with me and phonetic alphabets...) I should really stop now. It is starting to sound like an essay -- an essay minus an introduction and topic sentences, and with bad grammars... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5822 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 32 of 132 20 October 2009 at 12:58pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, its nonsense. A lot of ancient languages are not logographic yet can be understood. Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Hebrew, etc. There's a long writing tradition in Chinese so commentaries and quotations in Literary Chinese of Classical Chinese would be a big help. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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