Chinese writing is not so hard. (Collaborative writing) Language Learning Forum

Chinese writing is not so hard.
Tags: Chinese Characters \| Writing
Language Learning Forum : Collaborative writing

18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

delectric
Diglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 6969 days ago
608 posts - 733 votes

Speaks: English*, Mandarin
Studies: German

Message 17 of 18

06 July 2008 at 9:50am | IP Logged

leosmith wrote:

Raincrowlee wrote:

That opinion you're referencing is about all four aspects of the languages.

Good point.

Raincrowlee wrote:

It's the grammar that makes Japanese harder.

That's your opinion. I agree that the Japanese grammar is much harder. But I also believe that, regarding the writing system, multiple readings for a character trump everything else, even a higher number of characters.

delectric wrote:

I do have many friends who are learning Chinese who came from learning Japanese to a high level. They find Chinese more difficult though perhaps these learners were particularly good at grasping grammar.

I've never heard of anyone learning Chinese after learning Japanese to a high level and thinking Chinese is harder. There are probably some out there, but I frequently hear the opposite.

Me too I often hear that Japanese is harder. Honestly though the occaisions when I come across a character with more than one pronunciation it's a blessing. All I need to do is associate it with the other meaning to learn the new meaning. The context of the writing takes care of the different pronunciations.

Also, few people mention writing, it's useful to have less characters when writing as it can be a real pain when you forget a component of a character. There have been times when i didn't know how to write a word then looked it up only to find it happens to be the same character with a different pronunciation - FANTASTIC I then need zero time to remember this character in the future.

I came into Chinese first oraly and then learned how to read and write, but I could see if you started to learn to read and write before learning to speak how multiple pronunciations of a character can be annoying.

People say Chinese has little grammar I wish it had 'so called grammar' formal rules that can be applied. Unfortunately the language (like Japanese no doubt) is very idiomatic and it seems sometimes (at least more so in the past) that every sentence must be learnt freshly without the 'grammar crutch'.
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Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5822 days ago
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Message 18 of 18

08 July 2008 at 1:51pm | IP Logged

leosmith wrote:

Raincrowlee wrote:

It's the grammar that makes Japanese harder.

Grammar is good, it helps. The lack of complicated grammar jsut means that the complexity of the language can't be described in simple rules. It doesn't make it any easier. I suspect the "simple" Chinese grammar implies exactly this - lack of formalization, but still a lot of complexity.

Edited by Sennin on 08 July 2008 at 1:53pm
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