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Chinese characters - inefficient? | ||
Tags: Chinese Characters | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5959 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 1 of 132 23 September 2009 at 7:31am | IP Logged | ||
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I was thinking although learning Chinese character is fun, it is not very efficient. If they
got rid of using the characters and just used pinyin, wouldn't it save a lot of time learning all those characters? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5403 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 2 of 132 23 September 2009 at 8:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Chinese character is without doubt a highly efficient system for Chinese languages, Japanese, and Korean (believe it or not), on the contrary, PinYin is an inefficient writing system which always seems a real pain for our Chinese. The British and Americans will never write an article with IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), similarly, neither will the Chinese use PinYin (Chinese IPA) as the standard writing system.
Learning Hanja 17 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5959 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 3 of 132 23 September 2009 at 8:44am | IP Logged | ||
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So whoever invented it was a genius?
Exactly how is it efficient? The Vietnamese language is similarly analytical and tonal yet they use Latin alphabet. Thai is also analytical and tonal and has their alphabet. I'm thinking it probably takes a lot less time to learn alphabetical letters than tons of Chinese? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5403 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 4 of 132 23 September 2009 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Why Chinese can't be latinized ?
Frankly, I couldn't help feeling tired of explaining to almost every learner why it's a real pain for us to replace characters with pinyin, actually pinyin means nothing but a Chinese IPA system, at most a walking stick for most Chinese, it's absolutely not the true soul of Chinese languages. The reason why we couldn't accept pinyin is mostly due to the fact that, using pinyin may cause a lot of trouble, make writing system collapse, and reduce reading efficiency. We'll have to read through the whole sentences, and guess which characters they should be, and analyze the meanings based on the contexts, convert them over and over back to the abstract thought in the style of Chinese characters. So it doesn't have anything to do with our superiority complex, intense nationalism, or whatever else you would imagine. Finally, I really hope you can understand me. Thanks! 19 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5578 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 5 of 132 23 September 2009 at 10:25am | IP Logged | ||
I have no comments about the Chinese language, but I disagree that kanji are an efficient way of writing Japanese. If kanji were efficient, the Japanese would not make use of hiragana and katakana. Hiragana and katakana both more accurately represent the sounds of Japanese at a nearly one symbol to one sound ratio, can represent the complex morphology of verbals, and can be learned much faster and with a better retention rate. Kanji on the other hand obscure the proper reading/pronunciation of words. While their use can help clarify homonyms (e.g., 漢字 and 幹事), it also multiplies their number (e.g., 寂しい and 淋しい) in a way that further and unnecessarily separates the written and spoken language. While I personally enjoy kanji and, because I am used to it, read text with kanji faster, from a purely practical view Japanese would do just fine without kanji and, at times, does. From my limited time spent studying Korean, I think hangul is more efficient than hanja for the very same reasons. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5403 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 6 of 132 23 September 2009 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Without KANJIs, there must be feasible spaces that insert between vocabularies in Japanese writing system. From a Chinese point of view, to tell the truth, we can often understand what it roughly means without knowing how it's exactly pronounced while reading Japanese newspapers or watching TV programme, but it may be just the same thing for western learners, no matter whether they learn KANJIs or not (perhaps KANJI system is a burden for them). That's to say, KANJI system is of little value for westerners, while on the other hand, is of great help for our Chinese. BTW, 寂しい is the standard form, and 淋しい is an old-fashioned style, some Japanese said that, there's a little minor difference between them, though others said they're basically the same. A large number of Koreans can't understand their ancient books or modern serious articles that written in characters (HANJAs), don't you think it's a pity for them?
7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Me has to learn Groupie Germany Joined 5352 days ago 64 posts - 75 votes Speaks: German* | Message 7 of 132 23 September 2009 at 11:56am | IP Logged | ||
- Do Koreans translate old literature into Hangul? Would such translation be exact and preserve subtleties in meaning? - Ancient literature is often written in a language that people nowadays can't understand even if they can read it. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5444 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 132 23 September 2009 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you advance further into Korean and Japanese, there are a lot of words that sound similar or the exact same. To distinguish them easier when context alone cannot help, seeing a character makes it so much easier.
And the Chinese should stop using a writing system they've used for over a thousand years just so some white kids can learn their language? I don't think so. The characters aren't that hard to learn. 16 persons have voted this message useful |
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