I don't know about you, but your statement is that of an ignorant person not a curious one.
Oh God. You misunderstand a simple curiosity (which wasn't even serious) to be lapse of judgement. That's your call.
It doesn't really help even if you do recognize the characters. What does - "special king's delicacy" on a menu mean to you?
That's not true, as far as I know. It's like this because it is a very ancient language that developed as a pictoral language.
Another point is that EVERY town has their own dialect. The only way to reliably communicate with each other is through the written characters.
As far as simplified vs. traditional characters, there is the argument that simplified characters lose a lot of the meaning making it HARDER to understand. Of course that was told to me by a Taiwanese born teacher, maybe a bit biased.
Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing to the thread with one of the dumbest replies on this board in some time.
Look how big Chinese keyboards are. You need several even pedals for shifting. Sucks not to have an alphabet.
Oh God. You misunderstand a simple curiosity (which wasn't even serious) to be lapse of judgement. That's your call.
wtf?Although it's not exactly like knowing a related language, e.g. knowing German and learning Finnish
it has an alphabetic system (pinyin). it's just not a replacement for the characters, with good reason. there are many many chinese words with the same pronunciation due to the relative phonal simplicity of the language. (suppose you could say the same for japanese. i don't know how the hell they deal with it). personally I kind of like the character system despite its high learning curve. it's compact and lends itself well to more visual-based comprehension.
The majority of South East Asian Languages are the same way as Chinese, and they use an alphabet just fine. The are able to differentiate words with the addition of diacritic marks. They also incorporate an extensive amount of digraphs and trigraphs, far more than English.
Most people (at least the ones not out in the middle of nowhere) understand Mandarin.Another point is that EVERY town has their own dialect. The only way to reliably communicate with each other is through the written characters.
It's bull. There is no good evidence that traditional characters increase literacy. However, there is a correlation between the introduction of simplified characters and increased literacy in China. You can't necessarily say simplified characters are the sole or even main reason for increased literacy because there are other factors as well, but the point is there's a far better argument supporting simplified characters.As far as simplified vs. traditional characters, there is the argument that simplified characters lose a lot of the meaning making it HARDER to understand. Of course that was told to me by a Taiwanese born teacher, maybe a bit biased.
I'm not sure that's true either. I had a Chinese friend that grew up in Taiwan who could take a simplified Chinese newspaper and simply read it, with some minor help from a dictionary. Why? Because most of the simplified characters kinda resemble the traditional ones in some way, but just simpler, and he could usually figure out the correct word from context. He had never studied simplified characters, and in fact had never been to mainland China.he's partially right. it is more difficult for people who grew up with traditional to understand simplified than the other way around, and part of reason may be the reduction in (arguably redundant) information. i wouldn't say simplified is inherently more difficult to comprehend.
The majority of South East Asian Languages are the same way as Chinese, and they use an alphabet just fine. The are able to differentiate words with the addition of diacritic marks. They also incorporate an extensive amount of digraphs and trigraphs, far more than English.
OTOH, teenagers people who grew up in mainland China often have a really hard time reading the traditional Chinese newspapers, unless they have been exposed a lot to the traditional characters at an older age. They can still figure a lot out, but it's easier to go from complicated to simple, than it is to go from simple to complicated.
All the more reason to just learn the simplified characters then.I had a 5th grade education in simplified Chinese when I came to canada, and I could pretty much pick up a traditional chinese newspaper and read it. It was not difficult at all. I suspect each side exaggerates the difficulties experienced by the other side.
Look how big Chinese keyboards are. You need several even pedals for shifting. Sucks not to have an alphabet.
Did you do anything to provoke it?
I don't know about you, but your statement is that of an ignorant person not a curious one.
Nope, you just sound ignorant and racist. You sound like this dumb broad.
someone was telling me the chinese character for "trouble" is 2 women in 1 house.Most people (at least the ones not out in the middle of nowhere) understand Mandarin.
It's bull. There is no good evidence that traditional characters increase literacy. However, there is a correlation between the introduction of simplified characters and increased literacy in China. You can't necessarily say simplified characters are the sole or even main reason for increased literacy because there are other factors as well, but the point is there's a far better argument supporting simplified characters.
The main argument against simplified characters IMO is they don't look as pretty, and it's harder to link some characters to their historic roots. Well, maybe some have been oversimplified, but that's probably better than overcomplicated.
Personally I think that teacher's argument is kind of an odd (and biased) one. That's like saying we should stick with Old English spellings because it's easier to link Old English spellings with our historic roots of English.
Also, it should be noted that 75 years ago, some Chinese universities used to require some liberal arts papers to be written in classical Chinese. Not only did you have to know the traditional characters, you also had to know the classical writing styles. So the analogy in English is not only did you have to know the Old English spellings, you had to write in the Old English style as well, even if the paper wasn't for an English class. For example, if you were writing a paper on the American Revolution, you'd have to write in Chaucer's English. I'd say that's just dumb.
BTW, remember I mentioned the ancient Chinese characters in a previous post? If people are so concerned with historic meaning, why don't they just use those? Why draw the line at traditional characters? Instead of writing 山, why not just draw a picture of three mountains? Cuz that's the original way of writing mountain, and actually looks like one (or three).
I'm not sure that's true either. I had a Chinese friend that grew up in Taiwan who could take a simplified Chinese newspaper and simply read it, with some minor help from a dictionary. Why? Because most of the simplified characters kinda resemble the traditional ones in some way, but just simpler, and he could usually figure out the correct word from context. He had never studied simplified characters, and in fact had never been to mainland China.
OTOH, teenagers people who grew up in mainland China often have a really hard time reading the traditional Chinese newspapers, unless they have been exposed a lot to the traditional characters at an older age. They can still figure a lot out, but it's easier to go from complicated to simple, than it is to go from simple to complicated.
In English, it might be an abomination to say this, but texting shorthand might work as analogy. I'd say "R U here tonite?" is easier to learn than "Are you here tonight?". You might think it's awful, but it's not as if it's harder to learn. And I think going from the 2nd sentence to the 1st is easier than going from the 1st to the 2nd.
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For the record, I DON'T write Chinese well. I have a pretty rudimentary understanding of the written language. However, I studied it (and Japanese) in university as extra classes. (I hated many of my required science classes so I hung out with the Asian languages crowd instead.)