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Chinese characters - inefficient? | ||
Tags: Chinese Characters | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6854 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 17 of 132 23 September 2009 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Sure, you can replace the characters with pīnyīn. I just did it in that sentence. The other threads were not about whether the Chinese could, but whether they should. And since you can't use pīnyīn to write Chinese without major changes to the language (and I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary), my argument is that they shouldn't.
It's like saying, "You know, Newspeak seems much more efficient than English. Let's make everyone re-learn their own language. Sure, that would entail the enforcement of a huge, sweeping, mandatory change in the way people communicate just because we like it better, but since we are of the opinion that it's better, let's do it." 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5587 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 18 of 132 24 September 2009 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I love it man! I love it! That is the best quote I have heard in a long time! I completely agree. People who opt to study the likes of Chinese and Japanese but at the same time keep whining on about how they think that the character writing systems should be abolished and replaced with an alphabetic system are just so annoying. If someone really feels that way about the characters, they have probably chosen the wrong language. As for efficiency, reading Japanese written only in kana or with very few kanji is incredibly tedious and takes me more time to comprehend the overall meaning of the sentence. I believe that with Kanji, I can read much faster. Therefore I believe that characters are much more efficient. In my own native language, I often feel intimidated when spelling certain words because their orthography is irregular. I never have this sort of problem when writing Japanese. Edited by hombre gordo on 24 September 2009 at 12:35am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6706 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 19 of 132 24 September 2009 at 3:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
As far as I remember, the other threads were about whether or not there was any benefit to switching to pinyin only, which is a different argument again from whether or not they should. We covered our points of view in the other thread, so no need to rehash them here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5787 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 20 of 132 24 September 2009 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
No, I believe the point is to make it easier for anybody, including Chinese people, to read Chinese. Regardless of which solution you support, there are known problems with literacy in the Chinese speaking community.
The same might be said about those who complain about loanwords. Or gender. Or cases. A lot of people have pet peeves about or solutions to perceived problems with one or more languages they are studying. Have they all chosen the wrong languages?
I believe the speed and ease of reading with or without kanji is a matter of acclimation. I believe that reading comprehension is at different times both aided and hindered by kanji. In terms of the original question of time learning versus results gained, however, in the case of Japanese, kana is an objective winner. That said, I don't expect or even want Japanese to do away with kanji. As the original poster said, they're fun...they just take a damn long time. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hombre gordo Triglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5587 days ago 184 posts - 247 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Portuguese, Korean | Message 21 of 132 24 September 2009 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It is possible that they may have. I do love Japanese but sometimes I ask myself whether I should have persued Chinese instead. Before I decided which Asian language I would study the other contender was Chinese. But now I am at the stage where I am pretty fluent in both spoken and written language so for me there is no turning back. Before anybody decides to study a language they should know what they are up against. Since you have said that Japanese Kanji are not likely to be displaced by some other system (and it is even less likely that the Chinese will do away with their writing system), there is not really much point in debating this by putting pet theory against pet theory. The truth is that they are here to stay whether learners like it on not and they form an essential part of the language. So any learners better learn them. Edited by hombre gordo on 24 September 2009 at 4:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6854 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 22 of 132 24 September 2009 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, but these problems do not necessarily stem from the use of characters. I've pointed out several times before, the literacy rate in both Taiwan and Japan is 99%, while in China it is 90.0%. Clearly the use of characters does not necessarily contribute to illiteracy. A more likely culprit is quality of education, or even economic factors. China has more people in poverty than either Taiwan or Japan. Interestingly, the poverty rate in China is about 10% while in Taiwan it is only 1%. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 132 24 September 2009 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I haven't learnt Chinese and don't intend to do it in the foreseeable future so I am as neutral as can be in this discussion.
I just wonder why nobody has mentioned the new generation of handheld scanners with OCR - and I guess that you also can add a small printer to this gadget. If a machine can learn those decorative doodles faster than you can, then maybe you could just skip that part of your learning and proceed directly to learning the language behind the writing. If pidgin isn't precise enough then use IPA with indications of tone. When you have learnt the spoken language then you can return to the writing and learn it at your own pace, without seeing all progress in other areas being halted by the need to learn some 30.000 small works-of-art by heart first. Edited by Iversen on 24 September 2009 at 6:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5525 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 24 of 132 15 October 2009 at 3:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"use IPA with indications of tone."
And we are back to square one. There should perhaps be a popup window every time someone tries to access the mandarin forums where you have to state that you do understand that of course you can't replace chinese characters with pinyin (or pidgin, which would however be quite amusing) because for one thing there are 20, 30 or 50 homonyms for many pinyin syllables. Much like when you buy a computer programme and have to promise not to use it for terrorist purposes. Alternatively, it could be stated as a question: "Do you think that after 1 year of Chinese you are smarter and a better judge of things than 5000 years of Chinese linguists working on the question on how to best write Chinese?" Don't forget that China has almost always been centrally controlled and with a penchant for sweeping reform whenever they see fit. Since they haven't chosen to eliminate hanzi yet, chances are they have good reason. And for the record, vietnamese CAN be written with chinese characters. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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