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Chinese characters in jpns and chns | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5739 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 70 17 March 2010 at 7:12am | IP Logged | |||||
So something between 2000 and 3000 characters for college-educated natives? I don't have the exact numbers here (though if there's a high interest I'll look for them), but I remember that at the end of high school, Chinese kids are required to know more than 5000 characters in the PRC, and more than 6000 characters in Taiwan. Edited by Pyx on 17 March 2010 at 7:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5468 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 10 of 70 17 March 2010 at 8:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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But what you seem to fail to grasp, Pyx, is that almost every character has multiple readings in Japanese, so the fundamental concept of "knowing" a character is completely different and much more complex in Japanese than in Chinese.
Japanese people must learn not only how to write and recognize 木, for example, but also that 木 is read "ki" when it stands alone, "moku" in compounds such as 木曜日, "boku" in other compounds, and "ko" in others. And the same applies to the vast majority of those 2000 to 3000 characters that college-educated natives know. To take another example using the 日 character of 木曜日, just of the top of my head, without recourse to a dictionary, I can think of five different readings: "bi" in 木曜日, "ni" in 日本, "nichi" in 日曜日, "hi" in 母の日, and "jitsu" in 祭日. My point is that just comparing numbers of characters is a rather pointless exercise as the way in which they are used is so utterly different in the two countries. Edited by TixhiiDon on 17 March 2010 at 8:45am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5739 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 11 of 70 17 March 2010 at 9:15am | IP Logged | |||||
I was simply listing facts, to make it easier for everybody to debate later on, not making judgements about which one is more difficult to learn, but you "seemed to have failed to grasp that". That being said, I am well-aware of this fact, and I still think that it's easier to learn 2-3 readings per character, than 2-3 times the characters with (for the greatest part) one reading. 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 12 of 70 17 March 2010 at 9:36am | IP Logged | |||||
Now THAT is something interesting to mull over. ...mull...mull...mull...Happy St. Patrick's Day! ...mull... mull... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5468 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 13 of 70 17 March 2010 at 11:20am | IP Logged | |||||
I didn't say you were making judgments, and neither did I. I pointed out that the concept of "knowing" a character is completely different in Chinese and Japanese, and that therefore comparing the numbers of characters one needs to "know" to be literate in either language is, in my opinion, a completely pointless exercise. Edited by TixhiiDon on 17 March 2010 at 11:20am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6772 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 14 of 70 17 March 2010 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Since we all plan on learning both languages anyway (don't we?) it's all academic anyway. ;)
3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7185 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 15 of 70 17 March 2010 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I wasn't planning on learning Japanese but I met a European studying Japanese in a
bookshop in China, today. He was using Chinese learning materials. I asked if Japanese was difficult. He thought it was easy as he had already done most of the hard work that is learning that kanji through his study of hanzi. It's funny how quickly these discussions quickly turn into Japanese verses Chinese (and madly enough even Korean with it's beautiful phonetic script undeservedly gets thrown into the mix). Don't you think, it's even odder how those learning Japanese tend to say Japanese is the hardest, and..... This can only lead me to conclude that those learning Japanese are clearly biased. :) Huh, clearly this language learning business tends to align people with the languages they are learning. There was even a thread once that stated French was harder than Chinese for a native English speaker. The author of that thread made some great, if slightly deluded points. The problem is even if we learn both Chinese and Japanese it would still be hard to objectively say which language is more difficult. Obviously the first language with a kanji/hanzi script will be a steep up-hill climb, all the way, but once you know one script and all the common vocabulary between the two languages the second one will obviously be much easier. Also needless to say all those mnemonic and language learning techniques that you took so long to perfect with the first language will come in useful for the second. However, ;) It is interesting that older texts have been simplified by the Japanese to make their writing system more easier on themselves. However, perversely this old 'complicated' script with more characters is easier for those who have struggled to learn but mastered Chinese. I can only agree by concluding with Pyx that the Chinese writing system is objectively and unquestionably the harder script of the two. Clearly those that have dedicated their years of efforts to the study of Japanese, in the vain hope of achieving the polyglot's dream of adding the hardest language in the world to their collection, must unfortunately face the harsh grim reality that they are only learning, what is, merely a shadow in comparison to the mighty Chinese script, the Valhalla of all language acquisition and linguistic intellectual achievement, that only the brightest of us on this forum can hope to conquer - CHINESE... Japanese coming in second is not bad though. You can give yourselves a pat on the back. Obviously me being a learner of Chinese does not cloud or bias my opinion at all. :) 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lackinglatin Triglot Groupie United States randomwritingsetc.blRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5984 days ago 62 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, Modern Hebrew Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 70 18 March 2010 at 1:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Haha. I voted for that on wit alone. :)
As someone who plans on learning both, has studied neither, but has read extensively about both, I'd like to offer that my conclusion is matched with Prof. Arguelles that Korean is actually the hardest. Then Japanese, because not only does it have plenty of Kanji, but that grammar is a bitch. Then perhaps Chinese--but don't forget to put Cantonese before Mandarin. ;) K 1 person has voted this message useful |
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