Ruling on Chinese Characters (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Ruling on Chinese Characters
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

Poll Question: What would you do? (see OP)
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
Maintain the current writing system	17	[39.53%]
Reinstate traditional characters	16	[37.21%]
Abolish Chinese characters in favor of Pinyin	6	[13.95%]
Other (write-in)	4	[9.30%]
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44 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next >>

fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 5182 days ago
172 posts - 234 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 25 of 44

21 October 2010 at 10:47pm | IP Logged

Ari wrote:

You'll want to learn both. Not learning simplified will hamper you a lot since China is so huge, and not learning traditional will limit you to material that's passed the censors in China. Most people start with one and then go over to the other, which I think is a lot easier. Associating one more character to a word you already know is pretty easy. Many recommend starting with the trads and there are good arguments for this, but I did it the other way round, so it both works.

Most people learning Mandarin learn only to read and not to write (except using pinyin input on computers and cell phones). If you're going to live in China then learning to write with a pen should not be much of a problem, but if you don't use the language often, maintenance will be an issue. And if you want to learn to write with a pen you'll need to pick up some materials on handwriting. Nobody writes out all the strokes when writing by hand, but you'll need to study a bit to know which ones you can omit and simplify.

I would have thought that learning it without being able to handwrite it is cheating. Learning it like that would be a lot easier. Duplicating something is a lot harder than recognizing it visually.

Does any good fiction pass the censors in China? I read that some fiction written in traditional characters was causing a renewed interest in traditional characters in China.

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fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 5182 days ago
172 posts - 234 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 26 of 44

21 October 2010 at 10:55pm | IP Logged

paranday wrote:

fireflies wrote:

...
None of this means that learning to read and write in French is as hard as the same task in Chinese....

Exactly.

Under equally auspicious circumstances Chinese is harder to write than French. Any broad success with it probably represents a tremendous outpouring of effort, organized school systems and study (even for native speakers).

What would the literacy rate be in Mali if Mandarin was their state language? I am guessing that it would be lower than its present figure since conditions in Mali are less favorable than in China.

Edited by fireflies on 21 October 2010 at 11:20pm
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fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 5182 days ago
172 posts - 234 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 28 of 44

21 October 2010 at 11:30pm | IP Logged

paranday wrote:

fireflies wrote:

paranday wrote:

fireflies wrote:

...
None of this means that learning to read and write in French is as hard as the same task in Chinese....

Exactly.

Under equally auspicious circumstances Chinese is harder to write than French. Any broad success with it probably represents a tremendous outpouring of effort, organized school systems and study (even for native speakers).

What would the literacy rate be in Mali if Mandarin was their state language? I am guessing that it would be lower than its present figure. Conditions in Mali are less favorable than in China.

You have a firm grasp on the obvious. I agree completely.

Quoting the French literacy rate in Mali with no further explanation was ambiguous. It was easy to get the impression that you were saying that because Mali was struggling with literacy then there was no significant difference in difficulty between achieving literacy in French and Mandarin.

I was saying that their literacy rate is only as good as it is because French is easy to write when compared to Mandarin.

If China has done as well as they have with a difficult writing system then they would do even better with an easier one.

Edited by fireflies on 21 October 2010 at 11:33pm
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Ari
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 6583 days ago
2314 posts - 5695 votes

Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

Message 30 of 44

22 October 2010 at 4:25am | IP Logged

fireflies wrote:

I would have thought that learning it without being able to handwrite it is cheating. Learning it like that would be a lot easier. Duplicating something is a lot harder than recognizing it visually.

… Cheating? I don't even understand what that means in terms of language learning. Spending a lot of time learning something that would be of little use to you seems like a silly idea to me, unless you like it for itself (for example calligraphy). Being able to write by hand, while useful if you live in China, is not going to be very useful if you live in Europe and all you do with your Mandarin is reading and writing on the computer.

Is learning to read Latin without learning to speak it also cheating?

Quote:

Does any good fiction pass the censors in China? I read that some fiction written in traditional characters was causing a renewed interest in traditional characters in China.

Well, it depends on what kind of fiction you like. Anything that has nothing to do with politics or that is in favor of authoritarianism is available. In terms of culture in general, I find mainland China to be quite poor, unless you're into Classical Chinese.
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fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 5182 days ago
172 posts - 234 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 31 of 44

22 October 2010 at 6:04am | IP Logged

Ari wrote:

fireflies wrote:

I would have thought that learning it without being able to handwrite it is cheating. Learning it like that would be a lot easier. Duplicating something is a lot harder than recognizing it visually.

I was being a bit facetious using that term (and yet I was half serious). I'd feel a bit like I had not totally learned something I could not write myself. Maybe this is because I enjoy art and the abilty to write on paper but there is also a practical side to it. I can understand that you don't need to write on paper in a language unless you are living in a place that uses it.

I had no idea that a lot of people people learn it in depth without learning the proper stroke orders.

Is it possible to read it to some extent without knowing exactly how it is spoken (beyond a rough idea of pin yin)? In other words, can you learn the characters and the words they form first and then go back and learn the sounds for them?

Quote:

Is learning to read Latin without learning to speak it also cheating?
.

That is a totally different situation since it is a dead language. I would not say that was cheating.
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jimbo
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6295 days ago
469 posts - 642 votes

Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French
Studies: Japanese, Latin

Message 32 of 44

22 October 2010 at 7:08am | IP Logged

Ari wrote:

In terms of culture in general, I find mainland China to be quite poor, unless you're into Classical Chinese.

Oh, don't be so glum. If you do a bit of hunting around, you can find some reproductions of things of incredible cultural significance which were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

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